Sunshine is an absolute favourite and has been, for a long time (nearly 15 years to be exact) a Melbourne dance music legend. Her distinctive gospel vibes, inspired by house icons like Moodymann and Floorplan/Robert Hood raise hearts and hands. This year has been a huge year for Sunshine, who has started producing her own music with a vision of creating gospel-like tracks.

Her passionate and talented team have been working on a special project where no-one has gone before- a live show featuring a gospel choir. The vision for their project is to bring people together to celebrate live sound and dance, create a platform for artistic expression and build a community of people who are passionate about the project. We chatted to her about her project, her upcoming single and how the club is a form of church.

Autosea: Sunny, we can’t wait to hear your new single and see your upcoming show with a live gospel choir! How were you first inspired to create the gospel-dance vibe and can you tell us about your gospel project?

Sunshine: Looking back from where I stand now I’ve always loved gospel and blues vocals and my DJing has always incorporated that kind of sound. A lot of my inspiration comes from artists like Moodymann and Robert Hood/Floorplan and I love mixing gospel and techno because they have the same uplifting energy but in a completely different style of music, so it’s kind of like mixing the light and the dark together.

You might be familiar with the gospel blues track I’ve played for years now, ‘Old Landmark’ where I play a techno track underneath it. Ever since I’ve started making my own music about four years ago I’ve wanted to do a gospel-techno project but didn’t think that my production skills were quite there yet, and I really wanted to incorporate live instruments with techno and turn it into a live show with tambourines and vocals.

Autosea: How did you get the choir involved?

Sunshine: Funny story that one, so a few years ago I met my brother at this party and he introduced me to the person who helped me put together the choir. He said she sings in a choir and she runs Morning Gloryville, and so for a couple of years we’ve been talking about doing a choir project and it has all come together now and worked out! I tried to contact a few other choirs but they weren’t that keen working at 2am in the morning so I thought, I’ll build my own choir and called it Disco Faith Choir, for people who have disco as their favourite and it brings together their faith and the disco.

Autosea: You’ve probably heard this before but a lot of people refer to Revolver as the church. How do you see the comparison between a club and a church? Have you heard that before?

Sunshine: I have! Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve had those music changing experiences on the dance floor dancing to a DJ, funnily enough at Revolver as well, where you’re like ‘oh my god! That’s the best thing I’ve ever experienced!’ And it inspires you in a different way that you’ve never been inspired before.

Autosea: It is similar; it’s a community coming together and is a sense of faith in a way.

Sunshine: Exactly! And that’s what gospel is always about. I’ve been fascinated by gospel churches, especially the black gospel churches and how they dance around with this full happy party vibe.

Autosea: So how long have you had your residency at Revolver now?

Sunshine: 13 years on Saturdays mornings from 7am until midday, and before that I did Wednesday nights for 2 years and I used to play funk, soul, disco and a lot of Moodymann-kind of house.

Autosea: And with your singles, are you planning on bringing out an album soon or are you drip-feeding them to us?

Sunshine: Drip-feeding them one at a time is how I envision it over the next few singles until I am nailing using live instruments and getting the choir really tight, whilst incorporating that with the live show.

Autosea: Thanks Sunshine, we can’t wait to see your show!

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You can attend Sunshine’s upcoming event, Sunshine’s Midnight Mass here.
Look out for her new single dropping in the next couple of months!