Max HeyraudDave Angel reflects on playing five gigs in one night regularly during the 1990s, the hedonism of that era, his time with R&S, growing up Black in 1970s London, his longstanding relationship with Ireland and more, ahead of his long-awaited return to Dublin next week at Tengu with Illicit.
Dave Angel feels like the embodiment of what it means to be a lifelong servant of techno and house. With a discography that stretches across decades, from his early releases on Outer Rhythm and R&S, his spiritual home and the label behind many of his most seminal records, to projects under aliases such as Sound Enforcer and Van Da Glee, and more recent outings on labels like Rekids, Angel’s catalogue is one of the most consistently remarkable in electronic music. Timeless record after timeless record has secured his place among the genre’s most revered figures.
The London artist belongs to that rare category of producers whose body of work feels almost untouchable. Since releasing his first record at the dawn of the 1990s, Angel has spent a lifetime shaping the sound of house and techno. Born in the mid-1960s to Jamaican immigrant parents in London, music surrounded him from the very beginning. His father was a jazz musician, and their Chelsea home often resembled a residential rehearsal studio, with musicians constantly passing through to jam. Inspired by Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and his own father, Angel’s earliest musical foundations were built on jazz, soul, and funk before acid house arrived and changed the course of his life forever.
It wasn’t just the sound that captivated him, but the cultural movement that came with it. As he recalls, “This is our music, this is our generation’s music.” Angel lived that history from the inside, at the very heart of rave culture, the acid house explosion, and the Summer of Love.
He would go on to found Rotation Records, a label whose catalogue remains just as coveted today as it was when those classic releases first arrived in the 1990s, while also co-promoting the influential Twisted Funk nights alongside fellow legend Darren Emerson.
To list every achievement, landmark release, or career highlight would be an impossible task. Instead, what makes Dave Angel such an enduring figure is his unwavering attitude and refusal to conform. More than three decades on, he continues to inspire new generations with the unmistakable soul that runs through everything he creates. That spirit, more than any discography or accolade, is the story we wanted to tell.
To start with your early life, your dad was a jazz musician. What was it like growing up in a musical household, and what are your earliest memories of music and sound?
My parents, and my mum especially, always said I was a very needy baby, the first one, and I was always crying, apparently, but there was a piece of music my dad worked out that, when he put it on, it would stop me crying. You know, I’d just lie there kicking my legs up and moving my arms around in the crib, and that piece of music is by Miles Davis called ‘Kilimanjaro’. Even now, as an adult, I still feel a really strong connection to that piece of music. It kind of resonates with me, where it gives me a sense of calm, you know. That’s probably my earliest introduction to music, and I was only a couple of months old.
Growing up in my house, because my father was a jazz musician, he was a bit of a snob, to be honest, and he only really had friends who were like-minded people, so it was always musicians in my house. My mum, bless her, I don’t know how she got through it. If she wasn’t in the kitchen cooking, she’d be sat in the living room reading her book while everyone jammed around her. When I started playing drums, aged eight, I wanted to get involved too, because everybody was jamming in the living room. My dad on trumpet, bass, or guitar, or whatever, a few of his friends on saxophone and bass. You know, that kind of vibe. It was almost like the living room was a rehearsal room, you know, every day. It was a very special upbringing, really, for me.
What was it like growing up in London during the 70s and 80s, both musically and personally? How did that environment shape you?
Growing up at that time in London was very difficult in terms of politics and police brutality, being targeted just for the colour of your skin and stuff like that, but it’s not like we deliberately segregated ourselves or anything. There was a massive sound system culture as a kid. My uncle used to work with Coxsonne Dodd back in Jamaica before coming to England and setting up his own sound system, Sir Gooden’s Hi-Fi. Me being me, I was always like, “I wanna play the music”, I wanted to be the one selecting the music!
Then, after that, when I was around 15 or 16, there was another soundsystem on the estate where I lived called “Torus”, and that soundsystem was where all the boys in the neighbourhood came together, and we all followed it. I was what you’d call a “box boy”, so basically, you know those big fucking speakers? I’d carry the boxes out and wire them up, and we’d be running it all from out the back of a van! I think that whole cultural side of it really shaped me because I was always involved in soundsystem culture. I was playing reggae and funk, basically just using my uncle’s records, and it normally took about four boys to carry that record box. It was like a wardrobe filled with records! You had 12” and 7” vinyl, but around that time it was mainly 7” records that we were playing, and I learned this technique where I could hold four or five seven-inches in one hand and flip them or change them on the turntable.
Even at school, at lunchtime, we had a mess room where all the boys could go, and you’d get this tape recorder with this massive speaker, and it would be like a rave at lunchtime, and I’d be playing! And the music I was playing at that time would be mixtapes friends brought back from holiday in Jamaica, big sound system mixtapes. We’d have a proper jump-up at school lunchtime, haha!
Moving into your introduction to electronic music, how did you first discover acid house in the late 80s? Was it through clubs, radio, records, or a mix, and do you remember your first impressions of it?
I was on Phase One Radio at that time, and you know, being a DJ on a radio station, your first port of call every week was that you needed to go to the record store. So, I can remember walking into Black Market Records in Soho one day, and I hear this fucking 303, and I was like, “What the fuck is this?”, and them boys behind the jump are like, “Yo, check this out, this is some new music from Chicago, called acid house. I can remember the tune as well; it was called “Land of Confusion” by Armando. I heard that tune, and I was like, “Man, I need this, I need to have this, because I wanna play it on my radio show!”
Then, before you know it, I wasn’t buying any soul and funk and stuff like that anymore. The only thing that I was thinking about was music from Chicago and Detroit and, you know, that whole acid house vibe. And, as we all know, it kicked off into a massive movement. It was like you knew that something was happening that was special. I perceived it as, “This is our music, this is our generation’s music, this is fresh, and I have to be on this”, you know. So that’s what I was doing. It was such a beautiful time because everything was so fresh, you know, everything was in its infancy, and this was way before jungle/drum and bass or anything like that.
Once that world opened up, what did your first steps into production look like? What was your first studio setup like, and do you remember the first tracks you ever made?
The owner of Phase One, Mendoza, he was always really open and just helpful to all the boys that were on the station. One day I said, “Mendoza, I need to get in the studio”, and I didn’t know how to operate any studio equipment or any synths or anything like that, I was just a kid, but I knew I wanted to make music. So I badgered him for a while, like, “Mendoza, please get me some studio time, I need to get in the studio”, so he gets me some studio time. I go in there, I fuck around, and nothing really came out of it, but I learned a few things.
Anyway, I think my first kind of studio equipment was when I came up to Swindon. I came to play at my brother-in-law’s birthday party, and he had a Casio keyboard leaning up against the wall, and I was like, “What are you doing with this? Can I borrow it?”, and he said, “Yeah, take it back to London.” So that was it, my studio setup was two turntables, a clapped-out mixer, one speaker, a mono amp, and this little toy keyboard.
The first production that I ever made was the ‘Sweet Dreams’ remix, and I probably spent about a month perfecting it, recording it from one cassette onto another cassette. That was my multitracking, you know what I mean? So I’d record something onto one cassette and then bounce it onto another cassette, then I’d record something new on top of that, and bounce it back again, so each time the quality is declining – it sounded like shit, but it had this feeling to it. It had this really nice sound to it, which was a bit authentic, you know?
So yeah, that was my studio setup: it was a toy keyboard, two turntables, two cassette decks, a clapped-out mixer, a mono amp, and one speaker. And check this out: the speaker, I got it from a friend of mine, and after I’d finished using the speaker, I threw it in the skip, and the speaker broke open, and inside of it was a fucking blow-up doll! The blow-up doll was in there, and I didn’t know anything about it all that time. He’d put that in there to dampen the sound and make it really tight, you know, but because my amplifier was only playing mono, I didn’t notice. I was just a boy, you know. So yeah, I never expected that I’d find a blow-up doll in there when I threw the speaker in the skip, haha.
After that, I teamed up with my manager at the time, whose name was Dave Dorrell, and he was like a big remixer at that time, but because I was pretty hot after doing my ‘Sweet Dreams’ remix, we got together as a remix team, and I think the second track that I made was ‘Belfast’ by Orbital. It’s really funny as well, because I’m so hands-on when I play, but I still didn’t know my way around a professional studio. I had the ideas in my head, you know, and when you’re young you’re full of fire and shit, but people used to say, “Hang on a minute, Dave, let me speak!” After teaming up with Dave Dorrell, it was really good money, and that’s when I started to invest in equipment, you know. Any money that I made from any production, I’d just buy little pieces of equipment. You see a machine here, see one there, and just keep buying shit and building it up, you know.
You’ve often spoken about Detroit being a major influence on your sound. What was your first trip there like? Was it as eye-opening as people imagine, especially meeting artists you’d previously only heard on records?
Well, it’s funny because I didn’t go to Detroit until pretty late in my career. I’d go to record shops in Soho, and I’ll never forget it, there were multiple record shops, so you could spend the day in Soho and record shop-hop. You know, everybody knew everybody, it was like a real collective. But I can remember walking into Black Market Records one day and seeing Mike Banks from Underground Resistance. He saw me, and how he embraced me was amazing, it was like, whoa, these guys from Detroit, they’ve got an amazing sound, it sounds super professional, and at that time I didn’t really have a top studio, but I’d just bought a Mackie mixing desk, and when he asked me, “What mixing desk are you using?”, and I told him that I was using a Mackie 24:8, he was like, “You’re in the house!” That kind of respect, the love that I got from Detroit, was through the music that I was making, so they were listening to me and appreciating my music, which I didn’t expect, but they saw me for who I was in England, as one of their own, you know. Derrick May once came to my studio when it was in its infancy. All I had was a 909, a JD-800, and a little Boss BX-16 mixer, and those guys were loving my music, and that’s after the early R&S stuff that I was doing, they thought I really had something to say, so they wanted to come to my studio, and that was kind of like my connection to Detroit, where I felt that I was accepted and respected as somebody. I have a kind of inherent spirit towards them, you know?
As your career developed, you worked closely with labels like R&S. What has your relationship with them been like over the years? It feels like you and R&S are closely linked in many people’s minds.
Definitely, definitely, we’re family. You know, the first time I left this country by myself, I brought my toy keyboard with me and my little drum machine, wrapped up in a black plastic bag. I didn’t fly; I took a train there, and Renaat picked me up from the train station, and it was just like, wow, I’m at R&S, you know what I mean? For me, R&S was the Rolls-Royce of techno, the tip-top, but I’d been invited to come into their family, and everybody accepted me – CJ Bolland, Joey Beltram, Marcos Salon aka Outlander, and Cisco Ferreira. All them boys were there. It was always family.
You’ve also been revisiting and re-releasing some of the Rotation Records material recently. How does it feel going back to those tracks decades later? What’s it like re-engaging with that era of your work?
There’s so many kids out there that don’t know the history, they just don’t know, and I was like, “What am I gonna do? Just let it all dissolve into history like it never even happened?”, because all of those tracks were on vinyl, and they have to get digitised so that a new generation can hear them, so yeah, I think it’s good, and that’s what you do, you share music for people to hear it, and having a platform when you have such a wonderful catalogue to share, it’s a shame not to share it, you know.
As a DJ who’s been touring for decades, what are the most noticeable changes you’ve seen in club culture over the years?
You know, back in the day, it was all about having a good time, and everybody was learning, we were all learning. It was all in its infancy, and people were still trying to find their sound, their genre that they were in, because we all used to play the same music, and then you started to see the separation, the evolution of drum and bass, some people moving into that, some people sticking with techno, and some people moving into house, but I think the evolution of club culture, as a whole scene, is that it’s become a business, you know, it really has become a business, you’ve got your brand, and you have to push your brand. Whereas before, we were a movement, but not a money-making movement. When I’d go out, you know, I was one to always make sure that I’ve always got a record box ready to go, it’s always ready, it’s there.
Back in the day, you’d go and play this place, and I had a crew of people around me who saw me as their DJ, so you know, maybe sometimes they were a little bit aggressive, but they’d just go into the DJ booth, and if the DJ that was playing is not on par with me, they’d just drag him off and put me on, so they could hear me play, and that couldn’t happen these days. I mean, it happened back in those days, it really did, and maybe I wasn’t even getting paid for it, but it was all about exposure and pushing yourself and promoting yourself, that was our way of promoting ourselves. I’d do like four or five gigs in one night at different venues, I’m surprised I’m still fucking alive, to tell you the truth, because I can remember there was a driver, and this guy used to drop E and drive, you know, it was just so unruly, but everything was so new and exciting and fresh – the music, that little pill, you know, it’s all these things, they all just congealed together to make such a special era, whereas now, as I said, it just seems more money-orientated.
We just went with the flow as well back then, now it’s very orchestrated, not like an illegal rave, or whatever, where you’d see the police raiding the place and shit like that. They brought in this law that allowed them to confiscate your shit, and I can remember me and JP (Dave’s driver), running over this fucking hill to get away from the police at this illegal rave, with my records and hiding down, like we were soldiers, you know what I mean, it was just crazy!
There’s often talk about how in the 90s there was a mystique around records and artists, compared to today where so much is known about the artist before the music is even heard. Do you think that changes how people experience music?
I think, for me, first and foremost, the music has to be good. I don’t care about how you look, or who you are, as long as the music is good. I was watching this clip today on Instagram, and I don’t want to call out any names or whatever, but it was this DJ just jumping all over the fucking place like crazy, and it just seemed fake, like, “Hey, look at me on this stage!” What about the music? The music, for me, is the primary objective. If I’ve messed up in a mix, because I’m so highly concentrated when I’m DJing, especially back in the day on vinyl, if I messed up in a mix, I wouldn’t sleep good. I would beat myself up, I’d be like, “Fuck, I fucked up”, you know what I mean? It’s your passion, it’s your craft, and I’ve always been a strong believer in defending my name, you know, and not kind of talking it up, like I’m this or that and blah, blah, blah – the music does it, man. The music talks.
You said in a 1993 interview, “Techno came from jazz years ago, and forty years from now, techno will be like jazz.” Now that we’re over 30 years on, how do you see that statement today?
I think I prophesied it right. It’s our music, it’s our generation, it’s our movement, you know, like the Summer of Love in the 60s, we had our Summer of Love in the 80s, and that style of music. It’s changed a little bit, but the basis of it, the foundation of it, is still there. I’m really intrigued, if I’m lucky enough to live long enough, to hear what the next generation of producers, DJs, and people – I’m speaking from my grandchildren’s age – what their “Summer of Love” is going to be like, you know what I mean? What is their technology? What is their Acid House going to be? What is their 909 and 808 going to be? You know, because what we found in the early 80s is still going now, it’s still going strong.
In that same period, you mentioned using the studio as a place to channel aggression, which feels like a very healthy creative outlet. Do you still relate to music and the studio in that way today?
It’s how you feel about that particular moment. It’s emotion for me, anyway. Some people, I don’t know how they perceive it, but I know how I perceive it, and your feeling is how you feel at that particular moment, and you translate it, you record it, and it’s yours for that moment. Then, after you’ve delivered the mastered track, it’s no longer yours. It’s for everybody else to enjoy, dislike, or whatever, you know.
More generally, the word “timeless” often comes up when people talk about your records. How do you feel about that label, and how would you describe your relationship with your own music now?
I listen to some of my older productions, and I do know that they are special, and they’re timeless, and they do have longevity, and a moment, you know, it was a part of an era at that time, you know, that was special, so yeah, I do consider them to be timeless.
Finally, you’re coming back to Dublin next month after quite a long time away. It feels a bit like a homecoming. What are your memories of Dublin, and how do you feel about returning?
I’ve always been welcomed in Ireland. They’ve always shown me love over the years, you know, whether it’s Dublin or Belfast, or Kilkenny, or wherever; they’ve always shown me love, and I think going back there now to play, it does feel like a homecoming, because I have such a strong connection with Irish people. There’s actually a massive connection between Jamaican and Irish people – I mean, where I grew up in South London, it was Jamaicans and Irish, you know, we all lived together – they’re true people, just true, sincere, loyal people.
