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QRTR press shot

On her new album, ‘infina ad nausea’, Brooklyn's QRTR blends multi-layered melodies with club-ready beats, from house and techno to UKG and jungle. Ahead of her set at DJ Mag's Miami Pool Party this week, she chats to Ben Murphy about her distinctively trippy sound, her famous feline friend, ambientkitty, and the busy festival season ahead of her

“I feel very comfortable drawing from a lot of different influences, and don’t feel like I need to box myself into something necessarily,” says Meagan...

On Cue: Chrissy

San Francisco’s Chrissy sprints from house, Hi-NRG and EBM into UKG and breakbeat hardcore in his ecstatic On Cue mix, and speaks to Marke Bieschke about reviving rave’s original mission on his Hooversound album, ‘Physical Release’

Does rave need a do-over? Three decades on, some of the movement’s most ardent believers have become its fiercest critics. 
“Our scene has failed to...

Solid Gold - Chemical Brothers 'Come With Us'

‘Come With Us’ was the birth point of The Chemical Brothers 2.0, and it came at a vital time, with the dance music slump of the early '00s leaving many big electronic groups looking vulnerable. Here, on the 20th anniversary of the release of the album, Ben Cardew looks back at how 'Come With Us' reinvigorated their career

The Chemical Brothers entered the new millennium looking tired. Their third album, 1999’s ‘Surrender’, featured massive hits in ‘Hey Boy Hey Girl’ and ‘Let Forever...

Daniel Avery in black and white looking at the camera in a big fur coat, white shirt and black tie

Daniel Avery has made the defining album of his career to date with ‘Ultra Truth’. Incorporating everything from techno and ambient to jungle drum & bass, it features contributions from SHERELLE, HAAi and Kelly Lee Owens, among others, and is simultaneously raw and beautiful. Anna Wall meets him in a North London café to talk about collaboration, staying true to himself, and the enduring influence of Andrew Weatherall

It’s a Monday morning, and we’re sitting in the garden of a modest café in Newington Green, North London. Outside, the final rays of summer...

 Best Of British powered by Relentless Energy Drink is our chance to shine a spotlight on the homegrown stars who fill the pages of our...

BEST DJ: ANDY C

The drum & bass don has scooped the Best DJ gong for the second time in this year’s vote...

“It’s the...

Vintage '90s images taken from old free party events

In the summer of 1989, DiY collective — one of the first house sound systems in the UK — emerged onto the rave scene. In this excerpt taken from founding member Harry Harrison's book, Dreaming in Yellow, he discusses DiY's role within that movement, and the importance of free parties during the '90s rave scene

Much has been written and debated over the years about just why the concept of a ‘free’ party was so important. Much more than simply...

Waveform Transmission vol. 1

Released on Tresor in 1992, Jeff Mills' debut LP ‘Waveform Transmission Vol. 1’ is a record that stands for repetition and filth, forged from wrought steel and imbued with scuffed-up funk. Here, 30 years after its release, Ben Cardew takes a deep dive into the sound, origins and legacy of an album that birthed a new breed of techno 

Listen to a lot of older techno today and it sounds rather restrained. Brilliant, yes, and futuristic too, yet largely soft and melodic compared to...

The Sound Of: Touching Bass

Encompassing parties, a record label and a beloved radio show, Errol and Alex Rita’s Touching Bass has created an open space to celebrate Black music in all its forms, from jazz to jungle and beyond. Alongside a woozy mix exploring the DNA of Touching Bass’ past, present and future by Sammseed, Ria Hylton documents the movement’s ethos and story so far 

“Touching Bass is a musical movement,” Errol Anderson tells DJ Mag. “And when I say movement, I’m thinking of forward movement — energy.” Alex Rita...

Nicolette 'Let No-One...' album cover

On 1996's ‘Let No-One Live Rent Free In Your Head’, Scottish singer, songwriter and producer Nicolette worked alongside 4Hero’s Dego, Plaid, Alec Empire and Felix to create an album that mixed jungle, trip-hop, industrial techno and avant-pop into a singular work full of sharp, incisive lyricism. Ben Cardew explores the legacy of the album, and its vision for the future of electronic music

In the modern world, it seems sadly inevitable that any female singer who experiments with dance beats will, at some point, be compared to Björk...

Leon Vynehall sculpts a mix of experimental sounds, smoky house and peak-time techno for the On Cue series, and speaks to Ray Philp about finding...

A copy of Ears To The Ground on a light blue background

In this excerpt from Ears To The Ground: Adventures in Field Recording and Electronic Music, author and DJ Mag contributing editor Ben Murphy explores the use of found sounds in dance music as a means of examining and expressing cultural heritage in our surroundings

At its most cutting edge, dance music is a laboratory of sonic experimentation. Field recordings, foley and samples from the real world have long been...

One of the first legal UK mega-raves to bring dance music culture to the masses was Fantazia. With its emphasis on spending big production budgets...

By the early ’90s, dance music in the UK was already a complex beast. US house and techno cross-pollinated with synth-pop, rare groove and soundsystem...

The cover of New Order's Technique on a light blue background

Released on 30th January 1989, New Order’s fifth album is a sun-flushed pinnacle of dance rock, directly inspired by the hedonistic energy of Ibiza’s burgeoning club scene of the time. 35 years on, with the help of the album’s engineer Michael Johnson, Ben Cardew reflects on its legacy, and its influence on the acid house era

If you want to understand British music’s generational leap from punk to acid house, there is no better lead than New Order’s ‘Technique’. Released on...

Can you feel it: How Mr. Fingers ‘Ammnesia’ changed the house music experience

33 years after its release in 1989, Larry Heard’s debut album as Mr. Fingers is a profoundly moving document of timeless electronic music, brimming with tracks of unrivaled beauty from the then-young world of house

If you’ve ever wondered why Mr. Fingers — aka pioneering US producer Larry Heard — is so revered among house music aficionados (including, notably, Kanye...

‘Pills ’N’ Thrills And Bellyaches’ header

Manchester's Happy Mondays drew influence from funk, house, and psychedelia to pioneer the Madchester sound. Here, Ben Cardew explores the lasting legacy of their 1990 album, ‘Pills ’N’ Thrills And Bellyaches’, which dropped in the midst of the Baggy takeover, and defined an era

Baggy/Madchester (the terms are largely interchangeable) is one of the most globally under-appreciated musical genres to have ever emerged from the UK’s musical underground. And...