BASS KLEPH

He's a Beatport and ARIA dance chart #1 act and remixer. The boss of two labels, a successful pop songwriter and one of the few truly and awesomely live jamming DJs on the festival circuit - Bass Kleph can do it all.

He started both 2010 and 2011 with Beatport #1s - the first his enormous remix of Shakedown, and the second with his own track I'll be OK. Then an ARIA chart #1 in his native Australia, four tours of the US, his first gig in the mainroom of Ministry in the UK, a local tour for his 2011 compilation BASS KLEPH: PRESENTS - and the continuing success of his live touring outfit BKCA with pop songwriter Chris Arnott.

But his success hasn't come from nowhere. To understand Stu Tyson, as he's known offstage, you've got to know a little about his history.

First, he's been practicing his craft forever. Most kids are still at school at age 15, but as a teenager Bass Kleph was touring Australia and New Zealand as the drummer of a hugely successful three-piece rock act, Loki. Playing live in grubby rock venues, he says, gave him his earliest understandings that there's a dynamic to making crowds dance. A catchy rhythm won't catch without the hypnotism of an irresistable hook - but then even the most nagging hook won't shuffle the feet until it's bent out of shape by the thunder of a serious rhythm section.

Really, the rock world had no chance of holding on to him. As Bass Kleph says, "I remember when Loki got its first album back from mastering. I'd been listening to Squarepusher and The Prodigy. Everyone else was stoked with the way the album sounded - but I thought 'why are the drums so quiet? Why is it all about the guitar?'"

And why, he thought, couldn't Loki do more with that cool little bit of equipment he'd found in the back of the studio - a drum machine?

Loki imploded eventually, the inevitable result of the music industry trying to screw all it could out of the band's three teenage members. Bass Kleph left, determined that he wouldn't taken in by the empty promises of the industry again - but also that next time round he wanted to do it differently. A more electronic sound, focused on his new obsession, DJing.

That was 15 years ago. Bass Kleph been DJIng just about weekly now for 10 years - and the DJ booth is still one of his favourite places to be. He started in breaks, but soon pushed aside that genre's limitations to add new, more subtle shades to his dancefloor palette - hypnotic techy grooves, jackin' electro, and the curveballs that distinguish a real musician from the average gigging DJ. And recently he's moved into jamming and grooving with Native Instruments Maschine, writing new riffs on the fly, playing live drums, and - like all great live musicians - every once in a while holding his instrument above his head and playing blind to the screams of the crowd.

Sure, Bass Kleph's earliest gigs took advantage of his unique understanding of how to bring a crowd to its peak as part of a live band. But it's the hundreds and hundreds of gigs since, from tiny clubs to huge festival stages, that taught him the craft of DJing and playing live, developing a style that now can push the most beard-stroking underground crowd into a hand-waving frenzy, or lock a mainstream crowd into a dark, heads-down and wordless groove.

And of course, there's no-one like Bass Kleph for proving the cliche that the best DJs get the girls on the dancefloor.

However, it's not just about DJing. In 2007, Bass Kleph founded Vacation Records, followed in 2009 by the more stripped-back sound of Exit Row. Releasing and collaborating with international talent like Wolfgang Gartner, Micky Slim, Mowgli, and big locals like Hook n Sling, Stupid Fresh, Twocker, Tommy Trash, fRew, Dopamine, Bass Kleph's labels and his music have helped popularise a wonderfully Australian view of the world. From the label's lazy-days artwork to track titles like Keyboard Cat, Bump Uglies, and But Enough About Me, it's irreverent, but it's also humble and self-depreciating - so today the label's fans stretch from the stadium players like John Aquaviva, Crookers, Rene Amesz, Mark Knight, and Kissy Sell Out to the brightest lights of the techno underground like Alex Kenji, Popof, and Fergie.

Not bad for a man whose teenage self "just wanted to get on stage and bang some drums". As Bass Kleph says, "I love it. I love the journey, because there's always something new coming in music, in DJing, with songwriting. If I won ten millions dollars in the lotto tomorrow, I'd still keep playing live and DJing and writing music - what else is this much fun?"

MAX COOPER

One of RA's top DJs of 2011.

"One of the greatest new talents to emerge on the dance scene in the last few years" - Skrufff.com

"Consistently proves himself to be one of the most peerlessly beautiful recording artists in modern dance music" - IDJ

"One to keep a close eye on" - Fabric blog

"Haunting" - Clash magazine

"Beautiful, hypnotic techno that should be listened to by anybody with even a passing interest in intelligently geared dance music" - Electrorash

'"The End of Reason," a truly sublime beatless tour de force that recalls Philip Glass, Aphex Twin's most serene moments and even Henryk Gorecki's Symphony No. 3" - Resident Advisor

The facts are easy to establish: Max Cooper has more than 50 original releases, tracks and remixes under his belt, from glitchy reinterpretations of big bands like Hot Chip and Au Revoir Simone to straight dancefloor 12"s like his breakthrough "Serie" originals and remixes for names like Agoria, Dominik Eulberg, Extrawelt, Pig and Dan, Kaiserdisco and Sasha.

The approach, meanwhile, is anything but simple. A melancholy composer whose live sets can raise blisters in a club, Cooper is as comfortable writing abstract electronica as he is writing dancefloor techno 12"s . A rationalist with an otherworldly, idealistic side, Cooper is also a wildly creative musician who until recently had a day job as a sober scientist.

And he's swung from extreme to extreme since he first took to the decks 11 years ago.

As Cooper sees it, there's conflict, but it's part of the music-writing process. Each side of his personality sparks ideas off the other, and what remains constant is his own unique and starkly emotional style. From his breakthrough trilogy of "Serie" releases on Traum Schallplatten - the first released in 2009 and with each track inspired by a different scientific or mathematical concept - Cooper has built a reputation for one-off originals, killer remixes and challenging DJ and live sets.

Since his first release in 2007, his back catalogue now includes two mainstream Hype Machine smashes with reworks of Hot Chip and Portishead, several Beatport genre top 10s, work with the visual artists Whiskas fX and Nick Cobby and an increasing number of collaborations with artists a long distance from Cooper's dancefloor beginnings.

With his time now mainly spent writing and touring music, Cooper continues to release his own originals, with 'The End Of Reason' described by Resident Advisor as "a truly sublime beatless tour de force that recalls Philip Glass, Aphex Twin's most serene moments and even Henryk Gorecki's Symphony No. 3", and the UK's IDJ magazine saying that Cooper "consistently proves himself to be one of the most peerlessly beautiful recording artists in modern dance music". Stark, emotive and original, Cooper is, according to Skrufff.com, "One of the greatest new talents to emerge on the dance scene in the last few years".

ABE DUQUE

"Slow-mushrooming menace ... vulgar, almost industrial bass. This is a recurring, if not ever-present theme of the disc: the dude likes to test the subs ... little more than a blunt bassline and a phonecall-from-a-sex-pest vocal ... bumps infectiously ... a totally swinging symphony for kickdrum'n'hi-hat ... Duque's track selections betray his keenness for a certain suaveness, which when applied to house music can often result in "adult situations". Abe Duque seems like the sort of DJ who lives to do this to people - a bit of a bastard, but a bastard who has never lost his hardcore during almost 20 years in the game, and who has scattered his muse across two highly entertaining CDs." - Drowned in Sound review of LIVE AND ON ACID.

ABE DUQUE IS IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE.

The surname is pronounced "Du-kay". He jokingly describes himself as one of the "few producers still licenced to use the 303". But with a career that started in the early days of house at New York's notorious Limelight, Abe Duque has been at the head of the acid-house and underground-techno table since his earliest releases way back in 1993.

His first tracks were influenced by the madness of the Limelight's club-kid audience, later publicised by films and books like Party Monster and Clubland Confidential. But despite jokey titles like "Fantastico!!!", "Truckers Choice" and "Vodka, you sweet companion," his early tracks had the sophistication of his serious keyboard skills and a get-in-and-do-it-yourself aesthetic learned as a kid growing up in the suburbs in Hollis in Queens, New York.

From muscular and melodic techno to cocktail jazz and ambient interludes, his early tracks on his own labels Tension and Hollis Haus, his releases under pseudonyms like Kirilan, Super Secret Symphony and his releases on others' labels like Disko B, Rapture!, Morbid, and Tresor captured a particular period of clubbing history bought to a sudden halt when the Limelight was closed down by the cops.

It was, Duque says, a great time for musical experimentation. Each month bought radical new types of music kit - much of which Duque still keeps in use in his underground studio "the Cave" - alongside an amazement of now classic tracks and new acts.

And as techno was almost exclusively made by working musicians, a lot of it was performed live. At Duque's night at the Limelight night, Abuse Industries, he was part of regular performances with the live techno "chillout supergroup" the Rancho Relaxo Allstars, freeform jams which included now famous techno producers like Duque himself, John Selway and Deitrich Shoenemann. For a short spell, Duque was also the keyboard player for Program2, a techno band signed to Warners for an advance Duque still describes as "insane".

Abuse Industries itself, meanwhile, was Abe's collaboration with the artist Andy Orel, a night so strikingly visual and challenging that its visuals were exhibited in European museums, given page after page in Germany's Raveline magazine, and used in shows by Helmut Lang.

But when the Limelight closed, that roughly marked the end of New York as a clubbing mecca. New mayor Rudolph Guiliani was determined to drive the freaks, the gays and the wasted out of his town, and he mostly succeeded.

Duque by then had a thriving European and worldwide touring schedule, and musicially he still had roots in the underground. Abandoning the glossy, high-fashion style of Tension and Abuse Industries, Duque's next sets of releases were on anonymous, vinyl only stamped with catalogue numbers like "ADR40" [Abe Duque Records 40] and etched on one side at the pressing plant with strange, hand-drawn messages from the man himself.

In some ways Duque was turning his back on the New York style, and on his previous successes. As he describes it, "I wanted to prove that my music spoke for itself". It did. Despite the secrecy about who had actually written the ADR releases, this second part of Duque's career was a run of increasingly massive 12" hits like Champagne Days, Cocaine Nights; Acid, Disco Nights, and in 2004 his monster smash with Blake Baxter, "What Happened?", the track that launched Duque and Baxter out of the underground and into the spotlight. That track's call for a turn away from safe, unchallenging clubbing sold 25,000 copies on vinyl alone and in 2009, it was the focus of a rare remix competition on ResidentAdvisor - despite Duque and Baxter's refusal to market the track by signing it to any the 100s of compilations on offer.

Having been dragged out of the underground, Duque found himself feted by the mainstream, delivering hugely successful remixes of acts like the Chemical Brothers and Pet Shop Boys while continuing to work right across the techno world. There, his brutally funky basslines and acid influence were - and still are - hugely in demand for remixes of acts such as Miss Kittin, Remute, Chloe, Savas Pascalidis, Knart IV and Daniel Meteo - as well as DJ Hell, with Duque becoming a regular on Hell's Gigolos label. The two had met having moving in the same German and NY electronic circles since the Abuse Industries days, and so Duque was asked to produce Hell's infamous album NY Muscle in 2003 and in 2006 to helm the well-recieved "American Gigolos II" compilation.

The highlight of this period, though, was Duque's first album under his own name, "So Underground It Hurts". The title was yet another example of Duque's ambivalence about succcess and its trappings, but the album was undeniably a techno event. Reviewed in the fashion press as influenced by Gigolos' German electroclash style, but the album was understood by the music press as something quite separate and self-contained.

Duque was again striking out along his own path. Part wild acid, part dark house and all leavened with Duque's dry, quiet stoner humour, the album also provided a launchpad for Duque's return to wild live performances - a whiskey bottle in one hand and a 303, drum machine, two PCs and a microphone operated by the other.

It was the start of Duque's second, endless round of watching the world through the windows of a hotel and moving restlessly between a temporary flat in Berlin and his spiritual home in Queens. Several years on the road with his stable of vocalists - Blake Baxter, Tijiana T, Acid Maria, Virginia, and occasional appearances by Abuse collaborator Andy Orel as "Sin" meant that Abe released only intermittently on his own label, Abe Duque Records. There, new tracks like the darkly funny It Moved Me, Whose Got the Flave, and a singles collection on CD When the Fever Breaks added to Duque's reputation as the producer's producer.

Eventually, though, Duque had had enough of continual touring. By 2008 he said he had been doing live sets for so long that he "was thinking about DJing again for a change, just as everyone else was going live". Returning to the studio, he wrote the album Don't Be So Mean, its title an oblique reference to the Iraq war and US foreign policy.

The cover? Duque on the front brandishing a machine gun - and the same machine gun pointing straight at Duque inside. Released in 2009, the album offered optimism about Obama ("Tonight is your answer"), let Blake Baxter loose on the dance scene in a response to What Happened? called Let's Take It Back, and also marked Duque's return to leftfield electronics with tracks like OFMA and Salute the Dawn, which threw together Debussy with lyrics by 1800s American revolutionary and moralist Thoreau.

Don't Be So Mean was also the stepping stone to Abe's three new projects in 2010. The first, due May 2010, will be a compilation LIVE AND ON ACID: two CDs, one of his live show, and one a wrap-up of Limelight acid-house classics. The second, under the broad church of Abuse Industries, is the return of the Abuse Industries night, and a series of sinner-themed Abuse 12s in collaboration with Andy Orel - see abuseindustries.net for more.

And finally, Duque's third new project is a secret performance project that leaves the dancefloor world entirely.

Last year, Abe Duque was in the mood for love, and he said "Don't Be So Mean". But as he enters the third part of his long, strange musical career, that's all going to change.

GRAPHICS

Right now, the music does the talking. Graphics has releases coming on London label GETME - still riding high after its recent release of the Dam Mantle's "We EP" - as well as Super Recordings, Jesse Rose's Made to Play, and new label Granholme.

The releases set Graphics's dab hand with rough, warm bass and techno percussion against a gift for melody described by Boomkat as "more akin to Apparat than anything from the UK bass scene". With tracks already out on Well Rounded / Individuals, Car Crash Set, Wide Angle and Shifting Peaks, his music has also been described by the influential 20 Jazz Funk Greats blog as "a towering example of fractured British dance music" and by XLR8R as a "vibe [that] floats between mediatitively introspective and deeply dance worthy". Mary Ann Hobbs, meanwhile, used his track That Week to smash 12,000 people into submission at her set at Sonar and said, simply, "I *adore* That Week".

"Showing a flair for rhythm and texture, the young artist carves a methodical path trough rich soundscapes, brooding bass, and trance-inducing drum patterns, resulting in a powerful outing where the vibe floats between meditatively introspective and deeply dance-worthy. Graphics seems poised to propel his name into forward-thinking electronic music circles..." - XLR8R

JET PROJECT

From deep electronic sounds to tougher peak time grooves, the Jet Project have proved themselves to be major players both on the production front and behind the decks. Releases and remixes on labels as varied as Get Physical, Snatch!, Viva, Intimacy, Renaissance, Soma & Alive mean the Belfast duo are constantly raising the bar for themselves and their contemporaries.

The Jet Project story began when Timmy Stewart and John McIver were brought together through a mutual love for house music. Both were an integral part of the Belfast scene, John regularly attended Timmy's Digital Boogie parties and they often bumped into each other whilst crate digging in their city's best vinyl emporiums, soon discovering they had almost identical taste in music.

It's worth remembering that the dance music pedigree of Belfast is very strong. The city is the home of seminal techno institution Shine were both djs were residents for over 4 years before moving to their current home at Yello. Early influences and experiences came from David Holmes's legendary Face, Sugar Sweet and Shake Ya Brain events, where the guys regularly got exposed to cutting edge house and techno, you could say these early years helped shape the sound they are known for today.

After a few electric back-to-back dj sets at Shine the guys decided the next logical step was to take all their influences and experience and combine them in the studio. Over the last few years they have perfected their craft with an impressive array of releases on some of the worlds biggest imprints.

Glasgow heads Silicone Soul were the first to spot the twosomes talent and signed their first EP to Darkroom Dubs. Two further EPs followed eventually leading to their debut album,'Heads In The Clouds', which secured the IDJ album of the month slot, not long after the world really began to take notice.

The remix requests then came flooding in and to date the boys have turned out sterling reworkings for the likes of Two Lone Swordsmen, Yousef, M.in, Tom Budden and Roman Tapia amongst others. Jet Project productions were soon getting widespread DJ support, we are talking M.A.N.D.Y., Steve Lawler, Carl Cox, DJ T, Slam, John Digweed, Thomas Schumacher, Sebastian Leger, Rolando, Danny Tenaglia and more.

Stepping things up a gear, the Jet Project secured releases on Get Physical with 'Understand This', Intimacy music with 'Pearl Driver' and 'The Black Arts' EP on Viva Music. They've recently become a firm favourite with Riva Starr who’s welcomed them into his Snatch! family. Their remix of Ramon Tapia’s 'You’ve Got to (Keep Movin)' and 'U Know' single were on heavy rotation in clubs and there is a host of new music soon to drop on Snatch!.

To say the Jets are prolific producers is something of an understatement. Their rich, bass-heavy tracks can rock the biggest space and their production skills have grown hand-in-hand with an increasingly busy DJ schedule. As well as being at the forefront of the Belfast scene, they have showcased their sound at clubs in Berlin, Barcelona, Paris, London, Glasgow, Ibiza, and the USA.

So what can you expect to hear in a Jet Project DJ set?

"We are suckers for a good bassline," explains John, "and altough quite rare, strong vocal tracks. We like to move around a bit, so deep, acid, hip-house and techno tracks can find their way into our sets if they prick up our ears, we can make it fit and flow, it goes in."

Also on the agenda is the Jet Project live show. With over 100 original productions and remixes to their name, they have a wealth of material at their disposal for creating a unique live performance that can be slightly different every time and tailored to fit the mood of the club.

Timmy and John also joined forces with Chris Duckenfield - Sheffield's Duckbeats - to create the forward thinking Extended Play label which now has a dozen well received releases under its belt and received support from djs as diverse as Dixon and Claude Von Stroke.

New material for Get Physical is already in the pipeline with the next album scheduled for release on Snatch! Records.

It's all about standing out from the crowd in the current dance scene and that's exactly what the Jet Project are all about both as DJs and producers. Born out of a passion for solid dancefloor electronics, Timmy and John have now got into their stride and are equally at home in underground sweat boxes as they are smashing up main rooms.

"It seems like every man and his dog can mix two digital files together these days," says Timmy, "but for us good DJing has always been about programming the music and dropping the right track at the right moment. We always strive to do this in our sets, no matter where and when we are playing."

POLYAMOROUS AFFAIR

A duo from Los Angeles, the Polyamorous Affair weave a rich fantasy world - their own mischievous brand of electronic pop, known for its chilly beats and opulent vibes.

PRAISE FOR THEIR MOST RECENT LONG-PLAYER - BOLSHEVIK DISCO

Delicious cool.....seductive and smokey... scrambles your mind. Ziggy in a sage-bath good vibes. - URB

A good excuse to trip out and dance in a world of street parties and hotel rooms, where dark 5am episodes never end too badly and the music swells with saturated colours. It's pretty great. - DAZED

An enjoyable droll of soviet shaped pop. - NME

A fantastic vision of nightclubbing in the spirit of Giorgio Moroder and Eno-era David Bowie. -XLR8R

Totally vibrant. Full of mysterious strutting audio delights... high concept, high class, electronic mastery. - BEARDED

One of the years most alluring records. - AU

Ridiculously addictive. - BARCODE

Strange Bedfellows is certainly the finest offering yet from The Polyamorous Affair; it's an album that looks beyond the default settings of disco revisionism and arrives at an altogether more creative take on synth-loving pop music.
- BOOMKAT

...a subtle interaction of driving keyboard, drum machines, guitars and percussions with lyrical images of witches and sacral motives between the Harlot of Babylon. Sometimes the hereby created atmosphere is almost ethereally dreamy, sometimes menacing - like in the closing exorcism "Rebel" - AUFGEMISCHT

bending African drums and synth into a bizarre, refreshing and kick-effing-ass dreamscape...
-RADIO EXILE

Best of summer 2010
-THE KNOXVILLE MUSIC

The Polyamorous Affair manage to never lose their way , instead seemingly finding artistic success down whatever path they wonder.
- LIMEWIRE

One Damn fascinating affair
-THE POP STEREO

We hear a lot of songs at Listen, Dammit, but few are as immediately striking as "Bright One" by The Polyamorous Affair
-LISTEN DAMMIT!

HIATUS

Iranian-English producer Hiatus’ devastating collaboration with dub reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson is released on the 30th anniversary of the riots it takes as its subject, and which levelled the Brixton streets that both artists call home.

Hiatus – real name Cyrus Shahrad – has long been fascinated by the events of April 1981, a violent retaliation against years of joblessness, segregation and police intimidation among Brixton’s black community, and which shook Thatcher’s Britain to the core.

“It seems a potent time to release Insurrection,” says Cyrus, “partly because of the anniversary, but also because we’re once again staring into the cold eyes of a Conservative government oblivious to the dangers of racial and social profiling.

“We’re facing financial meltdown and mass unemployment, we’re having our libraries closed and our forests sold, and we’re seeing disabled protesters ripped from their wheelchairs when they try to sound the alarm on the streets of London. If there was ever a time to reflect on the largest outpouring of community anger in recent centuries, this is it.”

Like the punk movement that flowered amid uncollected rubbish in 1979’s ‘Winter of Discontent’, Insurrection is the sort of urgent protest music that can only be born of disenchantment: part warning, part clarion call to action, and a sharp contrast to the strings-driven nostalgia of Save Yourself, the sweeping Hiatus debut released to universal acclaim last December.

The track opens with distorted dub organs and Linton’s smoke smothered drawl, before bottoming out with a speaker-shaking bassline and a building sense of menace lent a melancholy edge by a distant piano. It’s a tune both brutal and unexpectedly beautiful, and one perfectly complimented by a video compiled from archive footage of the riots by Cyrus himself.

“Not that I want to paint Brixton as a war zone,” he adds. “I’ve lived here for years, and can honestly say that it’s one of the most peaceful and culturally harmonious places imaginable. But some injustices are hard to forget, and now more than ever it seems important to remember the dangers of ignoring people under intense pressure.”

"Love these tracks." Bonobo

"An unbroken wave of haunting electronica that allows you to forget – albeit briefly – that people like James Blunt actually walk the earth." The Stool Pigeon

"Hiatus makes music with melody, music to remember. It’s the kind of melancholic electronica that makes your skin crawl, it’s that beautiful." Bad Fotography