Angel’s Delight!

Dave Angel’s DJing and productions were, personally speaking, probably my first insights into the extreme possibilities of modern electronic music. Records like the ‘Voyage’ trilogy, ‘Soul Man’, ‘Royal Techno’ and ‘Sea Of Tranquility’ and an unbelievable two-hour set from Angel in Germany at the turn of the decade proved that, though it may sometimes take a harder route, great machine music has a heart, soul and sense of rhythm.

Tracing Angel’s career is like taking a crash course in acid house history: having graduated from playing his uncle’s reggae sound system – “He was like my first agent, man: instead of paying us for our work all he’d do is buy us a beer at the end of the night and pocket the money himself!” – Angel soon became a regular spinner on the South London based Phase One pirate station, playing alongside the likes of Fabio and LTJ Bukem. From then on, Dave Angel became one of the main players on the rave scene, spinning every weekend to thousands of people, and despite a brief spell in the nicker, returned with an inspired remix of ‘Sweet Dreams’ by Eurythmics. He was one of the first UK DJs to play abroad, has released countless 12”s, put out nearly fifty remixes and two long players.

This month sees the release of his second mix project proper, 39 Flavours Of Tech Funk, representing his progression from jazz-inflected Detroit techno to disco-driven hard-phunk music. In between his bouts of studio activity Digital Beat caught up with a man who, by his own admission, “eats, lives, sleeps and shits this music.”

First of all, following your debut album, Tales Of The Unexpected, it seemed like you made a conscious decision to change your musical direction. Out went the deep, jazzy Detroit techno, to be replaced by big, brash disco techno-house. How come?

“Well, for me, music is all about escape, but unfortunately, not everyone looks at it like that, so I stripped down my sound, like a mechanic, and that type of music sells. Generally, people just wanna go out and get drunk, they’re not interested in who’s DJing, and that’s a crying shame. Back in the day, when there were more purist clubs, you could go and get away with more experimental stuff, but that ain’t the case anymore. Nowadays, when I play the main objective is to rock the floor.”

On the subject of your DJing, there was your unforgettable quote from years ago that “when I play I’m always five records ahead . . .”

“It’s still the way. When I DJ it’s like I’m going out to defend my name. I’m a boxer and the crowd is my opponent. I build my sets slowly and gradually: imagine a chef who’s cooking up a stew and has to put the different ingredients in over time. You should never lose that attitude and it’s the one I always had, even if people think you get paid too much for playing records.”

Talking about the old days, what do you make of the direction people like Fabio and Grooverider took?

“What they’re doing is brilliant, especially the stuff with warm, jazzy chords, but I couldn’t make drum’n’bass. People would start saying “This ain’t no Dave Angel record I’m hearing!”

It’s been nearly four years between your last mix project, the X-Mix and your new album 39 Shades. How do the two compare?

“X-Mix was an original techno mix and it accompanied work by new VJs, computer generated images. The music was for when you’d been out clubbing and wanted to chill out afterwards. The new one is more for the car, and has some of my favourite tracks I’ve played out in the last two years. I tried to record it live in one take at The End, but there were technical problems.”

Apart from 39 Shades, do you have any other releases imminent?

“I’ve a new 12”, ‘Insights’ on my own label, Rotation; ‘Excursions’ on Jericho, which is hard but funky; and I plan to do a Sound Enforcer soon as well.”

So there’s no new album on the horizon then?

“After what happened with Island, I’m not really in the right frame of mind to deal with a major. Basically, I can’t go into details but Blunted fell apart at the seams. To be honest, I never really made any money out of those two albums. Anyway, I’d rather spend time on Rotation.”

What new material have you got coming up on it?

“Releases by Vince watson, The Advent, Sound Enforcer and Christian Smith.”

Any chance of live appearances to support 39 Shades?

“Nah, I don’t like playing live much, it’s too time consuming. Instead of taking my studio apart I can just arrive at a club 45 minutes before I’m on.”

Surely you’ll grow old and give it all up at some stage, Dave?

“I’ll never stop making music, and, although being on the road takes its haul, I’m going to keep DJing as long as my health permits it!”

• 39 Shades of Tech-Funk is available on React next month.

Digital Trivia: Dave Angel

• Dave started playing the drums at the tender age of eight

• His sister is pop chanteuse Monie Love

• Angel’s debut album, Tales Of The Unexpected, was once described as the “greatest album never to come out of Detroit”

• His first ever remix, a bootleg version of Eurythmics ‘Sweet Dreams’, was so popular that RCA had to “officially” release it

• Whenever he DJs, Dave takes apart the decks to put the pitch control up to +16, giving his sets that “little bit extra”