Already a music lover, being in London allowed Susie to taste some new and diverse flavours. In the  late 80’s she followed dance music genre’s from Soul to Acid House, early 90's she found the underground house/garage dance scene in London and it was there she, through friends who were DJ’s,  she was inspired to start mixing!

Susie found the basics came quite naturally, so in 1994 she got her own decks, taught herself to mix and began doing spots at house parties which led to working in clubs and bars in the London area and DJ Essence was born!  DJ Essence was given a residency in the first all female DJ line up started by Pure Silk Promotions @The SW1 Club by Femmine Pressure’s Deejay Touch. Essence also started playing guest slots on London’s Chicago 90.6 FM, later renamed Mission 90.6 FM where she was offered a weekly show that she held for over 3 years. Through this and friendships she was contacted by Confetti Records and signed by them to work as a DJ and Trainee Label Assistant in 1999 dealing with the pressing, distribution and promotion of their music.

During the period from 1996 – 2002 Lady DJ Essence played at venues such as Brighton @The Escape Club (Lemon Tea Promotions), various parties for the Nottinghill Carnival, The Cyba (W1), The Gardening Club (Covent Garden), The Rendevous (Neasden), The Swan (Stevanage), Raindance@The Rocket (Holloway), Slap N Tickle@Browns (VG Promotions), Club Space (Stratford), Bar Latino (Islington), The Zebra Bar (Soho), Blah Blah's (Hornsey), Garage Nation (Stratford Rex), Club Embargo's (Chelsea), The Powerhouse (Finsbury Park), Club "La Differente"(Green Lanes), 291 Bar (Hackney Road), Club Propaganda (EC1), Imperial Gardens (Camberwell), The Temple (Tottenham), The Rhythm Rooms (Borehamwood), The Station Nightclub (Tottenham), Grapes (Walthamstow), Browns (Ipswich), Pure Silk@ SW1 Club..and often at "after parties" which she loved, because this was where she could play more underground tunes and get away with a deeper selection for the connoisseurs.

Having lived and survived in London on her own for 10 years and gone through the University  of Life and School of Hard Knocks Essence decided it was time for a change and came back home to Glasgow with no definite plans for the future. She launched herself into an HND college course in Multimedia with Web Design and with only very basic prior computing experience, managed to gain merits in her qualifications. Her desire to learn to produce music caused her to take things further and go on to University to study a degree in Audio Technology with Multimedia.

All she ever wanted to do was to make music, and at the time this seemed to be the only route available.  These courses were more widely and technically based rather than predominantly musically artistic, however have allowed Essence to realise more skills and proven her abilities to be technical as well as creative. She now has left an advanced level of computer knowledge and understanding that is now extremely valuable in everything she does.

These new skills brought the "analog" DJ Essence of the past up to date with digital technologies and hence she became DJitalEssence! Now she's producing her own music, remixing the works of others and is building her own label Vital Grooves as a business and platform to expose her multiple skills.

Though DJitalEssence as a DJ still loves her Technic1210 mixing decks, she has  embraced CD & Mp3 mixing.  She loves AbletonLive software for creating mixes and as a production tool.

As far as production goes DJitalEssence mainly uses Propellarheads Reason software as a base to create the structure of her music, slaving it to AbletonLive or other DAW’s for additional control, instruments and effects. She loves working with midi and keyboards and prefers not to use sampled loops and other people’s music as she enjoys the process of building her own rhythms and layering things from silence. She personally composes, arranges, produces and masters all her own works to the best of her ability is constantly learning and developing her knowledge and skills.

As a digital musician DJitalEssence, like others, uses her sound palate to create her musical expression and this outlet served as a great comfort and support to her through some challenging times. The emotions of these times can be felt in these earlier productions that she has in her back catalogue which will one day be released. Although most of the music she produces is rhythmical in nature, some is ambient, some quite orchestral, other tracks more dance orientated, some with a lot of dub influence, some electro and others deep house. She produces quite a range of styles but all have a certain sound that is recognisable as her own.

DJitalEssence lives and loves music & the many dimensions of creativity she possesses, waves make sense to her, sounds inspire her, rhythms arouse her and basslines groove her soul!

DJitalEssence lives and loves music & creativity, waves make sense to her, sounds inspire her, rhythms arouse her and basslines groove her soul!