Hollaphonic are a British electronic dance music production and DJ duo, consisting of Greg Stainer and Olly Wood. They were the first dance music duo to be signed to a major record label in the Middle East.
Music career
Their first single, “I Don’t Want It to End”, was released in February 2013 by Universal Music Group. It was ‘A’ listed on all national radio stations in the UAE and went to No. 1 on iTunes.
Olly Wood has written songs and performed as an MC in the south coast UK garage scene as well as around the UK and abroad with Dub Pistols. Wood was selected by Gulf Business as one of “the top 30 under 30 young achievers across the Middle East” for his work with emerging talent.
In March 2013, Hollaphonic performed their first gig together before a crowd of 40,000 at the Dubai World Cup Night at Meydan Racecourse alongside Seal. In December that year, Hollaphonic performed on the main stage ahead of headliners Calvin Harris, The Prodigy and Disclosure at Creamfields Abu Dhabi.
Their debut album, Personal Space, was launched at a party hosted by Adidas Originals. The album eventually reached No. 1 on the iTunes pre-order dance chart.
In March 2014, they received Best Dubai Act at the honorary Time Out Dubai Night Life Awards. They also won Man at His Best 2013 in the Music category at the Esquire awards.
In November 2014, they performed at the Formula One after-race concert in du Arena on Yas Island, sharing the bill with DJ Armin van Buuren.
Performing to a sell-out crowd ahead of David Guetta at the Live at Atlantis concert on Friday, 19 December, Hollaphonic posed with an audience of 12,000 for the UAE’s biggest ever selfie.
Hollaphonic performed alongside Major Lazer and DNCE at Fiesta De Los Muertos in Dubai for Halloween 2016.
Hollaphonic created the music for the Emirates Airline welcome video for their in-flight entertainment system ICE, which would feature at the start of every flight worldwide for five years. They are name-checked at the end of the video.
Mercedes and Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum worked with Hollaphonic to produce a soundtrack for their viral video entitled Defy Your Limits.
Hollaphonic was announced as the opening act for Pink at the 2017 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix for the last race of the Formula One Grand Prix.
They were on the main stage line-up of Creamfields in Abu Dhabi alongside Above & Beyond, Deadmau5 and Axwell & Ingrosso in December 2017.
Hollaphonic became one of the first international acts to be signed to Tencent and Sony Music joint venture Liquid State, a pure electronic dance music label based out of Shanghai and featuring artists such as Alan Walker, Seungri, zhu, Li Yuchun, and Nicholas Tse.
Hollaphonic became the first resident DJs in an airport as part of Dubai Airport #MusicDXB program, also run by Hollaphonic owned Holla Sonic. The airport has over 250,000 passengers travelling through every day.
Discography
Albums Title Released Record label Additional information Personal Space 2015 Universal Music Group Peaked at number 1 on ITunes
Extended plays Title Released Record label Additional information Stand Up 2020 Sirup Records
Singles Title Released Record label Additional information "I Don't Want It to End" 2013 Universal Music Group featuring Shaduno "Found You (Stay Alive)" Universal Music Group featuring Dia "Fabric" 2014 Universal Music Group featuring Kevin Murphy "Runaway" Universal Music Group featuring Aaron Camper"Dangerous"2015Universal Music Groupfeaturing Vince Kidd"Turn the Lights Down"2016Universal Music Groupfeaturing Stephon LaMar"Surrounded by Bass"YosH Records"Don't Walk Away"2017Somn'thing Recordsfeaturing Quino & Brit Chick "Spaceship" Sony Music featuring Bxrber"Nobody Like You"2018GMM Grammyfeaturing Palitchoke Ayanaputra (Peck) "New Ones" Sony Music featuring Aaron Camper "Shut Up" 2019 Sony Music featuring Jasmine and Jazee Minor "Save Me" 2020 Spotify Radar campaign featuring Xriss Jor "Wicked & Lazy" Spinnin' Deep "Together"IN/Rotation "Sunglasses At Night" 2021 Controversia Collaboration with Alok (DJ)"Visions"Controversiawith Fflora"Better Days"Good Company Records"Cant Get Enough"Tomorrowland Music"Hold On"IN/Rotation"Parana"2022Tomorrowland Music"Ahora Compredo"The Myth of NYXCollaboration with Nome"Boomye"Techne
Remixes Artist Track Released Record label Additional information Sigma "Glitterball" 2015 3 Beat featuring Ella Henderson Philip George "Wish You Were Mine" 2015 3 Beat Nathalie Saba "Black Birds" 2016 Sony Music Dirty Vegas "Reckless" 2016 D:VisionPaul Oakenfold, Eve, and Baby G "What's Your Love Like" 2020 Perfecto Records
Chart positions Their debut album Personal Space held the No. 1 and No. 2 spot from pre-order to release with both the standard and limited edition releases.
In 2015 their track, "Surrounded by Bass", had a top 20 position on the Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) BUZZCHART. The track was also played on BBC Radio 1 with MistaJam and Capital FM by Coco Cole. This track went on to be released on UK label Yosh in 2016 managed by the UK bass group Foor.
Awards 2015 - Motivate Publishing's Hype Magazine Best Producer 2014 & 2015 - Time Out Dubai Best Dubai Act 2013 - Esquire Middle East Man at His Best Music Award
References