Producer and DJ Work
Paul Hemming founded Temple Music Group (TMG) in 2007 with a aim to release expertly crafted electronic music. The label's roster includes JAswhO?, Inana, Isabel, Destro, Durben and other established and up-and-coming artists. In addition to founding TMG and managing the Zen Compound, which includes Temple nightclub and Prana restaurant, Hemming has been clicking buttons, battering synths and mastering computer music programs for years to create his own soulful and adventurous dance music.
Hemming began producing music in 1999 and has made deep house, breaks, nu-disco and electro tracks with previous releases on his Zen City record label. Always experimenting with sounds, samples and programming, Hemming loves to build chunky grooves and dynamic tracks that evolve and change colors like a chameleon. "I'll sample Brazilian sounds, video games, the TV whatever is interesting," he explains.
Hemming composes using Ableton Live and Propellerheads Reason software and often works with TMG Music Director Jaswho? at the Zen Compound's master studio. His sounds and instruments are layered into dramatic, visual soundscapes that reflect Hemming's myriad influences, including his film background and love for classical, techno, hip-hop and rock music. "To me, dance music is the progression of all other music styles," says Hemming. "It elicits an emotional response, a vibe and conjures images."
Likewise, Hemming's music plays out like a cinematic work transmitted in jazzy, techy soulful grooves. Like snapshots of day-to-day experiences, his songs don't always take a conventional route, giving them a lively, artistic edge. Hemming's tracks are often built around core bass lines or melodic themes and expanded via subtle synth and sample elements. Like respected international artists Trentemøller, Underworld, Kerri Chandler and Booka Shade, Hemming's music is visual, evolving and colorful. He brings a similar expansive creativity to his regular DJ sets.
Spinning clubs and parties since 1997, Hemming's DJ style has evolved from playing deep house and breaks to recent electro-house and nu-disco styles. He loves presenting fusions of organic and synthesized sounds, thick beats and percussive elements. Fulfilling a vision he's been pursuing for the past 10 years, Hemming is integrating visuals with his DJing using GarageCube's Modul8 software. He hopes to present synchronized performances where music and film tell a dramatic story while keeping the dancefloor mesmerized.
Hemming envisions a two-hour music journey with images, modulated graphics and text dropped in at specific intervals. Imagine a continuously changing music video, where each visual matches the sound or music style you hear and you get an idea of what Hemming has planned. If that idea sounds far-out, just have a walk around the Temple space, with it's ancient and future décor, brilliant lighting and state of the art sound all realized through Hemming's efforts. His DJ-VJ sets are a perfect complement to an already integrated artistic vision.
Paul Hemming Quick Facts:
- Zen Compound and Temple nightclub founder
- DJ, producer, filmmaker
- Previously founded and ran Zen City Records store and label
- Has produced 400 tracks over the past nine years
- Self-released five 12" singles
- DJ SF's biggest house events and clubs
- Multi-disciplinary business innovator and green entrepreneur
Integrated Artistic Vision
Paul Hemming is a creative cyclone: new ideas, artistic visions and music insights spring forth from his otherwise centered body. The Seattle-born and San Francisco-based nightclub and record label owner is also a DJ, filmmaker and dance music producer. In 2007 he launched the Zen Compound, home to the Temple nightclub and Prana restaurant, an ambitious creative site grounded in his love for music, art, Eastern aesthetics and bringing the world together.
Like similar large-scale Bay Area music projects (think Burning Man, and the City's many festivals and street fairs), Temple nightclub and Temple Music Group (TMG) represent Hemming's integrated artistic vision. His passions and experiences are incorporated throughout all his projects, such as including Asian sculpture in the nightclub space, or the recently released Prana music compilation, which features Eastern-tinged electronic compositions by Hemming and other TMG artists. Launching both the Temple club and label simultaneously illustrates that Hemming has big plans for both his own artistic output and TMG's growing roster.
Hemming's many music productions span multiple genres from chunky disco grooves through richly melodic house music, solid breakbeak tunes and organic downtempo tracks. A lifelong music connoisseur, Hemming's years of club, A&R and dance music retail experience is reflected in tracks that are cinematic, passionate and layered with colorful instrumentation. These features are also expressed in Hemming's Temple nightclub, a multi-level, ecologically sustainable dance venue.
The Temple Is Built
In 2002, Hemming was asked to be a consultant to help launch a new club at the space that formerly housed the DV8 nightclub from 1985 to 1999. After delays and false starts Hemming left the project but returned in 2004 determined to make it work, only this time on a much grader scale. Hemming envisioned creating a nightclub space and record store along with a film division and other creative businesses. After the owner put the building up for sale, Hemming gathered investors and bought the famed spot at 540 Howard St. After extensive remodeling and squaring away city permits Temple nightclub, San Francisco's most futuristic, unique and sustainable dance space opened September 8, 2007.
The entire club was built around the space's Martin Audio Systems sound equipment, gear used at top venues like Fabric in London, Ministry of Sounds and the Hard Rock Hotel. To ensure perfect audio quality and speaker placement, the system was installed first, with bars, lighting, and projection screens built around it. The sound in Temple's Shrine room, Destiny Lounge and Catacombs is loud and clean with low-end bass frequencies that can be felt without damaging eardrums. Hemming also sought to give club goers more by featuring three different music styles in each thematic dance room.
"I love contrast," says Hemming, which extends to the club's diverse sounds. Temple's three rooms regularly showcase house, techno, downtempo, global beats, drum & bass, breakbeat, dubstep and nu-disco music. "I wanted the whole space to be the draw," Hemming explains, "People come to Temple for the music, the sound, the space and the vibe as opposed to any one DJ or promoter." And it's truly a venue that lives up to its reputation and takes environmental responsibility seriously.
"Sustainability is something I've always been passionate about, and the way I've integrated it into a nightclub surprises people," says Hemming of the space's energy-conscious policies. The venue uses energy-efficient LED lights, biodegradable cups and donates unused kitchen grease for bio-diesel. Approximately 80% of the club's waste is recycled, composted or otherwise diverted from landfills. Soon the club will install solar panels designed to resemble a lotus flower a talk about functional art!
Other ideas include plans to install a dancefloor that can harness kinetic energy from dancing patrons. The "energy floor" is designed by a physicist using piso-electric crystals that conduct an electrical charge when put under pressure. The floor may eventually produce all the energy needed to run the club's sound and lights. Speaking like the filmmaker he is, Hemming says he'd like to create a visual interface as well, "So people can see what type of energy is being used in the club: Wind energy, sun energy, dance energy.
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