Nick Annand & Greg Fleming AKA Deekline & Wizard have spent the last five years building a reputation as one of the foremost production outfits in electronic music. With a dizzying array of club smashing hits already under their belts, the release of their 2nd album, “Back Up, Coming Through!”, on the world renowned Against The Grain records is set to cement their position as the premier dance-floor duo that they most definitely are.

DJ Deekline came to prominence with his era defining top-ten anthem, ‘Don’t Smoke The Reefer’, which sold by the truckload and effortlessly placed him at the vanguard of the Two-step, Garage and Breakbeat movements. Greg meanwhile was carving out a career as an in-demand studio wizard (hence the name?), working with the likes of Xpress 2 and The Chemical Brothers, and gaining notoriety for his unswerving drive and deft production abilities. After a quick aside – ‘Get Dirty Baby’ as The Booty Bouncers, – Nick & Greg unleashed an astonishing long player, ‘Breaks, Beats & Blondes’. Weighing in at a fulsome thirteen tracks the album was notable not only for its stylistic breadth, taking in Electro, Reggae, Two-step, House and Breaks but also for its heavy use of vocals from the likes of scene players Yolanda and Spoonface, giving a more human depth to the set. Championed by the Dance music fraternity it opened up a new chapter in Breakbeat, as the scene’s emphasis changed from tracks for a sweaty backroom boys club to music with real soul and sex appeal.

Further singles followed for both Botchit & Scarper and Nick’s own Rat Records imprint plus acclaimed remixes including Armand Van Helden’s ‘My My My’ which was a Zane Lowe Tune Of The Week and the Prodigy’s ‘Out Of Space’ which scored a number one on the German charts.

Whilst constantly delivering club smashing action and in between spates of Nick going out on the road and Greg topping up his studio tan, the pair have been working non-stop on their sophomore set ‘Back Off Coming Through’, described by themselves as the album that lets everyone know that they’ve been around and they really know what they’re doing, it certainly takes no prisoners. Driven to make uniquely thrilling music that shakes you to the core, the duo have covered all bases from Eastern sounds of first single ‘Dancehall Thrilla’ to out and out floor quaking joints. Refining their production style and adding even more musical layers to the melting pot, the album features vocal turns delivered by Top Cat, DJ Assault, Wonder Kid, Yolanda and gospel singer called Vic Bynoe, making it all the more obvious that Deekline & Wizard’s love of vocals shows no sign of abating.

Nick’s take is as candid as ever “Nowadays a lot of dance music has got a very short shelf-life and for me vocals give it that extra little element to keep your attention and it keeps me interested in a tune, if I hear a whole set of tunes without melodies or vocals I get bored. I think the vocals enable you to take your sets on a bigger journey, but it’s a thin line to be able to really use vocals in a dance track so that people will still play it.”

Greg is similarly forthright about the importance of a good vocalist “It’s personal preference, some people don’t like vocals, club types, but for me and Nick they’re essential, you have to give a tune an identity and a story. The main thing for me in working with vocalists in the studio is that they have different ideas of melody and the whole process of working together is when the magic happens, bringing a vocalist in adds musicianship, it helps gel the track together so it sounds classy like old tracks used to do and you don’t get lost in that whole digital thing.”

Out now on Against The Grain Records and crossing vast stylistic planes with the unflinching swagger of a bare knuckle boxer, ‘Back Up, Coming Through’ is stunning evidence of a production duo at the height of their mercurial powers.

These breakbeat banditos first hooked up after a chance conversation exposed their joint love, some might say bordering on obsession, for music: “We were just chatting about old hip hop records”, recalls Aston. “And realised we both owned all the same tunes. We’d both been making house and Matt had this idea for an electro track so we just started working together.” That electro track became ‘Drop The Bomb’ and on release in ’97, launched the pair as the Freestylers. “The first record we ever sampled was by an act called Freestyle”, Aston explains. “At that time sampling played such a major part in our sound, we felt it would be a fitting name. Raised on a diet of Public Enemy, Afrika Bambaataa and, erm, The Jungle Book (“That soundtrack was the first record I ever bought”, laughs Aston. “I was the original junglist!”), the Freestylers sound is rooted in hip hop but has evolved into a unique British concoction, taking in everything from dancehall to reggae, electro to soul and breakbeat to drum and bass. “It’s pretty tricky trying to sum us up,” admits Matt. “Our sound is pretty raw, raw and very instant. Basically it’s like breaks for the masses, but as we’ve both got pretty eclectic tastes we bring a whole spectrum of influences from the seventies onwards”. “Hip hop heads come to see us,” continues Aston. “But so do ravers, reggae fans… it’s quite mad really – two funky white boys bringing all these people together”.

So far in a glittering career he has gained dance music’s top accolades including Best International DJ at the Australian Dance Music Awards, Breakspoll’s Face of Breaks 2003 and Best Breaks DJ at the M8 Ibiza awards 2006, in only his first year as a resident on the white isle. A stunning haul at Breakspoll 2007 saw him claiming Best Album for his debut long player ‘Freakshow’, Best DJ for a record third consecutive year and to cap it off, the richly deserved Outstanding Contribution to Breakbeat award that acknowledged his long journey to the acme of club culture.

Inspired by the hip-hop and electro sounds that were rocking his world, Martin first stepped behind a pair of decks when he entered a DJ competition and incredibly, as a complete novice, he made it all the way to the final. With his love affair for the wheels of steel well and truly cemented, Krafty Kuts set about learning his art, perfecting the cutting and scratching that was to become the core of his DJ sets.

Immersing himself in the music he loved, Martin went on to run one of Brighton’s most popular record shops throughout the 90s. Building an encyclopaedic knowledge of dance music in all its forms, Krafty’s expertise marked him out as a prime supplier of dance-floor bullets to Brighton’s musical elite, including the town’s most famous son Norman Cook. Having built a fearsome DJing reputation for himself across the south-coast, with a string of high-octane gigs it was during 1996 that Martin took the next logical step, transferring his dance-floor knowledge to the studio, creating his own tracks to take his sets to the next level.

His first big break came when a dubplate of Krafty Kuts’ ‘Gimme The Funk’ found its way to Norman Cook who immediately snapped it up for his Southern Fried label, releasing it to huge club approval. Suitably impressed Ministry of Sound offshoot FSUK took on Krafty unleashing a string of classic singles; ‘Funky Elements’, ‘Wild In the Aisles’ (a tribute to Martin’s legendary appearance on Supermarket Sweep!) and ‘Return of the Elements’.

With his own tracks elevating his profile across the globe Martin mixed his first compilation ‘Slam On The Breaks’ which gathered the cream of the breaks scene into a mercurial mix, further enhancing his notoriety as a devastating deck technician and selling by the bucket-load. At about the same time, Krafty hooked up with Skool of Thought to establish the SuperCharged club night. Home to his longest standing residency, the night continues to pull in huge crowds and after 8 years of all encompassing party action on a Wednesday night, it is now one of Breakbeat’s most globally revered nights.

With the club world at his mercy the demand for Krafty’s studio abilities reached new heights. Becoming the remixer du jour, Krafty transformed numerous tracks in to serious party bangers for the likes of Jurassic 5, Arthur Baker, Eric B & Rakim, Stakker Humanoid and Afrika Bambaataa’s Funky Heroes’, for which he won a Best Remix award.

By 1999, with his all-encompassing club style, blending beats and breaks across the board, honed to perfection, Martin entered the studio with Freddy Fresh, long standing studio partner Ed Solo and NY’s own Dr Luke. Together they produced a series of beats and skits that were destined to become the backbone of Finger Lickin’s legendary Finger Lickin Funk release.

The following two years saw Martin’s star rise still further, creating music for a Coca Cola advert, PlayStation 2 and Guy Richie’s ‘Mean Machine’ as well as mixing one of Mixmag’s most popular cover mount CDs. With DJing and music making taking up all of his time, Krafty decided it was time to leave music sales behind and left the record shop that had proved pivotal in his early career. Free to concentrate fully on his creative side Martin launched both the Against The Grain and SuperCharged labels with club partner Skool of Thought and began releasing a series of smart-bombs that would hake the foundations of the Breaks scene. The ‘Lost Plates EP’, ‘Lock The Hype’ and ‘Sound Check’ proved beyond any doubt that Krafty Kuts was now established as a force to be reckoned with in dance music.

Having conquered the Breaks scene, Martin turned his attentions to a different groove and returned to his Hip-Hop roots. Following up on a contact made during his record shop days, he began a studio collaboration with up and coming DJ A-Skillz, that resulted in the stunning Hip-Hop and Party Breaks album Trickatechnology. Critically lauded on it’s release, the album saw the pair collaborating with rhyming behemoth Kurtis Blow, Dr Luke and Freakpower’s Ashley Slater on a series of superlative turntable compositions that demonstrated Martin’s fathomless knowledge of old skool breaks.

With the demand for his records and club sets showing no sign of slowing down, Martin took a backseat with the labels and club promotion and flung himself headlong into non-stop touring and recording. Working solidly throughout 2006 Krafty completed his debut solo album, Freak Show. Once again the tracks featured a stellar cast of collaborators from the Scratch Perverts, Tim Deluxe and Dynamite MC, to long term associates A-Skillz, Ashley Slater and Dr Luke. Mirroring Krafty Kuts’ universal approach to partying and the dance-floor, the album moved through myriad tempos, taking in Acid, Breaks, Booty Bass and Funk with a consummate ease. Again the plaudits flooded in, with Freaksow gaining album of the month in DJ magazine and top marks across the board. The album’s lead single ‘Bass Phenomenon was a ubiquitous feel good anthem of the summer and its popularity proved such that it won DJ Magazine single of the year 2006. Still played world-wide the track has recently spawned its own remix competition. Following hard on its heels a Fabriclive compilation proved to be one of the series’ most popular instalments with Martin’s trademark eclectic nature shining through.

From humble beginnings Krafty Kuts is now one of the big players on the world’s club scene DJing alongside The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim and even the Rolling Stones. Continuing his residency at SuperCharged (which will be free before 11pm as of January 2008) Martin is unequivocally one of the hardest working DJs around. With his forthcoming Back To Mine already raising the bar for the well established series it appears there is no end in sight to the meteoric rise of Krafty Kuts.

Skool Of Thought has played a fundamental role within the world of ‘nu skool’ breaks since its birth in the late nineties. From DJ to producer to promoter to record label manager, Skool Of Thought is a true pioneer and ambassador of beats, breaks and bass.

As the driving force behind the award winning Against The Grain & SuperCharged record labels, he has helped steer the successful careers of his artists including Freestylers, Krafty Kuts, Deekline & Wizard, Ed Solo, and Splitloop. As an artist, he is the guy responsible for the enormous Groove Armada ‘Superstylin’ breaks remix, the ‘Heavyweight Breaks’ mix series of albums, anthemic singles such as ‘Love Your Life’ and ‘When I Was A Yout’ and his acclaimed ‘Random Acts Of Kindness’ LP. With Krafty Kuts, Skool Of Thought is resident DJ and joint founder of SuperCharged, the now legendary breaks night in the UK, which has also played a central role with shaping and developing the breakbeat scene. The press have been quick to snap him up with a front page feature on Australia’s 3D World magazine and features in just about every dance music publication.

Today, he is based in Australia and once again forging new ground and pushing new sounds with the launch of his label ‘Cool & Deadly’ with fellow DJ Tayo. This new venture is for those DJs (and enthusiasts) who have an appreciation for bass music in all its forms. The aim of the label is to explore all the music that falls into the space between breaks, dubstep, dub, garage and beyond.

Reflecting on the beginnings of his career, Skool of Thought says “10 years ago I found myself mesmerized with Cold Cut’s ‘Journeys By DJs’ mix CD and after meeting like-minded beat freak Krafty Kuts we set up our record label and club night. Krafty Kuts become the face of our organisation and whilst I have played all over the world I have not always had the time to fully dedicate myself to my first love, DJing. Now, with my move down under and feeling inspired with new genres of dubstep, baltimore breaks and beyond I am armed and ready to destroy many more dance floors!”

Let’s flick back through the misty turntables of time to around 9 years ago, whilst flicking through some dusty vinyl in a Brighton record store, Skool Of Thought had a chance meeting with a certain DJ known as Krafty Kuts. After establishing a mutual respect for breaks the pair decided to get their heads together and start a club night to showcase new music and new talent. SuperCharged was born with the dynamic duo as resident DJs and the who’s who of the emerging breaks scene as guests, the night would later be recognised as a fundamental part of helping form the scene we now know as “breaks”. SuperCharged continues to run week in week out and was recently voted in at number 21 in the top 50 club nights in the world. “If dance music is in decline then the 400 strong clubbers who turn up to SuperCharged every Wednesday missed an important meeting” added Source Magazine.

From this success Skool Of Thought and Krafty Kuts launched two record labels “Against The Grain” & “SuperCharged”, two labels to cope with the volume of booty shaking music the pair had install! With Skool Of Thought as label manager they released a string of club smashers and a succession of number 1 hits in DJ magazine’s beats & breaks chart, they won best new label at the 2003 Breakspoll Awards and later went on to sign the Freestylers. The labels went in to overdrive with the Freestylers’ “Push Up’ single hitting top 10 in the 5 countries, most notably in Australia where the song hit number 2 in the pop charts making it the biggest selling breaks tune ever with over 100,000 copies sold worldwide!

So when Skool Of Thought was not busy running club nights and record labels he was making the transition from DJ to producer with huge tracks such as “Sound Check” and “Feel The Music” and mixing the monumental “Heavyweight Breaks” albums, all of which hit number 1 in DJ magazine’s beats & breaks chart and clocked up some serious sales. Fast forward to 2008 with the release of Skool Of Thought and studio partner Ed Solo’s debut artist album ‘Random Acts Of Kindness’ on Against The Grain. The album takes a more musical and organic approach to breaks and injects some soul back into the scene with its heavy dub reggae influences. “I’ve really enjoyed helping pioneer the bassline breaks sound but feel the need to explore more musical influences whilst retaining a dance floor sensibility” explained Skool Of Thought.

The latest offering from Skool of Thought comes in the way of the punching breakbeat / dubstep digi-single “Heart of The Hood / Budgie Smuggla!”

Irish lads Phil and Bren AKA Splitloop, met on the bus to a Prodigy gig back in the day and found they not only shared a love for Liam Howlett’s beats, but a passion for producing banging tunes. The chance meeting sparked an enduring partnership that’s rocketed them high into the breakbeat premier league.

Since the release of their first album “Here on Business” in late 2005, Splitloop have been nominated for Best Album & Best Producers at the international breakbeat awards, been on the cover of IDJ, had feature articles in Knowledge and DJ mag and have been very much in demand with a hectic touring schedule playing to stadium crowds in Russia, Spain, Australia, China, New Zealand and the UK.

On their second long player “Pleasure Machine” Splitloop have dipped their toes into other styles of electronic music giving it a velvety sheen, touching on modern sexy D. Ramirez-type electro-house, juddery Justice riddims, Plumpy breaks and a hell of a lot more. Phil and Bren of Splitloop admit to exploring other genres when writing ‘Pleasure Machine’, the broadening of their horizons has had a profound influence on the Splitloop sound. “You can’t be looking only to one genre to get inspiration for your music,” reckons Bren. “That would just be a ridiculous feedback loop”.

“We’re at a stage where we really just wanted to make music we thought was really good and moving our sound forward, not worrying about what anyone else would think.”

Bren is philosophical about their early career. “Our first studio had a broken toilet, so everything smelled like piss,” he remembers. “We could never afford monitors ‘cos all our money went on pills and beer. As soon as we gave up pills, we bought monitors and got signed.”

Like Orbital, with whom they share an absence of hair, Splitloop jam tunes live. “It’s a great opportunity to tweak tunes as a crowd vibes off them,” enthuses Phil. “Something you can only do in a limited way playing records.”

“Chopping and changing parts, adding synths… I think more energy comes across in what we do live,” declares Bren.

Ed Solo is the shy, nocturnal half of many a production duo. More elusive than a badger in the Sahara during daylight hours. Ed Solo regularly locks himself away in secret studio locations, co-writing breaks with Krafty Kuts, Skool of Thought or Deekline, and drum ‘n’ bass with Brockie or Darrison. His teaming with Skool of Thought has provided a host of huge singles, including ‘When I Was a Yout,’ ‘Love Your Life’ and ‘Babylon Breaks’, along with the thundering remixes of Groove Armada’s ‘Superstylin’ and Freestylers v Pendulum ‘Painkiller’ which have seen them in high demand for production work as well as for DJing.

Meeting Skool Of Thought in 2000, at a time when Ed was creating breaks with Krafty Kuts and, finding common ground in their approach to music, they two decided to write tracks together. The first Ed Solo & Skool Of Thought single was the double a-side ‘Feel The Music’ and ‘Loud Noise’, bottom heavy thumpers with a soulful twist which caught the attention of many in the scene and shot the 12″ to number 1 in DJ Magazines Beats & Breaks chart. Their tunes were spotted by a production company that was working with MTV, and the boys were soon commissioned to write the music for the MTV EMA’s (European Music Awards), which later won an award for ‘Best Title Sequence’.

Following these early successes Skool Of Thought found himself devoting more time to the record labels and less time as an artist and it wasn’t until 2007 that time permitted Ed Solo & Skool Of Thought to once again join forces – delivering their debut album ‘Random Acts Of Kindness’.

‘Random Acts Of Kindness’ encompasses all of the sounds and styles that have influenced the pair over the years; from soul, funk and reggae to drum n bass, hip-hop and breaks. Effervescent, opener ‘Love Your Life’ isn’t just for the ska jump up crowd, it’s great song-based fare and an early indicator of how the album delivers to more than just the dancefloor. Next up is King Tubby sampling soundbwoy stylings of Babylon Breaks. Reggae influences rear their head again on slowburning skankers ‘Life Gets Better’ and ‘Raspberry Dub’, while the D&B Remix of ‘Feel The Music’ does exactly what it says on the tin. Dipping into the UK underground with a bassline to loosen your fillings on ‘Sludge’, the guys show they have an eye for the retro too with their reworking of Incognito’s classic ‘Always There’. Throw in piano-laced hip hop (‘Sometimes’) and beeps and bleeps aplenty (‘Tug Nut’) and you’ve got an album, which could never be described as samey.