Greatest Dance Act Of All Time Cover Feature October 2011

The world’s biggest dance music and CLUBBING magazine

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performances include DJing in 1994 with sandpaper discs and a mic in a blender, and what little we know of his life sounds as odd as his music.

Defining moment: The video for top 20 hit ‘Windowlicker’ featured James’s grinning mug atop the bodies of several bikini-clad, bigbreasted “hoochies.”

A Guy Called Gerald

Straight out of the electro/ breakdance crews of Moss Side, Manchester, Gerald Simpson was arguably the first Brit ever to nail making true-school acid house, alone and with 808 State. He went on to make unique mutant jungle (including with Goldie), rarefied cosmic breakbeat, and deep techno in the heart of Berlin. A true original, and still one of the best.

Defining moment: Classic rave anthem ‘Voodoo Ray’.

Armand van Helden

From 1996’s ‘Professional Widow’ remix, ‘My My My’ and ‘Flowerz’ to ‘Bonkers’ and ‘Barbra Streisand’ (as part of Duck Sauce), the incredibly prolific AVH has an unrivalled record of keeping up with club trends and then putting out a signature tune – and he’s the only artist ever to top the charts here with a remix, a solo project and a collaboration.

Defining moment: ‘You Don’t Know Me’ reached No.1 in the UK in 1999.

Above & Beyond A juggernaut. Above & Beyond’s incredible relationship with their fans around the world, the consistency of their output, their astounding new live show and the way they lead the trance scene with their Anjunabeats label makes them so much more than a DJ trio. In fact, they are firmly one of the foremost acts in the history of dance music.

Defining moment: Playing to a million people on Rio’s Barra Beach on NYE 2007.

It was the flowering of acts like Aeroplane that brought shiveringly emotional, euphoric melodies back to the dancefloor. Stephen Fassano left before the release of their disappointing debut album, but as a duo their ecstatic revisions of Friendly Fires’ ‘Paris’ and Grace Jones’ ‘Williams’ Blood’, as well as the joyous drift of debut single ‘Caramellas’, are once-heard, never-forgotten.

Defining moment: Their April 2009 Mixmag CD may be the best we’ve ever had.

Afrika Bambaataa

naki, adam weiss

Words: Chris Cottingham, Nick Decosemo, Digby, Duncan Dick, Gavin Herlihy, Mike Monypenny, Ralph Moore, Damien Morris, Joe Muggs, Sam Richards, Eliezer de Souza, Craig Torrance, Seb Wheeler

ATB

Aeroplane

This is the big one. The next few pages contain our list of 100 bands, beatmakers and producer/ performers who we think have a shot at the most coveted award in the history of dance music: The Greatest Dance Act Of All Time. But if the act that changed your life isn’t there, don’t despair. You can make your own nominations, and get the world to vote for them, at www.mixmaggreatest.com go to www.mixmag Let the arguments begin! greatest.com to vote for your ultimate dance act

ATB

Bambaataa’s 1982 single ‘Planet Rock’ is basically a portmanteau of two Kraftwerk tracks, ‘Trans Europe Express’ (the melody) and ‘Numbers’ (the beat), with some added synth vocals. It was the first electro record, and had a huge influence on both hip hop and dance music to this day.

Defining moment: ‘Planet Rock’, obviously.

Autechre

Above & Beyond

Air

Despite arriving during the mid-90s Gallic invasion with filter-pass disco princes like Daft Punk, Air cultivated an otherworldy atmosphere with glacial chill-out tunes on their peerless early EPs which made them utterly unique – until everybody copied them. Debut album ‘Moon Safari’ was a truly magnificent assembly of cosseted, fragile songs, and one of the few genuinely timeless dance albums.

www.mixmaggreatest.com

Defining moment: The distant brilliance of ‘Le Soleil Est Pres De Moi’ perfected Air’s anti-gravity aesthetic.

Altern-8

Begun as a joke by Mark Archer and Chris Peat, two techno obsessives from Stafford, Altern-8 grew to encapsulate the madness in the air in 1990–2. In dust masks and boiler suits they played to tens of thousands at raves, crashed the charts and created

Aeroplane

It was his 1998 mega-hit ‘9pm Til I Come’, with its onelisten-and-you’re-back-inIbiza riff, that put German producer and DJ Andre Tanneberger on the map, but since then he’s amassed 26 gold and 15 platinum records.

His live show, ATB in Concert, is where he presents his biggest tracks with a live band and the original singers.

Defining moment: This year’s Polish live show with seven amazing vocalists.

Air tracks that still crackle with all the wild delirium of that era.

Defining moment: Peat representing the ‘Hardcore (Altern-8-ive) Party’ in the ’92 election, with promises to make Stafford the UK’s capital and force radios to play acid house 24/7.

Aphex Twin

Rochdale duo Sean Booth and Rob Brown were the crown princes of 90s electronica.

Frozen, bleak, yet captivating, their debut LP ‘Incunabula’ sounded as if it had been beamed down from space.

When on form, no-one did intelligent dance music – as it used to be called – better.

Defining moment: 1994’s ‘Flutter’, a track with no drum repetition, was a protest at the anti-rave Criminal Justice Bill.

Few artists push the boundaries quite like Richard D James. Just when you’d fallen in love with ‘Selected Ambient Works’ his next album was a Blitzkrieg of acid drum ’n’ bass. His

Armand Van Helden

Coldcut

Chromeo

Growing up on opposite sides of the Arab/Jew divide in the creative hub of Montreal, lifelong friends David ‘Dave 1’ Macklovitch and Patrick ‘P-Thugg’ Gemayel were brought together by their passion for music. When Tiga asked the guys for some music for his Turbo label the result was 2003 hit ‘Needy Girl’, a concoction of melody-strewn retro synth-pop, funky basslines and kitsch vocals that defied pigeon-holing. A year later and they had elaborated on their distinct sound with the debut album ‘She’s In Control’.

Defining moment: 2006’s ‘Fancy Fotwork’ LP saw them develop their sound further with catchier, singalong vocals and electropop beats. International success followed.

Basement Jaxx

Dance music had become a serious business by the late 90s, dominated by bludgeoning techno, endless trance breakdowns and angry d’n’b. South London duo Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe’s ’99 debut ‘Remedy’ was just that, a riot of house beats, ragga chat and Latin rhythms that reminded everyone that dancefloors are suppose to be fun. The fact that their 2005 singles compilation got to Number 1, selling over 600,000 copies in the process, speaks volumes about Basement Jaxx’s importance.

Defining moment: Rooty, the Brixton club night where they pioneered their sound.

Carl Craig

(singer) as leader of the band, the quintet released their third LP ‘La Liberacion’ last month.

Defining moment: ‘Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above’ broke CSS as the hipsters’ choice.

Cassius

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Calvin Harris

He’s a man with a knack for feel-good grooves. From his so-infectious-it’s-contagious 2007 debut album ‘I Created Disco’ to his recent No. 2 single ‘Bounce’ featuring Kelis, Harris’s music is all about fun. All of which makes his forthcoming third album a major dance music event, and this year’s sets on The Mixmag Terrace at Cream Ibiza one of the season’s highlights.

Defining moment: His 2009 single ‘I’m Not Alone’ took trance back to the top of the charts as though the noughties had never happened.

Cassius

CSS

Probably the most famous Brazilian dance-rock band, Cansei De Ser Sexy (‘tired of being sexy’) are known for their raucous live shows everywhere from Lollapalooza to Rock en Seine. Formed in São Paulo in 2003, with the oftcatsuited Lovefoxx

Carl Craig

Key players in the French ’ouse phenomenon of the late 90s, Phillipe Zdar and Hubert Blanc Francard were behind some of the most immortal tunes of the period.

Zdar went on to produce bands like Phoenix and The Rapture, while the duo continued to drop classics like ‘The Sound Of Violence’ (2004) and last year’s ‘I <3 U So’ while performing live and DJing as themselves and with Ed Banger’s ‘Club 75’ collective.

Defining moment: Did any tune sum up the euphoria of the ‘French touch’ as well as ‘1999’? Fin de siecle filtered perfection.

Booka Shade

Is there another producer on the planet who has remained so consistently on top of his game for as long as Carl Craig?

We think not. Of all Detroit techno’s originators Carl has cast his net widest, mastering jazz, jungle, electronica, Ibiza house, classical and a dozen more styles beside – yet since his career began in 1989 remained steadfastly true to the underground and to his D-Town roots.

Defining moment: Theo Parrish ‘Falling Up (Carl Craig remix)’ (white, 2005).

To nonchalantly knock out a dancefloor destroyer like this 16 years into your career is frankly inhuman.

The Chemical Brothers

Where do you even start with these guys? The hip hop and New Order-loving Dust Brothers who gave us ‘Song To The Siren’ in ’92? The resident DJs who galvanised the Heavenly Social from the Albany pub to Turnmills? The collaborating kings of big beat and remixers to the stars?

Or should we skip straight on to one of the most orgasmic AV live shows in history? OK, seven classic albums in 15 years it is then. Block. Rockin’. Beats.

Defining moment: Exploding Electronic Battle Weapon paintballs to ‘Saturate/Believe’ on the Other Stage at Glastonbury and across Trafalgar Square in 2007.

The Crystal Method

Chase & Status

It was galling for the UK d’n’b community that it took two Australians – Pendulum – to revitalise the scene’s fortunes. Will Kennard and Saul Milton have since restored the local team’s honour. They’ve graduated from a distinguished underground career to produce tracks for Rihanna, while second LP ‘No More Idols’, a blast of feral dubstep/ drum ’n’ bass crossover energy, got to Number 2 recently. Few dance acts can match them for sheer energy.

Defining moment: Their rise truly began when they got to No. 9 with ‘End Credits’ feat Plan B in 2009.

Chicane

Best known for his emotive 90s classics ‘Saltwater’ and ‘Offshore’, Nick Bracegirdle decided early on that the DJ path wasn’t for him, and instead became a festivalrocking live act. He’s worked with vocalists including Bryan Adams, Sir Tom Jones, Natasha Bedingfield and more recently Aggi Dukes, and with recent gigs in Ibiza, Creamfields and around the world, Chicane remains a headline act with a huge live show.

Defining moment: In 1999 ‘Saltwater’ entered the UK Top 10, confirming trance as the sound of a new clubbing generation.

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rex, zach cordiner, david ellis

Calvin Harris

Booka Shade

Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier’s 25-year partnership extends from 90s synth-pop ‘producersfor-hire’ (once remixing Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl’) to German techno royalty as Booka Shade.

Since setting up legendary Berlin label Get Physical in 2002 they’ve released four incredible LPs packed with deep, melodic hypno-discs like ‘Body Language’, ‘Karma Car’ and ‘In White Rooms’, and taken their iconic drumsynth live show truly global.

Defining moment: Dropping ‘In White Rooms’ to a packed Canvas room at the TDK Cross Central Festival in 2006, announcing ‘Movements’ as a future classic in the process.

From the warehouse parties of mid-80s London to signing new generation heroes like Toddla T and Wiley, via pop stardom, the accidental invention of trip-hop, legendary four-deck sets and untold psychedelic adventures, Jonathan Moore and Matt Black have moved in stealth through the industry causing mischief and mayhem at every step.

Defining moment: ‘Journeys

By DJ: Coldcut – 70 Minutes Of Madness’ took in raw jungle, Dr Who, the KLF and so much more. It may well be the best mix CD of all time.

CSS

Few have managed to span mainstream and underground so conclusively as Tim Simenon. From introducing sampled beats (and, inadvertently, the acid house smiley) to Britain in 1987 with his number one hit ‘Beat Dis’, his list of collaborators includes everyone from Björk, Depeche Mode and David Bowie to The Chems, Fujiya & Miyagi and (most recently) Gui Boratto.

Defining moment: Simenon’s NME cover (1988). The ‘HAIL THE DJ!’ headline and the smiley badge (nicked from The Watchmen comic) heralded a genuine cultural shift.

His live show is stunning, and his head-gear is the most distinctive since Daft Punk’s.

Defining moment: The birth of his ‘flying wedge’ show.

Depeche Mode

Having sold upwards of 100 million singles and albums world wide (certified!), stadium synth legends Depeche Mode have a legacy that now spans 30 years and reaches from

The Crystal Method

Coldcut

naki

Bomb The Bass

Bomb The Bass

robot-heads of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, the lasers have never been brighter.

Through seminal albums ‘Homework’ and ‘Discovery’, the electric Pyramid ‘Alive’ show and the stunning sonic score to Tron: Legacy last year, Daft Punk’s filtered, auto-tuned pop-tronica has made people around the world dance harder, better, faster and stronger than ever before.

With two Grammy nominations and a platinum selling album, The Crystal Method are one of the biggest dance acts on the planet. Combining rock guitars with heavy breakbeats, they sit alongside The Chems and The Prodigy in that they appeal to rock and dance fans alike. With guest album appearances from the likes of Rage Against The Machine, The Crystal Method introduced American stadiums to dance music years before Guetta and Afrojack arrived on the scene.

Defining moment: Debut LP ‘Vegas’ came out in 1997.

One year later it went gold.

Defining moment: Unveiling the pyramid show at Coachella (and Global Gathering) in Summer 2005. Grown men wept with joy.

David Guetta

David Guetta, left, with Fergie and Chris Willis

Fatboy Slim

Guetta kick-started the dancehip hop crossover when he produced ‘I Gotta Feeling’ by Black Eyed Peas in 2009. It’s now sold 13 million copies worldwide. While the haters have criticisesd his stellar success, there’s simply no denying that the 43-year-old French DJ is the biggest name in dance, that his Pacha Ibiza party is incredible or that his success has opened doors for many others. His new album features a disc of instrumental tracks aimed straight at clubs.

Defining moment: Drawing a crowd of 40,000 to the Stade De France in Paris in June this year. Zut alors.

Basildon all the way to LA and New York where songwriter Martin Gore and vocalist Dave Gahan now live. Of course, their two most enduring anthems ‘Personal Jesus’ and ‘Enjoy The Silence’ will live forever, but there isn’t a UK band who better melded emotional synth technology with guitars and a real understanding of the changing face of dance music.

Defining moment: 1990’s ‘Violator’ sold 8m copies and spawned four hit singles.

Deadmau5

Dizzee Rascal

Joel Zimmerman is a former computer coder, vocal in his criticism of dance’s holy cows, particularly “play/stop/pitch” DJs. Yet his irreverent attitude is a breath of fresh air, a discopunk boot up clubland’s rear that’s defined a generation.

Surely Dizzee – Dylan Mills – is THE great British star of our times? His ‘Boy In Da Corner’ album brought the vicious sonics and angsty fury of grime to mass audiences, and since then he’s grown in all directions. Documenting his escape from the “ends”

Daft Punk

Where dance music would be without the French house scene is anyone’s guess – but thanks to the Parisian

Daft Punk Deadmau5

of East London, collaborating with Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen and Calvin Harris, creating a run of the most infectious dance-pop tunes around, winning royal fans... and he’s still only 27. Bonkers!

Defining moment: At the ’09 GQ Awards Dizzee told Kate Moss, “You keep stealing my light – go away!”. It’s become a YouTube classic.

Faithless

Finally disbanding in April this year, Faithless leave behind a legacy of unstoppable live shows and three of the biggest tunes in dance history: ‘Insomnia’, ‘We Come 1’ and ‘God Is A DJ’. Since 1995, Maxi Jazz,

Sister Bliss and Rollo have released six studio albums – breezing their way from sublime Buddhist-tinged chill to a tornado of thunderous club stormers – selling over 15 million records in the process.

Defining moment: Raising a sea of fingers to the sky during ‘We Come 1’ on the Glastonbury Pyramid stage 2001. Maxi: “If I live to be a billion years old and do a million more gigs I’ll never forget that.”

Fatboy Slim

He’s sold eight million albums, won countless Grammies and MTV Awards, had his biggest tune (Praise You’) voted the

best video of all time and remains one of the nicest guys in the business. Norman Cook started off his life in The Housemartins (first No. 1), graduated to Freak Power (second No. 1) and since the late 90s – as Fatboy Slim – has embodied dance music.

Defining moment: Fatboy’s first beach party, Big Beach Boutique in Brighton drew 30,000 people for one of the great party sets of all time.

Unfortunately, 250,000 turned up the following year: cue madness.

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Inner City

Hot Chip

Infected Mushroom

Flying Lotus

If there’s one man who encapsulates the fluidity of the 21st century underground it’s Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus. Deeply rooted in jazz, hip hop and electronica, he has reached out from the psychedelic LA Brainfeeder/ Low End Theory scene to connect to musical one-offs around the world, from Kode 9 to Erykah Badu, Gilles Peterson and Damon Albarn.

Defining moment: Coachella 2010. Following the release of his masterpiece, the ‘Cosmogramma’ album, it was the moment when his electrifying MPC live show took off into hyperspace.

Four Tet

Kieran Hebden has become one of today’s most important producers without ever adhering to a single style. He’s absorbed folk, hip hop, Afrobeat, deep house and so much more, remixed everyone from Nathan Fake to the Manic Street Preachers and collaborated with Burial,

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Four Tet

Thom Yorke and legendary hip hop producer J Dilla.

Defining moment: 2005’s ‘Everything Ecstatic’ – especially in its eye-popping DVD version – is one of the most joyously psychedelic albums of the past decade.

Friendly Fires

Friendly Fires’ euphoric indie is informed by Ed, Ed and Jack’s love for the peaks and troughs of house and techno – take the sample of The Field which adds oomph to the chorus in ‘Paris’, for example.

Their crossover appeal stems from a live show that whips ravers and rockers into a frenzy.

Defining moment: Their headline set on the Mixmag Terrace at Creamfields 2009 was the most talked-about event of the festival.

Goldfrapp

Attempts have been made to tie them into trip-hop and electroclash, but the only fair categorisation of Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory is

Groove Armada’s 1997 hit ‘At The River’ and albums ‘Northern Star’ and ‘Vertigo’ made the duo a firm favourite with the chill-out massive. But GA aren’t all spliffs on couches; the frantic ‘I See You Baby’ was a big beat hit in 1999 and ’01’s ‘Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)’ was all about the peaks and troughs between chillout, breaks and house.

Continuing to evolve through Black and Red Light projects, their Space Ibiza sets and their own Lovebox festival, Tom & Andy are dance music royalty.

Defining moment: Nothing provokes epileptic dancing quite like ’01’s ‘Superstylin’.

Gui Boratto

as great British eccentrics.

Whether making spooky, folky soundtracks to a dream or chart-buggering synth-pop, they’ve never been anything but themselves, with Alison’s extraordinary voice and attitude their crowning glory.

Gui Boratto

Defining moment: Alison performing the gloriously pervy ‘Strict Machine’ to huge pop audiences in ’03... wearing a horse’s tail.

The São Paulo producer’s debut EP ‘Royal House’ (2004) juxtaposed Latin percussive elements with classic French house, but Gui shot to prominence with the release of 12 inch ‘Arquipélago’ on K2, His album ‘Chromophobia’ was a huge success, while this month his third LP, ‘III’, drops together with a new live show.

Defining moment: ‘Arquipélago’s icy perfection heralded a major new player.

Legend has it that the Happy Mondays were the in-house dealers at Manchester’s Haçienda club in 1988. More important was their role in the city’s late-80s ‘baggy’ indie-dance scene. Indie kids loved The Stone Roses, but clubbers preferred The Mondays’ narcotic grooves, wigged-out lyrics and Bez’s freaky dancing. Shame their crack-fuelled hedonism during the recording of fourth album ‘Yes Please!’ bankrupted Factory Records.

Defining moment: 1988’s ‘W.F.L. Think About The Future’ (Paul Oakenfold mix) was the second summer of love cut to vinyl.

School friends Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard formed Hot Chip in 2000, embarking on a journey of experimental rhythms and quirky, angelic harmonies that within six years would become the coolest sound since Kraftwerk.

Tracks from ’06’s ‘The Warning’ became club and festival favourites, while two more classy LPs and a killer DJ Kicks comp ensured their “Laaaaid back”, long-term appeal.

Defining moment: “The joy of repetition really is in you”: 2006’s ‘Over And Over’ got firmly stuck in our heads.

the Human League

www.mixmaggreatest.com Friendly Fires

Jean Michel Jarre

Really? The 62-year-old French dude famous for playing his ‘laser harp’ at huge outdoor concerts at international landmarks such as the Acropolis in Athens?

Absolutely. His live show may be a bit Cirque De Soleil, but his 1977 album ‘Oxygène’ is a landmark in electronic music just as important as Cybotron’s ‘Clear’. And those spiralling proto-trance synths still sound pretty damn special on Salinas Beach.

Defining moment: Performing ‘Oxygène’ to a million people in the Place De Concorde in Paris in 1979.

Justice

The French duo of Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay,

The Knife

Dance music’s Radiohead, The Knife have become increasingly popular and critically acclaimed in the last decade despite each release being weirder than the last, peaking with 2009’s baffling-but-brilliant Darwin opera. Yet, although ‘Heartbeat’s icy pop thrills are long gone, replaced by the desperate electronic blues of ‘Silent Shout’ and singer Karin’s solo project Fever Ray, The Knife is the most important experimental electronic act working today.

Defining moment: José González’s delicate acoustic cover of ‘Heartbeats’ revealed the perfection of the Swedish duo’s songwriting.

Kraftwerk

Detroit’s Kevin ‘Reese’ Saunderson changed the face of dance repeatedly. He was one of the ‘Belleville Three’ who invented techno; he first made the heavy sounds that inspired hardcore and jungle (the infamous ‘Reese bass’); and he brought Detroit techno to the worldwide charts with his wife Paris Grey, as Inner City.

The gloriously upbeat ‘Big Fun’, ‘Good Life’ and ‘Pennies From Heaven’ remain some of the most euphoric moments in dance music history.

Defining moment: ‘Big Fun’ (10 Records, 1988) – any time, any place, it still works: “We don’t really need a crowd to have a party...”

Hot Chip

Every few years a bright-eyed band of keyboard-wielding cool kids revive the synthpop genre. Rewind to 1977 and you’ll find Phil Oakey’s Human League at the root of the trend. One of the first pop acts to fully adopt electronic instruments, they married indie art-rock style with disco swagger. Success came with breakthrough LP ‘Dare.’ The League have toured ever since, headlining festivals like Homelands and Benicassim.

Defining moment: 1981’s ‘Don’t You Want Me’ is still a singalong anthem.

Jean Michel Jarre

Inner City

rex, andy cotterill, elin berg

Groove Armada

Happy Mondays

perou

Damon Albarn’s post-Blur project saw him team up with illustrator and ex-flatmate Jamie Hewlett to create Gorillaz, one of the most original music outfits of the last 10 years. Debuting with zombie-lurching single ‘Clint Eastwood’ back in 2001, the virtual band’s first LP sold over seven million copies, before ‘Demon Days’ went next level and ‘Plastic Beach’ reformed The Clash. With Snoop Dogg.

Defining moment: Their captivating, silhouetted performance of ‘Demon Days’ at the Manchester Opera House in 2006.

This London trio coined the ‘nu-rave’ genre as a joke, yet it summed up their fusion of indie and 90s dance influences perfectly.

The single ‘Golden Skans’ was named after a brand of disco light; a fusion of eyes-shut, joyful falsettos and a killer dance-rock groove, it got to No. 7.

Meanwhile, their cover of Grace’s 1995 hit ‘Not Over Yet’ took the bland trancepop original and transformed it into something spiky and rather thrilling.

Defining moment: Winning the Mercury Prize with their 2007 debut album ‘Myths Of The Near Future’.

Formed back in 1997 by Erez Eisen and Amit Duvdevani, Infected Mushroom are largely responsible for the worldwide popularity of psytrance today. The duo pushed the genre forward, introducing Middle Eastern melodies into their productions and Brazilian percussion into their storming live act. They also achieved a high level of commercial success, being both experimental and dancefloor-friendly. What’s more, they’ve been touring their live show around the world since 1999!

Defining moment: Playing for over 100,000 people on the beach in Rio de Janeiro in 2006, with The Black Eyed Peas.

Groove Armada

Gorillaz

Klaxons

Infected Mushroom

Katy B

Klaxons aka Justice, smashed into clubland in a blur of denim jackets, Marshall stacks, distorted basslines and scraggy haircuts armed with a sound that took the energy of rock and mixed it with the studio sonics of French house. 2007’s ‘✝’ launched them towards global stardom and a world tour taking in festivals like Coachella and Fuji Rock. Grammy and Emmy awards followed.

Defining moment: 2007 single ‘D.A.N.C.E.’ proved that Justice could deliver a big pop single and provoked Kanye West into an embarrassing on-stage hissy fit by beating him to the best video award at the 2007 MTV gongs.

The Knife

We don’t just love Kathleen Brien for being the perfect popstar to bring the pirate sounds of dubstep and UK funky to the charts. Or because she’s the complete package of vocalist, songwriter and performer.

Or because she’s hilarious in person. We love her most of all because of all the new generation artists, she most perfectly captures the joy of being young and out on the dancefloor in her lyrics.

“When we erupt into the roo-oo-oo-oo-oom!”

Defining moment: That ‘Katy On A Mission’ video (2010), filmed at the final massive Rinse rave at Matter. Has a video ever encapsulated the joy of crowds, tunes, friends and bassbins so perfectly?

the KLF

Art rave pranksters The KLF’s five-year career famously ended with them burning a million pounds in 1992, while their first Top Of The Pops appearance featured the band in KKK-style black costumes and with Gary Glitter (prescandal) on vocals. Country star Tammy Wynette joined them on stage for their raucous 1991 performance of ‘Justified And Ancient’; the band featured a guitarist dressed as a giant ice cream cone. They also scored two number one hits with sampleheavy pop rave anthems.

Defining moment: The 1992 Brit awards saw them fire blanks from a real machine gun into the crowd before dumping a dead sheep’s carcass at the afterparty.

The name means ‘power station’, and in a very real way the four dorky Germans are the power source for all electronic music that followed them. Thanks to their incredibly simple but beautiful melodies and elegant repetitions, they took electronic experimentation to the heart of the mainstream, were sampled by hip hop’s originators and inspired just about every dance act of any note of the last 30+ years.

Truly the daddies of us all.

Defining moment: 1984’s ‘Tour De France (François K remix)’ was the moment when their obsession with man and machine in harmony most perfectly locked with the dancefloor.

Kruder & Dorfmeister

Possibly the least prolific of all the still-active names on this list, this downtempo duo became better known for fighting fascism in their native Austria than making music.

Thankfully, last year they returned to touring 1996’s incomparable ‘K&D Sessions’ remix compilation album, full of the eerily swaddled lowslung funk on which their fearsome reputation was built.

Defining moment: Of their dozen or so tracks, it was 1995’s brooding ‘Young Men’ which first announced a serious new talent.

go to mixmag greatest.com to vote for your ultimate dance act

www.mixmaggreatest.com Katy B

Kruder & Dorfmeister

Masters At Work

London Elektricity

The Orb

the charts at No. 1.

Definining moment: New Order’s visit to New York in 1981 where they were exposed to electro and the dance music scene.

laurent Garnier

LCD Soundsystem

Bridging the cavernous cultural gap between Europe and the North American scum is New York, represented in person and music by James Murphy’s LCD Soundsystem from 2002 to 2011. From opening gambits ‘Losing My Edge’ and ‘Daft Punk Is Playing At My House’ to ‘45: 33’ and ‘Drunk Girls’, this newfangled dance-punk band influenced everyone from Soulwax to Hot Chip and Arcade Fire and gave us ‘Sound Of Silver’, one of the greatest LPs of our generation.

Defining moment: LCD’s epic four-hour Madison Square Garden final show, complete with Murphy’s legendary “Fuck you, scalpers. You are parasites.

I HATE you!”, anti-ticket tout diatribe.

Leftfield

Others were more successful, but it was Leftfield who trailblazed the big 90s dance act formula of chart-friendly beats and high-profile guest vocalists – see their 1993 single ‘Open Up’ featuring Sex Pistols/PiL frontman John Lydon. Their third album, ‘Rhythm And Stealth’, got to No 1 in 1999, helped by the thumping beat and snarling riffs of ‘Phat Planet’ (the one from the surfer ad). A new live show unveiled last year blew us away all over again.

Defining moment: Their live show comeback in 2010 was stunning – and very loud.

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Nightmares On Wax

Magnetic Man

Lemon Jelly

As Lemon Jelly, Fred Deakin and Nick Franglen were largely responsible for the ‘folktronica’ movement, combining quirky samples and dreamy melodies with rolling electronic rhythms.

Their performances were as eccentric as their music: giant games of bingo, coloured T-shirts instead of tickets and sweets distributed to the crowd.

Defining moment: Second album ‘Lost Horizons’ was nominated for a Mercury Music Prize and a Brit Award for Best Dance Act.

London Elektricity

The live incarnation of London Elektricity only lasted two years, but burned as brightly as any d’n’b band before or since. Taking tunes from Tony Colman’s ‘Billion Dollar Gravy’ and ‘Power Ballads’ LPs, the six-strong line-up featured jazz singer Liane Carroll on vocals and the incendiary rhythms of The Jungle Drummer.

They played sell-out shows throughout the UK and the world.

Defining moment: Winning over a partisan jump-up crowd at One Nation in 2004.

Magnetic Man

Proof that dubstep could not only bring it to the arenas, but create a proper hellraising wrecking crew of a band. Skream, Benga and Artwork have enough great tunes and shows behind them to deserve to be in this list individually, but together

Even if Nightmares On Wax had only released one single, 1990’s ‘Aftermath’, George Evelyn would still deserve his place in this list. The booming bass, minimal beats and eerie vocals are a copper-bottomed techno masterpiece. Evelyn soundtracked many an afterhours session with his 1995 album ‘Smoker’s Delight’.

One of the key figures in the history of UK electronic music.

Defining moment: 2006’s ‘In A Space Outta Sound’: George won back the crown as downbeat maestro with a festival-slaying live act.

they are the spearhead for a musical revolution that’s still taking place. Party monsters, sonic explorers and bassbomb droppers – they’ve still only just begun.

Defining moment: Sónar 2011 – Magnetic Man played to tens of thousands in a slot you’d expect Richie Hawtin in. It felt like a generational shift… and the bass was seismic.

Major Lazer

Major Lazer

few slightly directionless years, he’s back – not trading on former glories but with genrebusting, rave-rocking future bass music as fresh as anything from his garage days.

A trooper, and living proof of sub-bass’s rejuvenating ability.

Defining moment: Roots Manuva ‘Dreamy Days’ (MJ Cole’s 2001 remix) – is this the funkiest jam ever to emerge from UKG?

Moby

It’s when Switch and Diplo are united behind the rogue flag of ghettoblasting cartoon general Major Lazer that they inflict their greatest dancefloor damage. It was a brave move for these two pasty foreigners to parachute into Jamaica’s notoriously insular music scene to record their debut, but they emerged clutching killer vocal takes from Vybz Kartel, Busy Signal, Turbulence and Mr Vegas, adding authentic ruffness to their technicolour splurges of bashment, dancehall, baile funk and bassline house.

Defining moment: Enticing Radiohead moper Thom Yorke to shake a leg at their annual Notting Hill Carnival throwdown.

Moby

Masters At Work

Massive Attack

Massive Attack stand like a colossus over UK electronic music. It’s not hard to see why. The Bristol crew’s 1991 debut, ‘Blue Lines’, was the perfect distillation of UK soundsystem culture. They went on to play a key part in trip hop’s invention on 1994’s ‘Protection’, then fused it with rock on 1998’s ‘Mezzanine’, one of the musical high points of the ’90s. Last year’s ‘Heligoland’ was a starkly beautiful record. Nothing less than living legends.

Defining moment: 1991’s ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ may be one of the greatest tracks (not just dance tracks) ever made.

Matthew Dear

leaving strange and wonderful songs littered like jewels behind her.

Defining moment: Playing ‘The Time Is Now’ at Glasto 2000 (check it on YouTube).

Roisín’s silk dress fluttering, the sun shining, and a song that perfectly captures those fleeting moments of pleasure.

MSTRKRFT

Laurent Garnier

Matthew Dear

New Yorkers Lil Louie Vega and Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzalez are dance music royalty.

Whether tearing down superclubs worldwide, working with the finest Latin jazz musicians and going fully live with their seminal Nuyorican Soul project, educating the world in true-school hip hop, making perfect, jacking house or bringing joyful pianos and soul divas to the d’n’b world, they embody dance music’s history and flair for innovation.

Defining moment: Hardrive ‘Hardrive EP’ (Strictly Rhythm, ’93): five tracks of hiptwitching house that still sound amazing today – especially timeless classic ‘Deep Inside’.

Exploring pop’s darker outer limits and combining them with twisted electronics, Matthew Dear’s three albums, ‘Leave Luck to Heaven’, ‘Asa Breed’ and ‘Black City’ have gained worldwide critical acclaim.

Both producer and frontman of his band, Matthew Dear also co-founded the Ghostly International and Spectral Soul record labels. Under his alter ego, Audion, Dear has continuously pushed the boundaries of techno.

Defining Moment: Dear’s ‘Dog Days’ (2003) gets a four-star review in Rolling Stone magazine, taking his unique sound to an audience outside the dance music world.

www.mixmaggreatest.com James Murphy

Matthew Herbert

Matthew Herbert

sam jones

Garnier will always have a special place in the hearts of UK ravers thanks to his residency at legendary 90s club the Haçienda and his legendary DJ sets blending jazz, rock, bluegrass and pop with house, disco and techno.

When he takes to the stage to perform live it usually involves a jazz band and the man himself presiding over a console of equipment big enough to make the bridge of a spaceship look shoddy, and all to awesome effect.

Defining moment: His nineminute sax opus ‘The Man With The Red Face’ is one of techno’s most iconic tracks.

Matthew Herbert is known for his use of ‘found sounds’ and the aesthetic and political messages that these represent. For example, on his 2005 album ‘Plat Du Jour’, the samples came from food-themed items and animals, the idea being to make a statement on the global politics of food

distribution and consumption.

A trained musician, Herbert has also assembled a full ‘big band’ whose orchestrations he then computer manipulates live.

Defining moment: 1998: Herbert samples household objects to create ‘Around The House’, heralding the new ‘micro-house’ movement.

MJ Cole

He was the UK garage don who put all his classical training to work in making beautiful, moody two-step anthems like ‘Sincere’ that prefigured the spaciousness of dubstep. But now, after a

Richard Melville Hall, born in Harlem, 1965, is one talented globetrotter. Able to DJ, play keys, guitar, bass and drums, this one-man band clocked up over 20 million sales with rave classics like ‘Go’ and ‘Feeling So Real’ before 1999 album ‘Play’ changed chillout forever. At 45, his live shows still smash it; there must be something in those veggies, because 10 albums in Moby sounds as healthy as ever.

Defining moment: Closing Glastonbury 2003 with an electrifying version of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’.

Moloko / Roisín Murphy

You may know ‘Sing It Back’, but that’s not even the start of it. From four gloriously barmy albums with Mark Brydon as Moloko through working with Matthew Herbert to a new collaboration with Toddla T, the regal Roisín Murphy has carved a unique path through the industry,

Exploding from the ashes of seminal punk-metal outfit Death From Above 1979, nobody expected the grooveled beats that came to define MSTRKRFT’s genre-defying sound. With underground rock and electro-pop backgrounds, the Canadian duo of Jesse F Keeler and Al-P redefined the rock remix.

Defining moment: Performing summer anthem ‘Heartbreaker’ live with Jon Legend on the Letterman show in 2009.

N*E*R*D / The Neptunes

Whether making hyper-pop for Justin & Britney, thumping rap for Clipse and Ludacris or Daft Punk collabs, Pharrell Williams & Chad Hugo prove intense oddness still has a place at the top table. The Neptunes ruled the world in the 2000s; their funk-rock

The Orb Nightmares On Wax

band N*E*R*D is all about experimentation.

Defining moment: Justin & Pharrell fronting N*E*R*D at London’s Astoria (2003), shirtless, to mass adulation.

New Order

Formed in 1980 from the ashes of Joy Division, New Order were the flagship band for Tony Wilson’s Factory Records, pivotal in bringing prototype electronic dance music to the attention of the masses in the UK. Influenced

by NY electro, Italo-disco and of course their own club, Manchester’s legendary Haçienda, they started to incorporate synths and drum machines into their tracks.

The most striking result was ‘Blue Monday’, the biggest selling 12” of all time and hammered by DJs to this day.

As the 80s progressed, acid house and the Balearic sound of Ibiza had an impact on their output: the result was 1989’s ‘Technique’, which entered

www.mixmaggreatest.com MJ Cole

N*E*R*D

You might not think chillout could be revolutionary, but The Orb – a loose collective around ‘Dr’ Alex Patterson – changed perceptions of what music even is. Their tracks are somewhere between a DJ set, a sci-fi movie and the best dream you ever had.

They co-produced Primal Scream’s ‘Higher Than The Sun’, got a 40-minute single (‘The Blue Room’) in the Top 10 and sat down and played chess on Top Of The Pops.

What more could you ask for?

Definining moment: ‘A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain...’ (1990 Peel Session): to the unprepared, hearing this 30 minutes of beauty drifting from the radio was like reality had sprung a leak.

Orbital

In a dark field, when your ears are pounding to some of the most momentous rave tunes ever written, seeing two twin lights nodding on the heads of the brothers Hartnoll is the ultimate reassurance. You’re with Orbital: ‘Belfast’, ‘Chime’ and ‘Halcyon’ are on their way, and soon you’ll be visited by Bon Jovi, Belinda Carlisle, ‘Satan’ and ‘Dr Who’. Two of rave’s favourite sons, 1989 ’til forever.

Defining moment: Recording ‘Chime’ on their father’s cassette deck in 1989.

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Portishead

Soul II Soul

S’Express

Never mind the Balearics – Mark Moore was supporting Chicago house and Detroit techno in the UK long before Oakie and co took their fateful Ibiza trip. In fact, the ex teenage punk had been playing underground music since 1983, and is still doing so with style and panache today. As well as DJing, with S’Express he produced some of the first and finest UK house tunes, and his productions old and new still fizz with saucy disco attitude.

Defining moment: S’Express ‘Superfly Guy’ (Fluffy Bagel mix)’ recalls the days when a top 10 hit would come with a brain cell-sizzling acid remix...

Pendulum

As capable of levelling Creamfields as they are slaying a rock festival, Pendulum outgrew their d’n’b beginnings with the huge crossover success of second album ‘In Silico’. Now they’re a proper live act, guitars and all, without having lost their dancefloor sensibilities, and having worn a LOT of black along the way. They’re nothing less than a phenomenon.

Defining moment: Every festival show is a triumph, but 300,000 people tuning in on a weekday night to watch them preview their new album live from Matter in 2010 showed just what they’d become.

Scissor Sisters

When their electro/disco version of Pink Floyd classic ‘Comfortably Numb’ came out in 2004, the biggest acts of the day were Keane, Norah Jones and James Blunt. Like a pulsating neon dildo of truth, the Sisters batted aside their dullard contemporaries with catchy and remixable tunes and a bold, brash attitude to nail the biggest selling album of the year and pave the way for a new era of colourful, OTT performance.

Defining moment: 2006’s Halloween performance at Brixton Academy, with the band in gothic horror outfits.

Pet Shop Boys

The Rapture

Plastikman

The alias used by Richie Hawtin to provide some of minimal’s best known landmarks was resurrected for a live tour in 2010 and has since become one of dance’s most mind-warping shows.

Picking up on the theme of visual and musical interaction first used by Plastikman in the early 2000s, the show involves Hawtin wielding his machines and lights from within a pulsating LED cage like a techno Wizard of Oz. Defining moment: ‘Spastik’ (’93) epitomised his goal of creating minimalist rhythmic music that had never been heard before.

music isn’t just about what happens in clubs; there’s a wider electronic context and the Bristol trio is one of the most influential electronic acts of the last 20 years. Their ’94 debut ‘Dummy’ defined trip hop and is rightly regarded as a classic. Its dusty beats, spooked samples and Beth Gibbons’ tortured whisper remain immensely evocative.

Defining moment: ‘Sour Times’: trip hop that will never be bettered.

Röyksopp

Way before Klaxons stomped neon footprints all over the good name of indie dance, The Rapture started, fought and won the rock and rave revolution (Without a glowstick in sight). Fusing the irresistible drive of dancefloor beats with a raucous punk aesthetic, the band screeched onto the New York club consciousness in 2001, their first DFA outing ‘House of Jealous Lovers’ presented a sound so fresh and raw it demanded to be danced to.

Defining moment: Reclaiming the cowbell for cool music. It never sounded so punk as in the intro to career defining ‘House Of Jealous Lovers’.

The Prodigy Portishead

No-one has ever danced to Portishead. Ever. But dance

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Ratpack

The original DJ and MC rave combo of Lipmaster Mark and Evenson Allen, aka Ratpack, were omnipresent throughout old-skool rave’s early years. Originally putting on parties of their own, they graduated to the biggest events in the country, becoming fixtures at Dreamscape, Fantazia and Telepathy. Still touring today, they’re surely the hardestworking act in dance.

Defining moment: Securing a No. 1 dance single with ‘Searching For My Rizla’ in 1992.

Rhythim Is Rhythim

If you had to pick just one of the Belleville Three that invented techno in Detroit in the late 80s, it would have to be Derrick May (the other two being Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson). Since 1987’s ‘Strings Of Life’, he’s released just six singles, alongside a handful of remixes and alternate versions, but every one is a work of future-proof genius. It’s no exaggeration to say that techno as we know it wouldn’t exist without him.

Defining moment: ‘Strings Of Life’ is the obvious choice, but ‘Nude Photo’ is the connoisseur’s pick.

Charlie always says: never rule out The Prodigy. Wise words, seeing as Howlett, Flint and Maxim’s little

The Rapture

Roni Size

Roni Size / Reprazent

In 1997 the Bristol collective of Size, Die, Krust, Dynamite and more won the Mercury Prize, marking the middle of a four-year sizzling streak during which Reprazent and Size’s Breakbeat Era project gave us a stunning sequence of high-tensile dancefloor standards (‘Brown Paper Bag’) which d’n’b has never bettered.

Defining moment: Winning the Mercury briefly dragged d’n’b into the mainstream.

www.mixmaggreatest.com Plastikman

Permanently clad in shades and unsuitable white trousers, Sébastien Tellier is the louche Gallic uncle we wish we all had.

His reputation rests mainly on the eddying Balearic beauty of ‘La Ritournelle’, so timeless that God has it on loop in heaven’s chillout lounge. His other flashes of genius – that odd Eurovision performance, Aeroplane’s mix of ‘Kilometer’ – serve to cement his status.

Defining moment: 3 mins 57 secs into ‘La Ritournelle’, when his mellifluous vocal finally kicks in. Bliss.

Röyksopp

For years, Norway’s music scene was mostly death metal, but by the mid-90s rave had reached Nordic shores.

After a few years of false starts under other names, Röyksopp became hugely successful at home and here in 2001 via a blend of laid back jazz and wistful easy listening melodies with quirky lyrics and scalpelsharp beats. Every album since has contained classics like ‘What Else Is There?’

Defining moment: Putting instrumental dance music into the Top 20 with ‘Eple’, at a time when everyone was told they couldn’t cross over without a vocal radio edit.

Scissor Sisters

The Shamen

They may have started out as a Scottish guitar band, but it wasn’t until the The Shamen metamorphosised into rave gods courtesy of the ‘Boss Drum’ album that they found their place in pop culture. ‘Move Any Mountain’ made them rave’s favourite live act in the early 90s, before they shocked the UK with subversive No. 1

Slam

Glasgow’s Stuart Macmillan and Orde Meikle co-founded Soma Records and have put out four artist albums and numerous singles including iconic 1993 anthem ‘Positive Education’. They’ve developed a wealth of Scottish talent (not to mention Daft Punk).

They’re longstanding residents at their Pressure night, curate the mighty Slam tent at T In The Park, have a residency at Fabric and tour the globe. Tartan heroes.

Defining moment: This month’s 20th anniversary Soma compilation showcases the duo’s incredible influence on dance music.

Sébastien Tellier

rex

project, started in 1990, took rave to a jilted generation, brought up big beat, sold over 25 million albums and definitely frightened your mum. When it comes to live shows, incendiary is the word, as with ‘Firestarter’, ‘Smack My Bitch Up’, ‘Out Of Space’ and the rest going mental to this very day, no-one melts your face off like The Prodigy.

Defining moment: Scaring parents all over the country with the video for ‘Firestarter’.

Ratpack

rex

The UK’s most successful duo (over 40 Top 20 hits), Tennant and Lowe may have made a film, a musical, an orchestral soundtrack and a ballet, but everything leads back to the dancefloor. Inspired by the Warhol era of arty New York discotheques, Pet Shop Boys have curated a hugely relatable, bittersweet British pop interpretation of underground dance for 25 years.

Defining moment: Taking house music mainstream and keeping it credible with 1988’s massive success ‘Introspective’, still their biggest seller worldwide, despite being a collection of 12” remixes.

‘Ebeneezer Goode’. Today, cheeky cockney frontman Mr C is still a key underground DJ. Defining moment: C saying “Anyone got any underlay?” on TOTP, then claiming it was a “rug reference”.

Showtek

Dutch brothers Walt & Duro dominate hardstyle. Cutting their teeth with ID & T in a more commercial scene, they combined their experience with the so-called ‘harder styles’, resulting in an unstoppable behemoth and sending worldwide crowds crazy with their accessible dirt.

Defining moment: Remixing ‘Out Of The Blue’ for Ferry Corsten and nailing it to the wall.

www.mixmaggreatest.com

Soulwax

Before the Dewaele Brothers became the greatest party DJs in the world, they had a band.

Three albums in, they took the brilliant ‘Any Minute Now’ album back into the studio and raved it up to fever pitch.

The result was ‘Nite Versions’, perhaps the greatest dance-meets-rock LP ever made, and total festival gold.

Defining moment: Conceived as an excuse for David to visit his girlfriend Nancy Wang in New York at his label’s expense, ‘NY Excuse’ (with Nancy on vocals) turned out to be a classic.

So Solid Crew Soul II Soul

Simian Mobile Disco

Super-producer James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons, Florence, Beth Ditto) and Jas Shaw’s albums ‘Attack Decay Sustain Release’ and ‘Temporary Pleasure’ have both been solid efforts, but it’s the mind-scrambling relentlessness of their live performances which have been such an impressive word-of-mouth success in the last five years, and positioned the London duo as The Chemical Brothers’ natural heirs.

The Shamen Defining moment: The cavernous drop half way through ‘Hustler’ is one of the archetypal Hollywood moments that SMD’s live sets are constructed around.

Bringing together the reggae soundsystem culture of the 1970s and 80s with the thumping funk of hip hop and a no-nonsense London party vibe, Soul II Soul were true revolutionaries. They brought together all walks of life at their parties in pursuit of the groove, setting the scene for acid house, and conquered the US with their soulful tunes.

Defining moment: The Wild Bunch vs Soul II Soul Soundclash, New Year’s Eve 1987, hosted by Tim Westwood: sounds like the best party you’ve ever heard.

The South London collective helped move British rap out of a deep American shadow.

Their stunning success in 2000/1 proved club MCs could be stars of the show.

Sadly, plans to launch solo careers and brand So Solid as UK garage’s Wu-Tang Clan foundered on a lack of depth of production talent and tabloid horror at the violence that sometimes attended their parties and personnel.

Key moment: ‘21 Seconds’ inspired a generation of MCs, but their best moment was Ms Dynamite’s incendiary opening verse on ‘Envy’.

go to mixmag greatest.com to vote for your ultimate dance act Simian Mobile Disco

S’Express

Swedish House Mafia

The Streets

Sub Focus

Nick Douwma cut his teeth making weaponry for Ram Records. Gradually his sound became less focused on the esoteric sound of dancefloor d’n’b and expanded into other musical palettes, culminating in his breakthrough eponymous album. A live show was the next step, and since then he has taken the Sub Focus Live show throughout the world to a rapturous reception.

Defining moment: Headlining the Glade Stage at Glastonbury in 2010.

‘Star In The Hood’ fashion range is in 60 stores across the UK and he’s business partners with Jay Z. Defining moment: A supercharged slot on the main stage at Glastonbury 2011 showed that the business brain is underpinned by sheer showmanship.

Tinie Tempah

Patrick Okogwu arrived late to the UK urban/chart crossover party, but has made up for lost time. His breakthrough single ‘Pass Out’, a ripsnorting clash of rave bleeps and bragadocious raps, got to No 1, and Tinie has since made a habit of topping the charts, not least with debut album ‘Disc-Overy’. He even worked with Swedish House Mafia on ‘Miami 2 Ibiza’.

Defining moment: Winning Best Single at the 2011 BRITs for ‘Pass Out’. Damn straight.

Trentemøller Swedish House Mafia

Not exactly a band, but definitely a supergroup, the Swedes’ Pacha night is one of Ibiza’s most successful.

They’ve released some of the most incredible (and incredibly successful) stadium electro and sold out venues like Brixton Academy throughout the world. Big. Defining moment: The utter ubiquity of ‘One’ should not detract from the fact that it was a barnstorming slice of big-room genius.

Tinchy Stryder

More than just the chart topping pop-grime artist behind hits like ‘Take Me Back’ and ‘Catch 22’, Tinchy Stryder is also the model for artists in 2011. His career was launched with the backing of small investors from Norwich, of all places; his

Danish one-man music machine Anders Trentemøller kicked off his production career back in 2003 with a self-titled deep house EP. But it was three years later, after German house and techno label Poker Flat released his hypnotically beautiful debut LP ‘The Last Resort’, that he was catapulted into the top rank of electronic music.

Momentum and quality have been maintained on subsequent albums, singles like ‘Moan’, remixes of Moby and Depeche Mode, a cracking live show and dancefloor rerubs of his finest works.

Defining moment: His full live band wowed the crowd at Coachella this year.

duo of Mad Mike Banks and Jeff Mills made some of the greatest electronic music of all time, ranging from militant, politicised electro (‘Acid Rain’, ‘Riot’, ‘Seawolf’) to stunningly sensual, melodic tunes like ‘Jupiter Jazz’ and ‘Cosmic Traveller’. Still hammered by the likes of the Numbers crew, their catalogue sounds as fresh now as ever.

Defining moment: Galaxy 2 Galaxy ‘Journey Of The Dragons’ (1993): as luscious and emotive as techno gets.

X-Press 2

Underworld

Part of the first wave of major label dance acts, Underworld sold truckloads of records and sold out arena-sized venues worldwide. After Trainspotting, brand Underworld exploded and they followed it with hit after hit after hit – and still do. From ‘Two Months Off’ to ‘Jumbo’ and ‘Rez’, there isn’t a kid in clubland who hasn’t been touched by the weird and wonderful hand of Karl Hyde. Best of all, they remain as thrilling live today as they did when they first emerged Defining moment: ‘Born Slippy’ going mainstream thanks to Trainspotting: “Lager, lager, lager” indeed.

The Streets Trentemøller

Wiley

Dizzee may be the superstar, but it’s his one-time partner in rhyme Richard Cowie, aka Wiley Kat, who is the warped soul of grime. His brainwrong early instrumentals turned UK underground music inside out, and their reverberations are still heard in new innovations today.

Since then his unending freestyles, Ustream live video appearances, tweets, tracks and albums all run together

X-Press 2 to create one almighty multimedia document of one of the oddest, most creative and most questioning minds in the game today.

Underground Resistance

If you don’t know UR, you don’t know techno: full stop.

As well as founding the sprawling UR collective, the

Wiley

[[1L]] october 2011 Sub Focus

Defining moment: Find the mixtape online of Wiley and Dizzee over DJ Slimzee at a Sidewinder rave in 2002, hear how perfect their flows are together and think about what could have been...

Tinie Tempah

Almost two decades ago three friends, DJs and producers – Darren ‘Rocky’ Rock, Ashley Beedle and Darren ‘Diesel’ Beale – took the art of the DJ performance next level. They brought their respective takes on house, acid, funk and jazz together, playing simultaneously on six turntables, three mixers, drum machines and samplers. They produced a string of massive

tunes (1992’s ‘Muzik X-Press’ forged the early UK house sound) before shaping subgenres like tribal house with huge tracks ‘Smoke Machine’ and ‘AC/DC’. A third studio LP (without Beedle) is imminent.

Defining moment: ‘Lazy’, with David Byrne on vocals, was the defining anthem of summer 2002.

joe howlet, andy cotterill

When Mike Skinner released his debut single, ‘Has It Come To This’ in 2001, all nerdy white boy rapping and lo-fi post-garage beats, it was hard to know whether it was laughably crap or a new genius. It soon became clear it was the latter. The album, ‘Original Pirate Material’, became a touchstone for the UK urban scene. Skinner’s form has dipped in recent years, but every UK MC in the charts owes him a real debt.

Defining moment: Those T In The Park performances were special, but ‘Weak Become Heroes’ defined the ecstasy experience as well as anything ever written.

What, no Wildchild? No Squarepusher? No Stretch & Vern? Don’t worry! you can add your own nominees at the voting site. simply go to mixmaggreatest.com to vote for your ultimate dance act