12 Senses

2000 Black

Afro Force

Ashong and Tatham

Blakai

Orin ‘Afronaught’ Walters, Paul ‘Seiji’ Dolby, Kaidi Tatham, Daz-I-Kue, Alex Phountzi, Cliff Scott, Mark Force, Matt Lord and Mikey Stirton make up the group known as Bugz in the Attic. Brought together by Orin Walters and Seiji during 1997 in Orin’s attic studio the group now boasts a label, BitaSweet Records, a studio, The BitaSuite, and the Bugz production company. Bugz in the Attic refers to the whole group of producers/musicians/DJs with individual talents and influences but with a common goal – to create and promote quality dance music. Known widely for their remix work Bugz maintain a very individual approach to their operation, and it is this that has helped push their sound forward and prevent them getting stuck in any musical rut or fashion. Many of the crew have carved reputations in their own right and on their own terms and together they’ve upheld a reputation across Europe and the World which their sheer number and vision has helped to maintain. 1999 saw the start of their own label Bitasweet Records which has been home to several underground classics including Kaidi Tatham’s ‘Betcha Did’, Mark Force’s ‘Gypo’, Seiji’s ‘Loose Lips’ and dkd’s ‘Future Rage’. 2004 brought the release of the 4hero/Bugz collaboration album, dkd (Dego 4hero, Kaidi Tatham & Daz-I-Kue), ‘Future Rage’ and will also see the release of the Bugz in the Attic Remixes Collection, ‘Got The Bug’ in October through V2 Music. Bugz have also been DJing and performing individually and collectively at clubs and events throughout Europe and the rest of the world for the last few years, including tours of Japan, USA, Europe, Australia & New Zealand, the annual Bugz Party at Miami WMC, and are involved in the legendary ‘Co-Op’ club in London which has been jammed on a Sunday for 4 years.

Bugz In The Attic

Cousin Cockroach

Crunchy Nut Cornflakes

Da One Away

Da True B Boy Descendant

Absorbing a lifetime’s worth of soul, reggae and hip-hop growing up in North-West London, Dego was a sound system selector before he had left school and a pirate radio DJ not long after. Developing as a producer, his first releases were at the dawn of the 1990s as part of 4hero, dance music pioneers for whom jungle and drum n’ bass was their work’s exoskeleton, shooting off into techno and jazz. Their sound was freely infused with myriad musical influences and a wealth of renegade London spirit, supported along the way by all-star guests like Larry Mizell, Roy Ayers and Terry Callier. They turned out a slew of albums – among them 1994’s Parallel Universe, the Mercury Prize-nominated Two Pages in 1998 and 2001’s Creating Patterns - each one a thrilling statement of musicianship, a shade ahead of the pulse of modern British black music and a deft balance of the avant-garde and daring futurism. At the start of the 2000s Dego, Phil Asher, IG Culture and a cast of other likeminded Londoners started Co-Op at the Velvet Rooms, a clubland home for a fresh new scene that was emerging. The sound of the club was maybe best captured in 4hero’s ‘Hold It Down’, a Dego-written minor hit. His 2000BLACK label, meanwhile, was gallantly carving out its own niche via a series of singles, albums and compilations, its output an uncompromising concoction of house, techno and soul, or just London boogie for short. Then his first solo album A Wha’ Him Deh Pon?, a storming, sprawling twenty-track opus, won across-the-board acclaim in 2011. After a spell working in New York in the mid-2000s, Dego returned to his London roots and picked up where he left off. A reinvigorated 2000BLACK put out the Tatham, Mensah, Lord & Ranks long player, an exemplary piece of teamwork with frequent collaborators Kaidi Tatham, Matt Lord and Akwasi Mensah. And in 2013 and 2014 Dego embarked on a string of hotly received 12” releases: a diverse three-tracker on Italian imprint Neroli; a one-two punch combo of EPs for Eglo and Brooklyn producer Falty DL’s Blueberry Records; and another deadly triple-header on Theo Parrish’s Sound Signature. Dego’s sound might be difficult to pin down – naturally morphing into something else when you think you’ve got it figured out – but what remains consistent is his vivid awareness of the wisdom in leaving genres out of the picture and letting the music itself do the dirty work.

Records by UK broken beat pioneers, Dego & Kaidi Tatham

Artists