Jake Burdass: Young Curator

With our newly launched Young Curators’ Programme, we’ll be helping six Kirklees artists take the next step. The programme will develop talent and leadership amongst the music programmers, promoters and curators of the future: as well as receiving training and mentoring from the hcmf// team, our Young Curators will also have the chance to develop new works that can be tested within the region, and presented to audiences at a future festival. Ahead of their collaboration with hcmf//, we’ll be profiling each of our Young Curators and getting to know their work. First up is Jake Burdass – local musician, DJ and venue manager.

Burdass started his own company, a club called BASSment, seven years ago. Bored of taking Transpennine trains to the cities surrounding their hometown, Burdass and his friends wanted something of their own. It was after DJing a night in Nimegann – a small Dutch town of the same size and scale of Huddersfield – that they realised they could play a part in the culture, too. And they had something else on their side: a history. ‘Huddersfield’s already got a really rich past with sound systems’, Burdass notes, nodding to the town’s stint as the capital of reggae music. ‘We wanted to be a part of that’.

Located in central Huddersfield, the club has become living proof of a town full to the brim with artists. BASSment connects the people who make, DJ and produce tunes – as well as those who dance to them. BASSment brings together a roster of Yorkshire producers and MCs while also inviting new voices into the fold – Burdass notes that people see BASSment as a hotspot, these days, a place up North that artists ‘aspire to’.

As one of our Young Curators, Burdass wants to bring BASSment to new audiences. He’s hoping he can blow away unsuspecting listeners with their first exposure to a sound system, changing their lives the way one changed his. He’s put together so many line-ups over the years that he’s lost count, but each one has brought with it more fine-tuning: ‘I don’t want to put something together that’s just a mash-up of stuff – when I’m doing a night, I want it to flow really nicely’.

Before lockdown, we caught up with Jake to chat about his club nights, his local scene and his plans for hcmf//. Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWYK-2MmfIA

For more information visit https://hcmf.co.uk/jake-burdass-young-curator/