Luca Venezia, aka Drop The Lime, is a difficult character to pin down. He runs one of the most influential labels in the emerging heavy bass party music circuit in the US (Brooklyn-based Trouble & Bass), and is as comfortable DJing the occasional all-rockabilly set at an underground bar as he is serving bass-heavy club throttlers to hundreds of hungry, obsessive fans, lost in a sea of T&B t-shirts and pumping fists. Similar to their creator, Drop The Lime’s productions have an innate ability to disorient all traditional restrictions. Artfully fusing sounds and styles, his music manages to destroy the…

These days, in the insulated world of electronic music, the cyclical journey from obscurity to oversaturation to insignificance (and, of course, back again) often happens in the space of a year. It’s all too easy to get numbed by minutae or otherwise lead astray away by the fickle whirlwind of hype. Rummaging through the 15 year discography of the unrelenting, steadfast techno legend Surgeon – and tracing the vast odyssey of his creative exploration – breeds a rare feeling of discovery. And genuine artistry. Surgeon (a.k.a. Anthony Child) stands tall as a true individual in the leagues of electronic music…

The life of a true music lover is a divine mixture of beauty and obsession, dedication and impulse; and there are very few who can be fairly categorised as a true music lover more than Thomas Koch, aka DJ T. His list of accolades and contributions to electronic music are irrefutable, indelible and seemingly endless. There’s his editing and publishing work in the periodical world: founding Groove Magazine in 1989 and remaining its publisher and author for 15 years (Groove remains one of the longest running – 20 years and counting – and most respected dance music periodicals in the…

Buraka Som Sistema have always liked throwing curveballs. From their first DJ residencies, where off-the-cuff sets were “pretty much rehearsed live… mixing for people at raves, that was our practice – kinda like shock therapy” to incorporating unusual material into their songs – recording shattering glass, or throwing an orange at the wall and using the sound as a snare. Even their first drum & bass collective, Fusion Lab, had a reputation for mixing things up: “it wasn’t all about drum & bass, it was all about experimenting with crazy beats.” So it was hardly surprising that some years ago,…

Being a key member of the worshipped Minus family, Magda is used to being propelled into the fast moving, cutting whirr of the hype machine, but she doesn’t really pay it any mind. “I’m not really into this hype thing; I think it’s kind of silly. What really matters is to develop your own ideas and not make any compromises against yourself. Even if there’s big hype – or if it isn’t cool anymore – as long as I’m happy and stay interested and things inspire me, then it doesn’t matter.” All overblown hype and needless gender stereotyping aside, she…

With their vibrant club night Kill Em All, the Filthy Dukes have made an individual and indelible impact on the nightlife landscape of London. True pioneers in their own right, Kill Em All first struck a chord at Camden’s unassuming Barfly in 2001, after the pair recognised a thirst amongst a public raised on both guitars and electronic music. Bored of the dull notion that the two scenes should be kept separate, the Filthy Dukes (Olly Dixon and Tim Lawton) decided to unite dancefloor-geared DJs with hard-edged scuzzy rockers, and went on a quest for artists that embraced both disciplines.…