Gemma Van D

Simply put, Gemma Van D sounds good. 24 years behind the wheels of steel have given her a well-honed grace in her craft. Her selections of swinging micro and funky house, disco riffs, dirty bassline-driven beats and groovy techno throw us a submarine funk—precisely what the nighttime ordered.

Gemma’s love affair with music began with classical instruction from the age of seven. At 15, after falling for rave subculture and the community it cultivated, she started collecting vinyl and playing her first gigs at the end of the 90’s in Christchurch, New Zealand. Fast-forward to the late noughties and she's living in Sydney, where she had found larger audiences and a plethora of guest spots and residencies. It was there she became a part of the festival-throwing party-running label-curating crew Subsonic Music, and with her tunes in tow, her reputation had her travelling along the East Coast from Melbourne to Cairns and returning back across the Tasman to New Zealand to play festivals, club nights and events. Supporting acts such as Carl Craig, DJ Heather, Lee Burridge and Rodriguez Jnr at Australian clubbing institutions like Revolver, Home Nightclub, Space, SASH, the Monastery and Bar Soma over the course of over two decades, the beats and the bass are well-infused into the fibre of her being.

Perhaps then it’s of no surprise that Gemma made the move to Europe in 2014 to be closer to the cities and people that sparked that fire inside her as a teenager in that tiny corner of the world. Residing in Copenhagen, London, and Berlin, she’s played gigs, festivals and radio in Sweden, the UK, Denmark and Germany. After returning to Australia, she made the move to the veritable melting pot of music, arts and culture, Melbourne. Although now on a hiatus from party culture as she retrains as a biological scientist, she still comes up for air when the time (and gig) is right to do what she loves best: play great music to good people.