Felix Tod was a top DJ, record producer and film composer; Lady E travelled the world dancing and making music. When they met, a collaboration felt almost necessary. For nearly two years, they’ve toured the globe as All About Islands, a “funky house DJ/producer duo” from Bermuda whose tracks have repeatedly topped the charts.

In June, they’re bringing their music back home to put on some private parties and play on boats and at special events like the Pride parade on July 5.

“We’ve been to about ten different countries now – Costa Rica, the Canary Islands, Spain, Turkey, Egypt, Thailand … we just came back from Bali a couple of weeks ago and, of course, we played in the United Kingdom, and spent a little time in America as well,” Felix said.

“Sometimes we’d just find a fantastic location. We’d go up in the mountains or go into the jungle somewhere and shoot a mixtape for YouTube.

“And then other times, we've just been playing in clubs. So it's a mixture. But at the same time, we have laptops and so we're also working on new tracks.

“We're travelling quite slowly – staying a month, sometimes two months in every place – because it takes a while to get to know people, to work out what the local scene is.”

Having spent a decade “on the decks in Bermuda” he decided “it was time to do something a little bit different and to really pursue my two passions, which are travel and music”.

Emeline Lavender, a tabla player with training in Egyptian percussion who performs as Lady E, “luckily has the same kind of passion for travel”.

“I was at The Terrace and I was playing some Fela Kuti, and she came out dancing. I was like, ‘Why are you dancing? This is my record.’ She was like, ‘No, it's my record!’. So we sort of discovered that we had a mutual love of funk,” Felix said.

“I had a recording studio in my house, so we started to jam, and then we ended up making records that way as well.”

He chose the name All About Islands because of his love for Bermuda and island life in general.

“During the lockdown, I just started looking at other islands as well. During Covid, like many people, I was looking at a lot of travel videos and so I started to think of all the places I wanted to go.

“I wanted to go to some of the islands in Thailand, some of the islands off the coast of Indonesia, which has about 17,000 islands.”

The best way, he decided, was to start a band and travel the world making music on the way.

As it turned out Lady E had been a DJ in New York, had lived in Cairo for ten years and loved the idea of visiting new places.

“If you can live in Cairo for ten years, you're not afraid of travelling and new experiences,” Felix said.

“She'd come to Bermuda from Cairo via Spain, and so she was in the mood to travel as well. So we said, ‘Let's go. Let's travel. We'll make music, release records along the way, and meet people.’ And we've been doing that for the last year-and-a-half now.”

Starting out, it helped that they had a reputation in the music industry. All About Islands has had a number one Traxsource Nu-Disco hit, been in the UK Club Charts top ten, had a Beatport top three Nu-Disco chart placing, and reached the iTunes dance charts in 23 countries, hitting number one in Colombia and number three in Russia.

The duo is “just about to hit 150,000 streams on Spotify”.

“[When you] go to a country you sort of get into the scene, you start to meet other DJs, and then you start to play a little bit.

“It was really fun to play to audiences outside Bermuda. During Ramadan, for example, nobody's drinking. There's no alcohol in the house. So that was a new experience for me as a DJ. They were very enthusiastic, too. So that was fantastic,” he said.

“We were lucky, because our records were doing well. We had, quite early on, a number one on Traxsource, which is a DJ chart.

“We've been in the dance charts in 31 different countries now. So it's enough when people meet you that they know that you're a serious DJ, they can hear that your records are good, so they trust you a little bit.”

While most of their travel has gone smoothly, getting through Cairo International Airport was “a challenge” and a motorbike ride through mountains in Bali didn’t go to plan.

“Google maps took us completely off the road, till finally, we're up at about 6000 feet, the road is only a metre wide, and one of the motorbikes catches fire.

“We're completely stuck with liquid metal pouring out of the back of it.”

Google Translate did a “really good” job for most of their journey but with no cell service they struggled a bit in expressing their needs to the group of men that fortunately, passed by.

“One of them had an uncle who had a truck. So the uncle drove [us in] the truck as close as he could, and then we rode down into the town, which was about three hours. And then, of course, I was trying to find an ATM to pay them, which took about another three hours.”

Eventually, memories of summertime in Bermuda called him home.

“We wanted to play some gigs in Bermuda, put on some boat parties, and do some special events. Bermuda is the most beautiful place to be in the summer. So I thought I'd just come for my couple of favourite months in Bermuda,” Felix said.

“I'm going to host some parties and hopefully team up with some of my friends – DJ Korie Minors, who I love working with; Jesse Seymour, Joy Barnum, who I worked with in my band Silver City and in my band Big Chill as well.

“I've been able to put their voices on record and get their songs heard internationally, which is really nice.”

His hope is that one day the singers will see success similar to that seen by Bermudians Heather Nova and her brother Mishka.

“I've been able to take both of those from Bermuda, and been lucky enough to enable their music to be heard overseas.

“So I'd really love to do that, especially for Joy Barnum and Jesse, because I think they're fantastic artists.”

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