Biography

Felipe is a music producer best known as Phillip O. He was born in Bogota, Colombia, in 1985.

His humble early beginnings as a DJ consisted of mixing and recording his favourite tracks using a tape recorder and a primitive DJ software in order to have something to listen to on the way to school.

His Phillip O project, under which he DJ’d from the beginning of his career, allowed him to perform in several clubs in Latin America (Costa Rica, Venezuela, Colombia) and France (Annecy, Rhône Alpes) and also releasing music in various record labels from around the world.

Electronic music was a fascination that took hold several years earlier, long before the first mixes; the alien sounds of techno, trance, and drum and bass made a huge impression on Felipe in the mid 90’s.

This encounter with repetitive machine-generated music spawned a massive interest in all things related, and naturally, it was not long before the journey took him through diverse corners of the genre, tasting everything he could find through the spectrum: from Ambient and ‘Electronica’ all the way to Jungle and gabber at the other end… But the greatest impact was definitely caused by Techno, House and Electro, the genres which, to this day, would set the guidelines for his artistic development.

Phillip O started DJing in a more serious manner with vinyl records at the age of 15 in Bogota. During this period, finding electronic music was no easy feat; record stores that sold non Latin/pop offerings were extremely rare, and the few ones available charged prices way higher than stores in Europe or North America due to large import fees and currency exchanges. This meant that music was scarce, and so were the clubs that would feature this type of music. It was a scene dominated by Latin and top 40, quite a different picture than what the now flourishing Colombian scene is currently offering.

Upon turning 18 years old (and spending way too much time at his favourite record shop) he was hired at ‘Chopin Haguen Records’ in Bogota, run by DJ Fruto.

This, allowed Felipe to meet just about everyone in the local Scene, and opened the doors to perform at some of the most revered clubs in the country at the time (Cinema and Cha Cha, in Bogota).

Around that same period, Felipe and his friend, Miguel Espinosa, also known as Spin, decided to start a DJ duo (Spin & Phillip O) in addition to their solo projects. The duo got a good reception in clubs locally and across the country.

Phillip O, Spin, Colombia 2004 — Spin & Phillip O – Tantra, Bogota

In the year 2006 Felipe moved to Costa Rica, and became resident at Vertigo in San Jose de Costa Rica, one of the leading underground electronic music clubs in Central America and, arguably, all of Latin America, at the time.

Upon returning to Colombia, Felipe started seriously producing music as Phillip O in 2007, and continued honing his mixing skills performing clubs, festivals and private events. After a few residencies in various clubs, he became resident at Salon Continental in 2010, a club that was at the forefront of the Bogota’s underground movement, which would pave the way for clubs like Baum to flourish.

Annecy

In 2012 Felipe Played his first ever European date, in the French city of Annecy, where he performed together with Jul Bricks, Manu.B, and DJ Moots at Le Culte Club (currently named Duplex).

Musicmaking

Felipe’s productions as Phillip O garnered international attention, reaching the Beatport minimal and Electro top 100 and winning a Beatport remix contest and a DJDownload.com remix context in 2009 which got him an official release on Cr2 records.

Various international DJs from a broad spectrum supported his music released on various labels. Notable artists who at some point supported and played Phillip’s music on their sets include: Deepchild, Maya Jane Coles, Marco Carola, and Dubfire … to name but a few, for it was a large list of DJs from diverse backgrounds from all over the world.

Phillip O (Felipe Ordoñez), music producer, from Colombia

In 2017 Felipe continues producing music and quietly releasing some of it independently on Bandcamp and Spotify under several aliases. He also forms a label as an outlet for his own material.

2018 featured the first release as Felipe with a 4 track ep including remixes by two of his alter egos: Philip O and Monolojik. Elk Musikk turns 4 releases old.

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2020 saw the release of several new EPs, including a small series of releases titled “Profundidades”.

Felipe moved to Norway in 2021, and throughout 2022 he continues to release several singles and EPs. Elk Musikk turns 27 releases old

Musical influences

In no particular order, and by no means a complete list of artists, genres and labels that have influenced me the most: