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When the South Bronx dance-punk outfit ESG released their Martin Hannett-produced debut EP in 1981, they had no idea how pivotal their stripped-back, funk-fueled sound would be on the evolution of hip-hop and house music: ‘UFO’ has been sampled over 500 times; ‘Moody’ was a staple in Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage sets. Four decades later, ahead of their set at Melting Pot & Optimo’s Queen’s Park Spring Weekender, Daniel Dylan Wray tells their story

One day in 1979, a young Renee Scroggins imagined what it would be like if a UFO landed in the housing projects of the South...

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...

rj

After the 2014 release of ‘1021,’ London-born, Toronto-raised, and LA-based artist Rochelle Jordan went through years of business and health-related difficulties, finally coming out the other end with last year’s emotion-drenched ‘Play With The Changes.’ A new remix album, featuring brilliant work from DJ Minx, Byron The Aquarius, Machinedrum and other notable acts, lifts Jordan’s theme of rejuvenation into a thrilling new phase

Rochelle Jordan is sitting in her car, the AC whirring in the background. It’s the tail-end of LA’s latest heatwave, and though you wouldn’t know...

Two pictures side by side. On the left, the Eldorado Auto Skooter sound system. On the right, some of its bumper cars

An iconic 1970s soundsystem lives on inside a Coney Island attraction. Vivian Host catches up with sound engineer Dan Prosseda about the magical speaker stacks of the Eldorado Auto Skooter bumper cars

Most of New York’s revered club soundsystems of the ‘70s and ‘80s are long gone, as are many of the men who built them. Richard...

Danger Mouse & Black Thought: cheating the system

Although it features guests like A$AP Rocky, Run The Jewels and Raekwon, the best moments on Danger Mouse and The Roots legend Black Thought's new LP are in its filmic rhymes, woozy psychedelic loops, soul snippets and jazz and blues rhythms. Here, Ben Murphy speaks to them about their long-awaited collaboration

Hip-hop is ingrained in the work of American musician and producer Danger Mouse. Though he’s made records with Beck, Karen O, Gorillaz, Michael Kiwanuka, Adele...

Richie Blacker

​​DJ Mag heads to Belfast to take a tour around the hometown of rising DJ/producer Richie Blacker, whose music has appeared on labels like Skream's Of Unsound Mind and Anjunadeep

White Dragon Tattoo sits on Botanic Avenue in south Belfast, home to the renowned tattoo artist Chris Crooks, and where Richie Blacker has a studio...

Balearic trance

Ibiza played a central role in spreading a new take on trance around the turn of the millennium — a more soothing vein of the sound that captures the mood of a Mediterranean sunset. As clubs in Ibiza are opening again for the first time since 2019 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, DJ Mag dives into the roots of a genre that was inspired and shaped by the island’s unique appeal: Balearic trance

Long before turning into a global clubbing destination, Ibiza appealed to crowds looking for spiritual growth — with those from the hippie movement settling in...

Alok performing against a purple background

DJ Mag spends some time with the Brazilian DJ sensation while he’s over in London for a show at Ministry Of Sound, and learns about his journey from hardships to huge success — and how being in a plane crash changed his perspective on life for the better

Purple and pink hues stretch across the London skyline as the first stars tattoo themselves above the landscape. Outside the Ritzy cinema in Brixton, South...

Mason 'Exceeder' album cover featuring a wrestler in a mask and cape

When Mason first released ‘Exceeder’ in 2005 it was a B-side. But its fuzzy bassline and gated trancey notes garnered a legion of fans, and it became a key building block in the pre-EDM electro-house scene. 17 years later, he shares its story

“You might go to the same restaurant many times, but do you always order the same dish?” grins Iason Chronis, the artist most commonly known...

Ibibio Sound Machine

London’s Ibibio Sound Machine are back with their fourth album ‘Electricity’. Produced by Hot Chip, the release is more electronic than ever, but retains their classic Afro funk energy. Ben Murphy speaks to vocalist and songwriter Eno Williams and co-founder/saxophonist Max Grunhard about expanding their sound, mixing English and Ibibio lyrics, and the endless joys of playing live

"We started a lot of the songs not knowing what was happening, not knowing where the world was really going,” Eno Williams says, talking about...

Paradox: the numbers game

Three decades and nearly 200 records into his  career, jungle maverick Paradox is still breaking new ground, and earning new fans in the process. Ben Hindle speaks to him about using an old Amiga computer for his productions, keeping the funk in his breakbeat samples, and his dedication to performing live

“At the moment, I’m just trying to think of ways to bankrupt my distributor,” says Dev Pandya, his face plastered with a schoolboy grin. While...

Putting on parties demands optimism even at the best of times. After an unimaginable 20 months, the limits of hope continue to be tested. Will...

Joshu Doherty has been putting on parties for nearly 15 years, but it’s never been this difficult. “The last five months,” he says, “have been...

With inventive production and animated lyrics in Spanish and English giving unique takes on violence and, of course, weed, Cypress Hill's 1991 debut introduced them...

Sen Dog hated driving all the way to Gardena. But as B-Real was buying the weed, Sen begrudgingly agreed to drive him home after every...

Teenage bass music producer and DJ Moore Kismet hopes to flip the script on their scene, and showcase how power stems from breaking the mould...

Unicorns are famously hard to find. The majestic creatures symbolise magic, and in legends of yore, anyone lucky enough to spot one was rewarded with...

Conversations around automation and DJing are tried-and-tested comment triggers — the ubiquity of the tedious ‘press play’ criticisms and ‘sync button’ debate attest to that. But...

In part two of this series, we explored the impact of AI in the studio, with assisted mixing tools from iZotope, right up to full-on...