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Hard to Eat!

The unstoppable appetite of Bristol house head Eats Everything

Sometimes you can palpably feel the buzz surrounding an artist, like the charged air before a thunderstorm, and having heard the monsoon of releases about to rain down from Eats Everything, we predict an all-consuming torrent of excitement coming his way.

Hailing from Bristol, the small South-West city making a very big impression when it comes to dance music excellence, Eats Everything, aka 31-year-old Dan Pearce’s recent ‘Entrance Song’ on Catz ‘n’ Dogz Pet Recordings smashed its way into the upper echelons of the Beatport chart, as well as Maya Jane Coles’ debut Essential Mix, combining Julio Bashmore sized-subs with crystalline rave synths akin to a more house-friendly Lone.

If this represents getting his foot in the door of the big time, following previous releases for Southern Fried and an initial break in breakbeat as Schmidt, then he’s about to (adopting Michael Caine accent) ‘blow the bloody doors off’ with the release of two great slabs of wax forthcoming on Dirtybird.

“Now that there’s this hype we’re trying to come together to create something like Dirtybird have in San Francisco,” admits Dan on the US label’s influence when we catch up to talk about Bristol’s current halo, surprisingly revealing that he still hasn’t met Julio Bashmore, aka Matt Walker, despite their close proximity, both geographically and sonically.  “It’s great to be a part of it, especially as Bristol’s never really been known for house music. It’s been known more for urban music, drum & bass with Roni Size back in the day, or before that Portishead.”

Having been DJing since ’93 under various names, you call still hear fragments of his teenage love of the hardcore and jungle-techno being spun by the likes of Carl Cox and Ellis Dee, and his later taste for Murk, MK and Rhythm Masters. Yet it’s the sound of Switch and Solid Groove that made the most impact on his early productions, a measure that he feels he’s finally catching up to, albeit with his own distinctive rearrangement of house conventions.

“I heard his first few records around 2002, and they were so different to everyone else,” enthuses Dan. “Before that, people were making formulaic electro house, then he came along with this weird, fucked-up groovy sound.”

If you need confirmation of how much Von Stroke wanted to put out ‘The Size’ (released in late October), a pumped-up slab of dancefloor meat revolving around the opening strings of Moby’s ‘Porcelain’, you only need to know that it was acquired via what Dan calls a bit of “amicable wrangling” from Worthy, who already had it lined up for his own Anabatic label.

Before that, though, comes Worthy collaboration ‘Tric Tac’ (out 21st September), an ‘80s electro-influenced monster as likely to appeal to Boddika and Pearson Sound fans as house heads, and backed by another hulking behemoth ‘Beeside’, a track Claude Von Stroke re-edited himself (“He changed it enough so that it could be a collaboration project which — excuse my language — is fucking cool, because then, I get to work with him now,” Dan chips in excitedly).

“For some reason, by no intention whatsoever, my music seems to crossover. The tracks that have come out, and are coming out, seem to be played by your Visionquests, and people like that, but also the Rinse FM crew. It’s weird to hear Tensnake and DJ Zinc playing your records!”

Added to this is his part in housier duo Coat Of Arms, alongside DubNoir’s Chris James. Having signed up to Bristol’s Future Boogie label, the histrionic, high-pitched vocal of their first release ‘Is This Something’ caught the ears of yet another prime mover, with Hot Creations main man Jamie Jones including it on ‘Fabric 59’ (out 12th September), while also dropping as-yet-unreleased Eats Everything tracks in his recent sets.

With Marcin Czubala amongst those now queuing up for remixes, and tracks under both guises set to drop on Pets Recordings’ forthcoming label compilation, Dan is preparing to devour all in his path.
“How well it’s done is beyond anything I’ve imagined,” he reflects on ‘The Entrance Song’, still in the Beatport Top 10 when we speak, despite being over five-weeks-old. “All of a sudden it’s snowballed, so here I am now!”

Taken from DJmag issue 501 out now - subscribe to our online edition here.