Plump DJs

Plump DJs, Andy Gardner and Lee Rous are an amazing duo to see live. They are based in London and produce electronic dance music together. The pair have used a combination of electro, bass and house music in their mixes, which works extremely well. With the use of strobe lights and interesting music remixes, they manage to get a small crowd in a club to a huge audience at a festival dancing and screaming along. The atmosphere is electric, just like their music, providing endless appreciation from myself and everyone around me. They have sometimes swayed from the types of music they have produced, but in 2012 they released their smash club single 'Gobbstopper' and 'Don't Stay in Mix', going back to their old ways, which is what I like best. They still tour the UK and do several festivals, which is great news for me and any other electric music fans, they also do tours in the US and Canada, generating more loyal fans as they go. If you haven’t heard of these 2 then I hope you get the chance to listen to their remixes and experience seeing them perform live. They give an energetic performance and know how to get the audience involved.

Jaguar Skills has released so many mix tapes that it’s almost impossible to have listened to all of his tracks, so seeing him play live was awesome, because there were so many tracks that I didn’t know before. Most DJs focus on a particular genre to mix and master, but Skills goes for a more eclectic approach, and has cut and pasted several different genres to create his original sound.

Another thing about watching him perform live is the mystery attached to him as a person. Famously he wears a balaclava whilst performing and his age is also unknown, which proves pretty exciting when watching a show. He played a great mix of covers, remixes, and original tracks, and his talent of flowing from one track right into the next was on fire all night. He had everyone singing along and dancing full out with him all night.

It was incredible the way that the venue was set up, and there was a camera on the DJ desk which was projected on a screen behind the booth, showing how Skills was creating the music. Watching his hands manipulate the vinyl to create incredible sound effects was something like I’ve never seen before and absolutely blew me away. He kept putting his arms in the air to get us to dance along, and when he performed a song that everyone was really getting into, he was great at dancing along with everyone.

Despite their name, there;s no discernible link between Utah Saints and the U.S. state from which they’ve taken their name; instead, they hail from Leeds, and are an electronic dance music duo who’ve been prominent in the genre since 1990. Over the course of an illustrious career to date, Jez Willis and Tim Garbutt have become well-known within their own scene and beyond for the manner in which they’ve brought sampling into the dance genre, often taking classic pop songs - like Kate Bush’s ‘Cloudbusting’ on their single ‘Something Good’ - and mashing them up against dance beats in order to present them in an entirely new context. For the first decade or so of their existence, Utah Saints played live shows with a full band, but despite maintaining a strong live following across Europe, they decided to move in a different direction in 2001, and since then have only performed in front of crowds as DJs. Not that that’s had an adverse effect on their live stock, though; their set at Wickerman Festival in Scotland in 2009 was so influential that it was nominated for a raft of festival awards that same year, and the pair continue to tour the UK and Europe frequently; they’re cult icons within their own scene.

British DJ-production duo Stanton Warriors are underground legends in UK dance music, having been making music and smashing sets worldwide since the late ‘90s. Often great producers, which Stanton’s Mark Yardley and Dominic Butler certainly are, tend to be lacking in the DJ department, but these guys are super skilful. I’ve seen them at countless festivals over years, from little boutique type events like Beach Break to the biggest UK festivals like Glastonbury, as well as European festivals such as Exit in Serbia. They made their name with oldschool breaks – some of the best breakbeat cuts have been showcased in their Sessions mix albums – but they flesh out their sets with everything from electro to drum’n’bass.
More recently, especially since their Warriors album, they have been injecting truckloads of bass in their sets, as they did at Electric Brixton in 2011, which featured more rave music and dubstep. At this particular night they were the standout DJs by a mile, with everyone in attendance dancing frantically along to their oldschool vibes. They even laced their own breakbeat productions with additional, wobbly bass, ensuring that devotees had something new to chew on. Oldschool they may be, but seeing Stanton Warriors live never gets old.