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Kristian Beyer and Frank Wiedemann (collectively known as Âme) were born in Karlsruhe, South Germany. Kristian grew up in Mannheim whilst Frank remained in Karlsruhe. Even now despite the electronic music world’s current migration to Berlin, they both agree Karlsruhe is still the city for them to continue their musical journey.

Frank spent his early days exploring the vast worlds of jazz and contemporary classical music, immersed in piano lessons with very encouraging and open-minded music teachers. While he tinkered away in Karlsruhe, Kristian meanwhile in Mannheim was too busy shirking his guitar lessons in order to play football and collect records. The latter hobby paid off when at 25 whilst taking a civil engineering degree; Kristian had the opportunity to open a record shop with a friend. Having moved back to Karlsruhe to study, it was only a matter of time before Frank, the like-minded electronically inclined record collector began frequenting Kristian’s shop.

Life after bands: an idea with the most negative of implications. But there is indeed much vibrant life, brimming with heart and soul, left for James Ford and Jas Shaw, collectively known as Simian Mobile Disco. The name for their production/DJing outfit sings ballads about their musical history, from the very first word – Simian, a psychedelic indie band that had its moment of taking over the world in the early noughties, with Jas on guitar and James keeping time on drums. Simian celebrated two critically acclaimed albums, globe-encompassing tours, working with Brian Eno (on their second album, “We Are Your Friends,” in ’02), even songs being featured in international adverts (most notably in a Peugeot 1007 advertisement) but, like all good things, an end was inescapable.

James: “With Simian, we were signed to Virgin…”
Jas: “It was actually a small label called Source that was eaten by Virgin, which was part of its downfall. The band kind of split up at the end of a cruel, hot tour in the states, but probably for the best. I think what made Simian interesting was the sort of tensions within, particularly musically – but we were pulling more in an electronic direction, up until the point that it was actually not so productive.”
James: “Jas and I had already started DJing while we were in the band. We started out playing really eclectic sets, because it was more what we wanted to hear – we’d play stuff like Sun Ra, Raymond Scott, really all over the shop. But we really, really enjoyed it, and that was the main thing. Then when the band split up, we sort of carried on DJing. We’d already started doing a few remixes while we were in the band, and we were also making mixtapes that represented our DJ sets at the time; some of them got printed up by the label – mixtapes called Simian Mobile Disco. They were just little promos, but that’s where we made the name up; because we were in Simian, it was just a jokey name. If we’d thought about that band ending and this being a new band, we would’ve made up a new name, but it didn’t work like that.”

Like symbiosis, like the yin and yang, like your left and right hands, there is something both so free and passionate, yet also so technological, somewhat clinical, even precise and methodical about Luciano’s music which onlookers always suggest is a reaction to him moving from Switzerland to Santiago, Chile when he was about 11 or 12. The suggestion that his music is directly correlated to those worlds colliding is not necessarily obtuse. Some parts minimal, deep techno and scientific electro, some parts southern rhythms and colourful melodies, making the identity of his music especially soulful as it seeps from a more alkaline space.

“My father used to fix juke boxes for a living so we had many, many records. A lot of disco, some French music, a lot of the hits, but the good hits! We had a lot of music at home, always. Neither of my parents were musicians but they loved music. My mother gave me a guitar when I was younger, that’s when I first started to get into music. She gave it to me when we first moved to Chile. I was by myself often because I didn’t know many people at the beginning. My father is Swiss and my mother is Chilean. I moved from Switzerland to Santiago, Chile when I was about 11 or 12. Because my mother is Chilean, we already knew the language and we were a little bit used to the culture. Still, everything changed completely – the rules, everything. But the best time of my life was in Chile for sure; I’ve always felt like Chile’s my home. Chile’s really amazing, it’s a beautiful country. Guitar was a really good outlet so I was playing a lot at that time. In school, we had a band and I played in that. It was kind of like punk music, a little bit, and I was the backup singer and guitar player. I wasn’t really singing, more like shouting.” – Luciano.

While the renaissance of jungle is filling the dancefloors and stereos of drum’n’bass lovers the globe over, there is still a more scientific or sinister element burning bright alongside the rewinds of the masses. More jump-up than jungle, and perhaps originally suggested in the early work of deep science pioneers like Krust, Matrix, TeeBee and Ed Rush & Optical, this deeply shadowy future tek drum’n’bass uses a relentless and complex collection of upfront dark beats and moody soundscapes to encase the ears and get the dancefloor ready to strike, but also carries an intricate subtlety of skill in production, perhaps witnessed more in the glitch genre, than those hailing a constant repetition of Amens. NOISIA, consisting of members Nik Roos, Martijn van Sonderen and Thijs de Vlieger from Groningen all from The Netherlands, are new forbearers of this more turgid sound, and use their FABRICLIVE 40 mix to run the gamut of dark shadowy delight in all things drum’n’bass. Featuring many Noisia tracks from their own two imprints Vision and Division Recordings, as well as labels Ninja Tune, Quarantine and Virus, this mix is a serious throttle to the senses, commanding dancefloors around the world to stand to attention.

“We’re not physically angry people. We’re not that good at it – or, at least, I’m not good at writing happy stuff, even though sometimes I’d love to write something that’s nice. Sometimes I’ve managed to pull it off and write something nice, but the happy stuff – I don’t mind it but I’m just not really good at writing it, I don’t really know how.” Nik, Noisia

Music has ruled Mark Farina’s every step, since his vibrant youth: days spent marching routines with a trumpet in his Chicago high school’s band blurred into wild nights stomping around hardcore and punk shows. Eventually persuading his parents to allow him to ditch the brass bugle and bring a drum set into the house, Mark held the beat down for a New Wave alternative cover band (reworking The The, The Smiths, The Cure, Front 242, Ministry and the like) that tore through countless garages, gymnasiums, churches and Battle of the Bands. As Mark’s musical tastes took a turn for the electronic, he dove head-first into the luscious world of turntables and nightclubs, a shift reflected by his band becoming the high school’s first to incorporate a drum machine in its setup. Zealously weaving in and out of late-night teen clubs in-between his electronic band’s shows, Mark celebrated his first solo DJ gig at the Chicagoan underage mecca, Medusa’s, at the age of 16.

In collaboration with fabric, Control Tower Records presents the new album ‘GROWL’ from acclaimed producer
RADIOACTIVE MAN.

Can squelchy Brit acid be digestible, even maybe feel good to slide down the throat and swallow into the belly? Equal parts sharp spikes and vicious intent, fueling the warmth of beloved sweeping acid-laced soundscapes with a punk funk push, RADIOACTIVE MAN’S long awaited new album ‘GROWL’ certainly makes the case for menacingly beautiful electronica that spreads straight from your belly to your hips and feet. Undeniably influenced from his Two Lone Swordsmen work and his love for that Sabresonic sound, this album of future classic acid, emotional electro and techno breakbeat dub post rock cool oddness, featuring vocal tracks from Andrew Weatherall and Dot Allison, is a quirk in the eye of electronica pushing you to the dancefloor with both feet forward. Shove all the rubbish music from your desk, make yourself a mug of something warm and sweet, press play and give in. ‘GROWL’ is nothing short of an absolute gem; a perfect example of the kind of brilliantly produced sophisticated electronic music that has become a fiercely British sound; that makes the listener both happy and proud to understand where it’s come from, (even if we all thought this sound had been silenced by some deafening irony swathed puerile/trendy wave). Thank god Mr Tenniswood is bringing us back to our senses, ears, mind and heart first.

We’ve all been there at one point: sat in our bedrooms, making homemade pause/record mixes with our tape decks, convinced that someday our names would grace music history books alongside Grandmaster Flash, Steinski and Jazzy Jeff. But alas, our mixtapes that could’ve made Spinbad sweat have been chewed up and acquired nothing but dust, and ‘cut n paste’ has sadly become a term that causes even the strongest of us to shudder, as we recall a grueling day in the office struggling with Excel. But one DJ, hailing from North London, held tight to his dreams; his undamaged mixtapes have only gotten more polished and famed as he continues to commandeer the cut n paste fight – the irreplaceable, definitive hip hop protagonist, DJ Yoda.

Surrounded by music from his very onset, with both parents avidly working in the industry (his father a manager of legendary artists such as Eddy Grant and Eurhythmics; his mother working for various producers), even young Duncan Beiny’s bedroom was no escape, being the storage space for his dad’s abundant record collection. His father’s cherished pop records were thoroughly ruined when Duncan began learning to scratch at the ripe age of 15. Originally DJing under the name DJ Beiny (actually his first two initials and surname), it was a Yoda toy that sat by his turntables that ultimately gave him a DJ name that stuck when he was 19 years old. His combined loves of quirky pop music and 90s hip hop became fused and intertwined on home-made demo mixtapes, at first modestly distributed amongst the smaller of record shops. They eventually caused such a stir on the underground hustle – by the year 2000, over 5,000 were being distributed around the country - that it caught the attention of Antidote Records, through whom he released three consecutive volumes of an official mixtape series titled ‘How To Cut & Paste.’ Entertaining, sentimental, kitsch and musically unbound, the mixtape series brought an accessible sense of humour to what had essentially become the serious, elitist world of hip hop.

“From around 2000, hip hop went downhill for me. It was getting a bit samey – for me, all the best stuff was out in the early 90s. It was the rawness, you know? Now I think a lot of middle class, happy people are making it, whereas for me a lot of the best music comes out of frustration, anger and difficult times. I just think that hip hop has become safe. To me, I’m a hip hop DJ but my understanding of hip hop means you play everything. The style you play it in makes it hip hop for me. It’s why I’ll play anything from TV themes to kid’s music to religious music – it can be anything. But I think if you know how to scratch or can feel a beat, then you’re a hip hop DJ.” – DJ Yoda

In an era where credit is rarely given when due, a lot of today’s so-called “minimal” enthusiasts may not actually be familiar with its creator: it’s near impossible to find anyone who can rival the magnificence and innovation of Robert Hood. With an absolute, visionary state of mind, Hood has been one of the most extraordinary and forward-thinking artists in the history of techno. He’s regarded by some of the biggest names in electronic music as being one of the founding fathers of techno’s development, yet some of the newer faces to minimal are none the wiser.

Raised primarily on Motown in Detroit, Robert Hood’s family was enveloped in music: his mother recorded a 45” locally, his uncle managed jazz and R&B bands, his grandmother’s first cousin was Berry Gordy, his father was a jazz musician (piano, drums, and trumpet). Robert followed his father’s footsteps at a young age, picking up trumpet in the school band. But, distracted by youth, it wasn’t long before he swapped the trumpet for vinyl, obsessively focussing on the arrangements, musicality and instrumentation of the records he cherished. His zealous interest in production guided him to a pawn shop, where he picked up some basic equipment and began recording demos. Unable to find someone able to do “some kind of political abstract MCing – a cross between Chuck D and Q-Tip,” Robert laid down his own lyrics on his productions. Eventually, a fortuitous introduction to a well-connected musician, Mike Clark (a.k.a. Agent X), led to him eventually pass on a demo to a key player in underground Detroit, Mike Banks. Instantly enamoured with his lyrical styling, Mike Banks and Jeff Mills took Robert on board as an MC for 2 tracks on a compilation they were putting together. As Robert’s productions grew stronger, the incomparable Underground Resistance crew formed, putting political outrage to an experimental beat, and Robert found his place as a seminal member, the “Minister of Information.” With UR, Robert forged a path for himself, creating a simple yet powerful sound that fully encompassed the Detroit ethos, but also pushed unparalleled levels of imagination.

Craze’s life is a legacy of rags to riches, geek to chic, no-name to world fame. He never had it easy – from fleeing battle in Nicaragua at the age of 3 to a geeky adolescence to Hurricane Andrew hitting Miami in 1992 – nor did have ever have any coattails to ride; his is a story that’s an uphill battle, but a story that ends right at the top. “My mom always taught me I could do anything I put my mind to. So when she asked what I wanted to do with my turntables, I told her, ‘Be the best DJ in the world,’” Craze casually laughs. And that he proved – 3 times at the DMC World Championships, an unprecedented record, and a title that no other solo DJ has yet to match. While Craze is regarded internationally and unquestionably as one of the best scratch DJs in the world, it’s still astonishing to see his overwhelming number of titles on paper: Craze has won first place for the USA DMC Championships 1998, World ITF Scratch Off Championships 1998, ITF Western Hemisphere Scratch Off Championships (1998, ’99), Winter Music Conference Scratch Off Champion (1996, '97, '98, '99), East Coast DMC Championships (1997), East Coast Rap Sheet Championships (1996) and Zulu National Championships (1995, '96), to name but a few. Additionally, DJ Craze claimed 2nd place in the first DMC Team Championship with his Allies’ crew (which included fellow champions A-Trak and Infamous) in 1999 – and then in 2000, the Allies’ won the Team Championship title, taking it from the previous year’s winners the Scratch Perverts.

“I won the DMC’s when I was 20. I joined the Regionals, won that, Nationals, won that, and then won the Worlds. And I took it from A-Trak – that’s right! But he was only like 15 when I beat him. I was still scared. Then in that year, in ’98 when I beat A-Trak in the [DMC] Worlds, I didn’t wanna battle no more and I thought he’d be the icing on the cake, so instead we formed the Allies and we kicked everybody’s butt. (laughs) Except the [Scratch] Perverts, they beat us once in the US, but then we came over here to London and we kicked their butt. So hey, payback’s a bitch, Tony!” - Craze

It’s not often that two people discover a friendship as special as the Berlin-based creative duo M.A.N.D.Y. (Patrick Bodmer and Philipp Jung). Two kindred souls drawn to one another at a young age, throughout their many harmonious years of acquaintance they’ve shared complementary callings in life. The first call rang when Patrick’s family moved from Zurich to Saarbrücken at the age of 15; his friendship with Philipp was immediate and vibrant, and the inseparable pair immersed themselves in sports, compilation tapes, Tears For Fears and Janis Joplin records.

Individually, Philipp kept busy shirking his keyboard lessons and borrowing his friend’s drum kit, while Patrick delved deeply into art and painting. When some older friends filled their stereos with Chicago mixtapes and the sounds of early acid house in the late 80’s, their lifelong obsessive love with electronica began. It was only a short matter of time before their lives were overtaken: days spent in record shops revolved into bright nights in Frankfurt’s glittery clubs and parties, weeks bled into months. University pulled them apart as the years flew by, both heading to different cities to pursue their studies (Patrick in Frankfurt studying economics, Philipp in Switzerland to study hotel and tourism), but they eventually came back around to each other in Frankfurt to pursue their passions, specifically their insatiable appetite for parties.

“In ’95, we were reunited again and because no one wanted to book us, we started our own nights. We used to have performances at the beginning of our parties, really wild art performances, just to break the ice. Our guests were unknown at the time but are quite famous now – Ata from Playhouse, Ricardo [Villalobos] - it was all good friends for no money. Normally we had two rooms; one would be the chill-out room, it was really calm and easy music. For this one party we rented this really nice underground club – we went to the woods and cut down 50 young trees and put them in our chill-out room to make it like a jungle. We put green lights behind it and we made a little beer garden inside the room. We were the only guys there to clean it up in the morning; you can imagine how fun that was! It was crazy. At the time, I don’t think very many people did it with such love, we were never doing it to make money. But then some of our parties we would get over 1,000 people. We never used any ads for the parties; we didn’t have any money at the time, so we went out 3 or 4 weeks every night and would invite every person personally – we would make a tour of every bar and every club extending invites. We never put flyers up or left them anywhere; we just gave them out personally to people.” – M.A.N.D.Y.

Many turn the last month of the year into a merciless chasm-filling throng of merriment and shiny cheer; and we are no different. Although we’re not ones to embrace the commercial surface; we draw our happiness from below. And we mean way down low, propelled by a constant, almost omnipresent sub bass, mirth drowned deep in tension, dark delicious moody music and for many the future sound of London. That’s happiness, masked as dubstep delivered readily by two of the new guard of sub soldiers, Caspa & Rusko. FABRICLIVE 37: CASPA & RUSKO is an almost perfect blend of dark narcotic melancholy and up front torrential dancefloor delight, all wrapped in cavity filling ridiculous low-end bass destruction and delay.

Brought together by a love of each other’s music, Caspa (25-year old Gary McCann) and Rusko (22 year old Chris Mercer) are considered part of a new breed of dubstep talent, sweeping the deep furrows of ground laid bare by peers like Digital Mystikz, Iration Steppas, Kode9, Skream and Benga, mixed with their own jump up comical party fresh and somewhat relentless sound. Coming together from Leeds and London with mutual loves of dub reggae, drum’n’bass, hip hop, and as fans of their own scene, Caspa & Rusko have been DJing and producing for just a few years, yet have been representing the dubstep dream the globe over as music fans from all corners draw them into a constant stream of performance and release requests. Their musical roots are somewhat similar, with both having delighted in their musically involved upbringings.

Innovator, minimal dance connoisseur, tech house master - though he’s been given many prestigious titles, if there’s one quality that can be best attributed to Steve Bug, it would be modesty. It’s a trait that has followed him throughout his illustrious career, from his early days as a child building guitars out of cardboard, to his early lessons in percussion at school (“ In school, I was always forced to play percussion – my teachers wouldn’t give me the flute or any other instrument – I didn’t even get the full kit – just the drum sticks and maybe a triangle!”), to his beginnings as a mixtape DJ (“I’d never really thought of playing in clubs; I was only really recording tapes for myself”), to his first productions (“The first few productions set my course - Tobias really liked them and wanted to put them out. I was a bit unsure as, like the mixtapes from years ago, they were more for me, not to impress others.”). Despite the fact that he’s now largely regarded as one of the founding fathers of minimal – creating his ‘Da Minimal Funk’ compilation over 10 years ago – and one of the most sought-after 4/4 DJs booked today, Bug remains truly humble when reflecting on the majestic rise from his beginnings as a dancefloor-dwelling clubber in Bremen, Germany to ruling his renowned Dessous/Poker Flat empire in Berlin.

“I had a kick start [because of Rising High], but it didn’t really help my career. Not that many people were interested or noticed that anything was happening besides hard techno / trance. I did a couple of more tracks for Superstition and a few parties but the rest of the label was moving in a different direction than I was. Not feeling comfortable with being part of a collective that had nothing to do with me and the music I was into, we decided to form a new label and forum for other artists who shared my musical taste and to give them a platform to express themselves also. We rethought Raw Elements and decided to start all over again with a new fresh concept. That’s how Poker Flat was born, with ‘Loverboy’ as our first release.” – Steve Bug

Pat Mahoney – brought up on an intriguing diet of folk music and, funnily enough, in the white suburbs of Ithaca, New York, reggae – developed an insatiable appetite for music and rhythm from the very start. When he turned 13, he traded in his saxophone for a PA and a mic, becoming lead singer of his first punk band, Distorted View. Three years of basements, garages, coffee houses, and his first manager (“It was fucking fun. We had a manager who was like 17 and had a car; he would take us to shows. He had a car that had no foot floor, it was just the street running by underneath it”), and eventually Distorted View made a turn for goth. Unhappy with this musical direction, Pat instead taped a pair of drum sticks to his hands and picked up a white Pearl Export drum kit for an onslaught of basement punk shows with his second band, The Five Deadly Diseases (each of the five members named after a disease - Chris Syphilis, for example). A few years and an art school education later, Pat was recording for his next band, Les Savy Sav and found himself a good friend in their sound engineer, the indie/punk home-studio recording guru James Murphy.

Raised in the equally sheltered streets of Princeton Junction, New Jersey, James Murphy had garnered himself a reputation as a live and studio engineer (“recording bands on my 4-track for sandwiches”) after a lifetime of starring in various bands himself. Subsequent to his first band at the age of 12, The Mystery Meats, the band names flew in over the years – The Extremes, ? (“We were just a question mark for a while, pre-Prince, just the symbol, I mean, not pre-Prince existence, but pre-Prince being the symbol. And pre-!!!”), Pony, Speedking – but James always found time to balance producing, recording, engineering and performing. Humble but foretelling beginnings for someone that, a decade later, is now heralded as a hugely important figure in electronic music; the “disco infiltrator” that’s considered largely responsible for fusing dance and punk music. As the leading man and lyricist of his musical project LCD Soundsystem, the quintet has celebrated two Grammy nominations (for their self-titled debut LP ‘LCD Soundsytem’ and the classic ‘Daft Punk Is Playing At My House’) and received fantastic critical acclaim for their second album released earlier this year, ‘Sound of Silver.’ Throughout it all, his best mate Pat Mahoney keeps time on drums and keeps his company on tour for LCD Soundsystem, and the two now have the divine opportunity to explore the globe with the band’s relentless schedule. But flashing back to the fateful day Pat first came into James’ studio, precisely at the point that dissatisfaction with noise bands and indie rock had reached a halting climax for both of them, their introduction to each other and to dance music was an ecstatic one.

Ricardo Villalobos, an artist in the truest sense of the word, has the incredible ability to passionately create within the realms of one of electronic music’s most pared down and perhaps consciously restrictive genres, yet create his own sound, his own expansive dynamic, to be shared with the rest of the world. Incorporating this sonic vision into a DJing schedule heaving beyond most human limits, Ricardo spends his nights (and often mornings) engaging in sets that detonate with drums and low-end frequencies on soundsystems across the globe. And, as his notoriously epic sets often shimmy into the after-after-after-hours, in his path of musical demolition he leaves dancefloors littered with a loving army of longstayers, demanding more than the usual 5-hours from their leader. It’s not difficult to find this passion for expression deeply rooted in Ricardo’s psyche comes from his very beginnings of life, having been forced to flee his father’s homeland in Chile due to a violent military coup [General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratic government of Salvador Allende in 1973]. Though it was difficult to leave the many legendary musicians from his Chilean side of the family, the move to his mother’s native land, Germany, offered Ricardo the chance to discover “alternative ways of life.” At the age of 10, his keen interest in African, South American and samba music led him to explore his love of percussion.

“I started to play conga and bongos; I was listening to percussive and South American music at the time. In a way, the electronic music we listen to when we dance is very similar to African and South American percussion music. On one hand, you have the percussion, like Samba, where people are dancing for hours and days – it’s the same rules and ideas behind techno: to make people go crazy, lose their realities, let go. This is happening with percussive music. It was a clear path, or it was a normal consequence, to go from acoustic percussive music to electronic percussive music. All my knowledge I have about percussion, I put into electronic music of course. When I was a kid, I was very often in situations with percussion sessions, for hours, the whole night. My parents had friends that owned concert agencies so we heard so many Southern American musicians and sessions. I was just a little kid, always looking on and recognising something that was making people dance. This has always really fascinated me. As a musician, you are searching for that your whole life. I’m constantly on a search for the truth about the dance floor - why do people dance, what’s the secret behind it.” – Ricardo Villalobos

Marcus Intalex, king of the more soulful and innovative side of drum‘n’bass, sits in a slightly uncomfortable position on his throne. On one hand, he’s involved in a vibrant, well-supported scene that allows him to play music around the world; on the other, he doesn’t quite fit in with the bulk of the scene. But why should he have to compromise himself to the popular tunes that now reign on the d‘n’b charts? Sure, the kids want to hear them, but he’s not a kid anymore.

He’s a veteran that’s survived a lot, in fact - the initial revolution of d‘n’b (and dance music, for that matter); the building of a close-net scene in Manchester with his mates L Double and ST Files; the development of an incredible and staggering back catalogue of hugely celebrated tunes, mixes and d‘n’b classics; the creation of Soul:r, the label that receives praise and appreciation across all scenes; the growth of his distinguished DJing schedule...the list is immeasurable. So perhaps his general stance in the media, often posed as miserable tyrant (despite his lovely and jocose demeanour), is understandable, as his accrued wisdom has left him somewhat unhappy with the current state of his livelihood and beloved genre.

“Sometimes it’s really difficult because - as the popular sound is moving away from what we do and our sound - I do go to DJ at some places and the crowd really doesn’t like it. It’s just hard sometimes. You kinda gotta take it the way it is. I don’t change my sound because the crowd’s not into it, I can’t. I literally can’t, because I don’t even have the popular tunes that most people like – I refuse to take them with me, that’s not what I’m about. Some gigs are more difficult now then they used to be, but then, on the other hand, these days when we go to some places, there’s a specific crowd that supports what we do. With our music, we need to have a no-compromise attitude: this is us, take it or leave it - I’m very sorry if you don’t like it, but this is what it is. And that’s what we get booked for. We don’t get booked because Andy C’s busy, know what I mean? It doesn’t work like that! I just do my thing; I’ve always stuck to my guns.” – Marcus Intalex

With minimal being the prevailing theme of the techno world, the musical equivalent of writing a word over and over until it has lost all meaning; it’s refreshing to stumble upon someone as anomalous as the highly inventive Ewan Pearson. Long after his days of being a skint self-employed musician, and 11 years on since his first record was pressed, it’s quite obvious Ewan Pearson has undoubtedly found his groove – and his sound is anything but soulless or uninspired. And his ever-changing, avant-garde productions seem to always surprise even the most jaded of ears. Offbeat yet on point, with a charmingly unpretentious disposition, Pearson makes pop-friendly music drenched in bass and sprinkled with addictive melodies. From his beginnings on Birmingham’s Bosting label as Villa America and Dirtbox, to his highly celebrated work on Soma as Maas, to his ever-expanding DJing career, Ewan Pearson has quickly climbed the ranks as one of electronic music’s most prodigious underground idols.

“I think I move around style-wise, I’ve got quite diverse tastes. I suppose, because of the remixes I was doing 5 years ago, I’ve been lumped into the electro scene, but what interests me is finding exciting new records. It’s that sensibility of trying to twist things slightly, trying to put things together in not such an obvious way, trying to change things style-wise. What I don’t like is hearing hours of the same sort of thing. At the moment, I love techno but I don’t just play sort of minimal clicky stuff. What bores me when everyone is doing the same thing. I just find the stuff that moves me and try and make it work.” – Ewan Pearson

There’s little else to say about the skills of party-pleasing breakbeat don and genre pioneer Krafty Kuts that blog-frenzied breaks fans and electronic music journalists the globe over haven’t already attested to. His plaudits and pursuits roll off the fingers like a never-ending list of praise. His countless successful releases on labels including Finger Lickin’ Records, Southern Fried Records (Fat Boy Slim’s label), FSUK, his two co-owned stables Super Charged and Against The Grain, the latter imprint hosting his most recent LP, ‘Freakshow,’ featuring the likes of Dynamite MC, The Scratch Perverts and A Skillz, just lay the groundwork for his seminal live sets. Follow that with his remix production of some of the biggest names in the game, including Jurassic 5, Utah Saints, Arthur Baker, Eric B & Rakim and Afrika Bambaata, and you see where each step-up is heading. This is a man who can waltz into any already blazing dancefloor, in any club, in any town, in any country and take it up a few degrees, and we mean Icarus hot.

“If I see people not dancing, then I immediately like to switch it up and give a good energy. If you put too much attitude into your music, then you tend to have people chin stroking or just standing around. So my emphasis is all about the party - making everyone smile and happy, everyone having a good time.”- Krafty Kuts

The world is Ellen Allien’s canvas, and what a colourful picture she paints. Thriving on imagination and inspiration, the Berliner is continually shifting shapes and blossoming under an impressive variety of creative lights. Whether she’s producing music that challenges the electronic world, or adhering to her globe-encompassing DJing schedule, or managing the phenomenal BPitch Control, or designing for her unique new fashion label - Ellen Allien, a veritable force to be reckoned with, is artistically infinite. She began carving a path for herself after the Berlin wall came down and her beloved city opened wide to new possibilities, including the innovative beat that got the East and West dancing together: techno. After her days as a disillusioned hip hopper, she was instantly hooked by techno’s allure and fell deep into a wild love affair with electronic music and machines.

“The whole (hip hop) scene got on my nerves and I therefore got more interested in electronic music. There were so many interesting people – artists, gay people, freaks…With all those people I felt more connected. And I could finally feel free as a woman in a club – no harassment. In 1992 I started working at a bar, Fischlabor, whose owner also owned Tresor, and one day spun some records there. This got regular and I later started my own radio shows "Braincandy". I then started to play at E-Werk and Tresor, which became my resident clubs. It was a whole new environment for me, a great "Do it yourself" attitude.”- Ellen Allien

2006 saw the emergence/takeover of Spank Rock, the name plastered on every magazine cover, lighting up every blog and gracing most/all ‘Best Of’ charts by the end of the year. Their debut ‘YoYoYoYoYo’ caught the ear of just about anyone, well, anyone with an ear, and left everyone and their media dog panting to find more about these boys. Yes, these boys. Boys who had created an imaginative, artistic sound that no one else could quite touch: combining hip hop with the bass-driven sound of Baltimore house, filtering filthy raps into deep electro and furiously quick BPM’s, and the odd guilty pleasure to boot. Despite all the hype and media-worshipped success, they still have a rare, down to earth charisma and the addictive enthusiasm of 4 starry-eyed boys from Baltimore, completely in awe of their position and unaware of just how much they’ve wowed the world.

Flash back to 2000, when fun-loving DJ Chris Devlin’s (a.k.a. Chris Rockswell) apartment 320 was often found heaving with rowdy parties, bubbling with the likes of introspective producer Alex Epton (Armani XXXChange), quick-tongued filthy-minded MC Naeem Juwan (MC Spank Rock) and rambunctious battle DJ Ronnie Darko. The four collectively formed Spank Rock organically, with Chris Devlin and his apartment being the centre point. After going to school with each other, Chris DJ’d in Naeem’s first hip hop band with a guitarist named Chip (who Chris now produces with today). Alex, who lived down the street from Chris, got introduced to Naeem at one of Chris’ graffiti art exhibitions. Aspiring DJs, Chris and Ronnie met randomly in Music Liberated, where Ronnie was flyering for one of his parties. Then through no effort of their own, Alex and Naeem’s little studio projects suddenly got whipped up by Big Dada, after their mate Wes (aka Diplo) had secretly passed on their demo.

"We were just like ‘ah sweet, somebody wants to put it out?!" muses Alex.

If dedication is considered the backbone of culture, then house music lovers the globe over owe a sea of gratitude to the genre’s much loved UK doyen Ralph Lawson. There’s something to be said for a man who having dropped the very first record at Leeds’ clubland institution Back to Basics in 1991, still remains its resident to this day. And it’s something special indeed.

"We’d have to go over to Manchester every weekend, as there was nothing in Leeds – so we got to thinking we might as well start our own night. I was already running a night called “Clear”. We had Carl Cox up on a Wednesday night for the first time in Leeds. I remember I paid him 80 quid and we had about 25 people in the room but we all absolutely loved it. We also had Andrew Weatherall and Justin Robertson. Honestly, I think our biggest night we had about 100 people and we were like ‘yeah we’ve got 100 people - we’re massive!’ But I met a guy called Alistair Cooke at Clear who brought his mate, Dave Beer, and they told me they were going to start a club on Saturdays. They invited me to be a resident alongside Ali and so I came to play the first ever record at Back To Basics on November 23rd 1991. It still runs every week and, as far as I know, it’s the longest-running house night in the world. Some people kind of misuse the term ‘residency’ when they play somewhere once every 3 months – I was there every week. It’s just a real part of my history, Back To Basics, Leeds. The whole sound has been very influenced from that club for sure."
– Ralph Lawson

We have such an attachment to words, labels and categories. Maybe it’s the simplest, most rational attempt to project organization onto the chaos of our world. But why try to constrict one of the most freeing, limitless, inspiring ways to express ourselves - music? Most DJs live their musical lives desperately trying to fit into these restrictive categories, not much unlike forcing a square into a circle, but perhaps a few music creations may have slipped between the lines of all of these exacting names and genres. Tayo, a lion amongst the sheep, has used his vast, all-embracing career to point out the absurdity behind these labels. Dipping into scenes across the board as a DJ, record label owner, promoter and press officer, he’s continually proved to be the linchpin between the many different subgenres crammed within the wide umbrella of bass and breakbeat culture.

With a background in South London that allowed him to explore across all aspects of dub, hip hop, drum n bass and everything bass-lead, his genre-fighting fate seemed inevitable. When Tayo bumped heads with two relatively unknown producers/DJs named Rennie Pilgrem and Adam Freeland, who shared his love of edgy beats, it wasn’t long before the three men found themselves deep in the buzz of the excitement that hovers around a new movement. Breakbeat exploded as a veritable scene with the arrival of their new weekly mecca: Friction, which not only put breakbeat on the map but also gave it a home. Due to success and innovation of Friction, Tayo was concurrently lumped into the category of being a full-fledged breakbeat DJ. Next came Mob Records and, with productions from Rennie Pilgrem, Stanton Warriors and Krafty Kuts, he was soon introducing the globe to his distinctive bass-heavy step.

There’s little any fan of electronic music can do or say to challenge the fever that surrounds revered techno pioneer Luke Slater. Almost like an enfant terrible to the scene, he’s constantly producing and performing music that remains beyond all things relevant and above all things refreshing. And that’s no mean feat to still be breathing life into soundsystems the globe over, having had his foot in the musical waters for almost 27 years now. So like the advice of a trusted friend, Luke’s sultry party mix ‘FABRIC 32’ guides you knowingly through some of the most hot-tipped tracks from the likes of Carl Craig, Audion, Switch, Spank Rock and The Juan Maclean. Sage sounds indeed. Weighted more so knowing that Luke recorded the mix in Fabric Room 2 one chilly November afternoon – a first for the Fabric series. But Luke wanted more than anything to directly relate his history of performances at the venue to the mix. He really wanted to capture the vibe that he feels only that space can herald.

“This mix is a true representation of what I play there [at Fabric]. I wanted to do the main part down at the club to get that vibe right from the club. It’s kind of a funky punk disco electronic mix and specifically related to Fabric. I’m excited. Fabric really is quite special, they put in a lot of effort and I have many, many emotions attached to Room 2. Before Fabric, I don’t think there was really a big club in London that had done it right. The sound’s so good in there. It’s a really good place to be and it’s really popular with the right crowd. You put all those together and you can’t really beat it.” - Luke Slater

The Glimmers are two peas from a rare breed of pod; both Benoelie and Mo are alight and burning with an enviable passion that so few people possess. It’s the kind of zeal that keeps them enthusiastic about every gig, the kind of love that keeps them viewing their expansive 20-year career as nothing more than a paid hobby (“We are unemployed. We just play music.”), the kind of fascination that keeps them still yearning to find the name of a record they heard almost 25 years ago (true story). Hailing from Ghent, Belgium, the party capital that later birthed Soulwax/2ManyDJs, The Glimmers both fell deeply under music’s spell at a young age. The two were undoubtedly a likely duo: Mo, a rapt child dazzled by the scratch-coated records disposed from his family bar’s jukebox, was avidly building his own record collection, while Benoelie grew from a family deeply rooted in nightlife and party culture. At the ripe age of 16, old enough to DJ but too young to drink, they found themselves gigs together at a local bar called Mistral. A few years later, their residency at a club called Fifty Five saw them sweating out 11-hour marathon sets every week; workouts that nurtured their flexible attitude and inimitable style.

“That was very good learning school and I think that is really the base of how we play now. We were so focussed on covering the whole musical landscape as much as possible, though, of course, we had 10-11 hours time compared to nowadays having two-hours, sometimes an hour-and-a-half.” – The Glimmers

Some DJs follow trends, some never get themselves out of the groove of the same sound, and others crank out an unvaried DJ mix crammed with chart-toppers every few months. With a sense of unpredictability and productions that continually raise the bar, techno innovator Marco Carola has always fought the urge to fit into any of the above. Growing up alongside a friend whose father ran the music scene in Napoli, the majority of his youth was spent living in studios and nightclubs and it didn’t take long before he purchased his own turntables from the local disco. It took even less time for him to become a bonafide homegrown star. Despite playing residencies at the big Italo house and disco clubs, often entrancing over 3000 Neapolitan hedonists, his curiosity became entirely captivated by the rise of the next movement: techno. He purchased a few samplers intending to diversify his highly-demanded DJ sets, but the samplers found much more use in his studio. He started banging out productions at such an unruly pace, it was only natural that he established his own label, Design Music. After all, with a strain of techno completely unknown to the rest of the city, there was no other outlet for his beats. The label kicked off to a firing start and the collaborations began flying in (Adam Beyer and Masters at Work, to name a few), and with them came the wholehearted support of techno DJs and fans from around the globe. Previously oblivious to life outside of Napoli, doors were suddenly flung wide open and the world beckoned for the young DJ/ producer to spread his wings and journey beyond his little home studio.

Genre spammers and breaks pioneers, Stanton Warriors (aka Dominic B. and Mark Yardley) met while working at the seminal garage label 51st Recordings. Natives of the Southwest UK and increasingly sick of contributing great work to other artists, they knocked heads, pooled resources and fashioned a pair of renegade tunes fusing the random playful hustle of nu-breaks with the sweeping good looks of early garage. It was to be the birth of breakbeat intelligence. They emerged the darlings of the remix set, serving fixings for acts like Basement Jaxx, Missy Elliiot, Artful Dodger, Busta Rhymes, Fatboy Slim, Chicken Lips, Azzido Da Bass, Mylo, Freeform Five & Apollo 440. XL pricked their ears up in 2001, signing the duo for the release of their full-length debut mix ‘The Stanton Session’ later that year. It wasn’t long before their own brand of massive beats rolled clubs the world over harder than any sound heard before. ‘The Stanton Session’ knocked off competition from Fatboy Slim & Deep Dish to win best album at the Dancestar Awards, and incredibly again at the Muzik Magazine Awards, where they beat the likes of Dave Clarke & Danny Tenaglia. It also still remains as the biggest selling breakbeat mix of all time.

Eric D and Thomas met at a party (where else?) in LA, through a mutual friend working at a clothing and disco unit called Sarcastic. Random chance and coincidence soon found the two of them together on the other side of the continent, pumping beats into the heart of New York City's underground scene. Despite NYC commercialism staring them in the eyes and singing it sweet siren song, Eric and Thomas, with good mates and cheap drinks in hand, kept their feet firmly planted in the fertile underground and sauntered on with a laugh. A friend's acquisition of a Chinese Rub N Tug massage-palace-cum-loft-space sparked a series of raucous parties where rooms were torn down, both literally and figuratively, as 300-400 people shuffled to their wild disco mashups. It seems only natural that out of the seedy, risqué, hell-bent indulgence, Rub N Tug was born. Next up were their lock-ins on the rammed disco floors of Passerby, now notoriously and fondly recalled as Campfire, where house music poured out of sweaty speakers 'til the after-after-hours.

Having built a substantial record collection, graphic designer Dan Whitford decided, on a whim, to design beats and samples. He soon found himself putting together a live DJ show, comprised of a pair of decks, a drum machine, synths and a sampler. One day, in a quivering strum of destiny, the sampler went up in sparks, but through the smoke came a clear vision of the future: rock n roll.

“I don’t know if it was fate, but afterwards I thought I could get the sampler repaired and found myself pretty fed up with it. I decided I’d put a band together and do real garage, indie versions of the songs I’d been making. I guess that was the start of the band, doing Sonic Youth versions of dancy songs. It ended up being somewhere in the middle: dance music but with live instruments, more interesting than either would be on their own. It was a bit of blessing in disguise.” – Dan, Cut Copy

Tiefschwarz is two brothers, Ali and Basti Schwarz. They hail from Stuttgart in southern Germany, a bustling city famed for high-tech industry and car manufacturing. From the age of 17, encouraged by fun-loving parents, all they wanted to do was play music and party. From word-of-mouth events held in their own flat (which attracted up to 300 people) to squat raves and huge themed shows, they revelled in the spirit of adventure which engulfed an entire generation of German youth. They moved into clubs and were among the first promoters to attract the biggest names in US house – Mike Dunn, Tony Humphries and Masters at Work all played their nights. Those influences were plain to hear in their early production work too, as they started to tout their name by remixing tracks. These days they’re rooted in Berlin’s counterculture and have mastered a deep, driving sound, rooted in techno, house and electro, that soundtracks clubnights across the world. A typical Tiefschwarz record starts where you least expect it and goes where you couldn’t predict, employing the kind of sonic twists and tricks that make you laugh out loud on a dancefloor. Still driven by that sense of fun and family spirit, Tiefschwarz exhibit an energetic, uninhibited approach to 4/4 electronic music.

After many years of moving between cities and bands, Tom Beaufoy found himself comfortably settled in Brighton. The seaside city breezily acquainted him with breakbeat; freshly inspired, he ditched his bass guitar and permanently shelved his black eye makeup to establish his own night, Champion Sound. One Friday evening, Pat Pardy left his Brighton studio, where he'd been cooped up creating theme music for Western film soundtracks, to hear some beats. The night marked the sinful meeting of two evil minds. Many meetings and beats later, they had crafted a demo, which scattered through the scene under the name Evil Nine. It soon reached the appreciative ear of Adam Freeland and the devilish duo were whisked away to create their first EP, the atmospheric ‘Less Stress,’ an immense proggy hit for Marine Parade. Evil Nine continued to explore the feel and fit of various sounds, eventually finding themselves most comfortable on 2002’s ‘Cakehole,’ a rock-infused breaks masterpiece.

When Terry Francis and Nathan Coles started throwing parties, it was pretty much a reaction to their circumstances. Already committed to London’s fledging acid house scene, and both influenced by rare groove and up-tempo soul, they wanted to do something off their own backs, just for their mates, with DJs they liked. Over a decade later the pair are still in the rudest health, noising up nightclubs with that same simple ethos, while Wiggle – the catch-all term covering record label, clubnight, artist name and attitude – has also come to typify a style of music; a deep, druggy basement-shaking sound that nicks techno’s swagger and steals house’s smile. DJing together all over the world, the pair are bang in the middle of an industrious community of producers, all excelling at making music to escape in and get down to. ‘Fabric 28’ – the first time the Wiggle sound has been captured on a compilation - is a statement-making mix, as fun, involving and unfussy as Francis and Coles themselves.

Matt Ford, formally known as DJ Format, comes straight outta ‘Hampton. Southampton. Maybe not the glorified upbringing that’s likely to be expected from a rising hip hop pioneer, but Format is plenty appreciative of his past. His background is a charming reflection of how he came to be the guru who now stands proudly behind a mastered set of decks, his tool of choice being a record box bursting with previously undiscovered gems and an enviable stack of his own EPs, LPs and remixes.

Slick, varied production work – under his own name and the aliases Jabberjaw, False and Audion – relentless touring and the backing of Ann Arbor’s super-industrious Ghostly International label have made 27-year-old Texan Matthew Dear part of electronic music’s elite. Recording on Perlon, M_nus and Ghostly offshoot Spectral Sound, he spans a multitude of brainy sub genres, none accurately capturing the music he makes. He was named ‘Artist of the Year’ by agenda-setting music magazine XLR8R in 2004, his music was described as “interesting and sexy” by Q, and even America’s mainstream media realised something was stirring; after 2003’s Leave Luck to Heaven LP and its little brother, 2004’s Backstroke, Matthew featured in the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone. This Audion project follows last October’s artist LP Suckfish (“pure baby-making genius,” XLR8R; “a landmark release,” Mixmag).

Jake Wherry and Ollie Teeba have worked together for over a decade. They heard about each other at college: Jake was getting a rep with various bands and Ollie was busy collecting records and trainers. Years passed before they started making tracks, but within months of doing so they had been signed to Ninja Tune, just as the hip hop/jazz breaks sound was about to explode. Since then, in a career of consistent creation, The Herbaliser have toured the world, become a headlining festival act, produced artist albums, contributed to film soundtracks (Guy Ritchie’s Snatch), written theme tunes (ESPN’s prime time Sunday Night Football) and worked with some of the most talented artists in the UK, Europe and America.

Tom Middleton and Mark Pritchard met around 1991. Tom was working with Richard James (Aphex Twin), learning the skills of sampling and producing. Mark was busy making techno under the name Reload, and had set up a record label having made some cash on a novelty rave track. The trio collaborated in 1993 on the ‘Collection of Short Stories’ album, soon after which Tom and Mark launched Global Communication. In 1995, they released the album ‘76:14’, a milestone release in electronic music’s history, recently re-released to, and well received by, a new generation of collectors. The name Jedi Knights was introduced to present a more beats-driven project in the same year, but it was withdrawn in 1999 at the request of a displeased George Lucas. Tom and Mark have established fine solo careers, the former as Cosmos and AMBA AV, the latter as Harmonic 33 and Troubleman.

At the age of 16, Lincoln Barrett (aka High Contrast) impulsively bought a Cubase demo, intrigued by the claim: ‘With this, you can even make your own jungle tunes!’ With a background rooted in the film industry and minimal knowledge of jungle (or music for that matter), he didn’t have high expectations. Little did he know that only seven years later he’d be flourishing: signed to Hospital Records, locked in a bulky international DJ schedule and causing a deafening buzz around the world with his illustriously received debut LP ‘True Colors.’

In years to come, techno will be pored over and historicised. It might have given rise to a new movement, like jazz to funk or blues to rock, traceable to its very last bleep and beat. It may have no place in pop culture, only academia, and where there were clubs there could be conventions. Whatever the fate of the brave new world's music, a handful of names will have been immortalised through it. Carl Craig's is one. Carl wanted to be a DJ from the age of ten, inspired, like all Detroit techno artists, by the radio jock Electrifyin' Mojo. His parents discouraged him, preferring to push him towards his studies, but he retaliated with a careerist, serious attitude that almost forced them to foster his interest. By the age of twenty he had served a production apprenticeship with Derrick May, releasing under the names Psyche and BFC on Transmat, and begun his own record label, Planet-e.

Hello There,
Not so long ago, everyone here at Fabric sat down in a circle to have a big think. We wanted to start something different. Something new, cool, fresh and exciting. It would be faster than a chicken and tougher than bread; sleeker than a wardrobe and bendier than a girl. A venture so daring it would probably end up on a daytime TV show called 'Daring Ventures'. A plan that would grab the whole damn world of music by the arse and shake it ‘til its cock popped.