Nick Craddock - Going Somewhere - Mar 2006

Biography of Nick Craddock

Electronic music first properly clicked with me in the mid-nineties. I was still a bit of an Indie Kid then - listening to Sonic Youth, The Pixies, stuff like that. It was with college friends that I got dragged along to Back To Basics in Leeds and, for whatever reason, I found a distinct preference for the stuff they played down in the basement - a room so full of dry ice that you could hardly see your hand in front of your face. I didn?t know that it was called Techno back then - I think I connected with the rawness and the energy of the music.

I basically got sucked into the whole clubbing / dance music thing at that point and, being from Huddersfield, originally, my locality to clubs like The Orbit and Voodoo exposed me to DJs like Jeff Mills, Surgeon, Dave Clarke, Richie Hawtin - the obvious ones, really.

I started DJing at University - messing around on other people's decks - mainly naff belt drive ones. Nothing remarkable about my introduction to DJing - I was shit at first, etc. etc. - the usual, basically. I got better, but didn't buy any decks for myself until about 1998. My musical tastes had broadened a lot by then - having traced Techno back to Detroit, my ears had also completely opened up to House.

Disillusionment with the vast amount of looped-up post-Mills techno led me to delve deeper, picking up on the mutant strains of Techno and House emanating from the continent. I'd already fallen in love with the Chain Reaction material - that really deep clanging dubby sound. Then my ear became attuned to the early sounds of Cologne's Kompakt records, Frankfurt's Klang Elektronik and Playhouse, Perlon and Background. The hook was firmly in, and my interest in dance music was revitalised by this interesting new sound - music that worked on a cerebral level, yet contained enough groove to work on the dancefloor.

This is the path that I've been pursuing since then. The ?minimal sound has become a lot more popular in the UK over the last couple of years, with more nights dedicated to this style, but I still like to mix it up a bit as the glitchy stuff can get a bit dry for some people. I find it works well alongside old Chicago stuff, bits of Detroit, and some more straight-up house music.

As far as playing out is concerned, this really began in earnest when I moved to London. I was quite keen to push this deeper, more stripped down style, but initially there were fewer places that were welcoming to this sound so it didn't always make it easy to find suitable gigs. I held a residency at the Valvo nights in London (and their accompanying show on Groovetech internet radio), where my tastes fit pretty well, and also the (unfortunately short-lived) Public Heroes night run by Third Ear records, where I had the privilege of playing alongside Gilb'r, Alton Miller, and Blake Baxter, amongst others. I was very lucky to land some slots at Fabric, playing four times across both the 'main' rooms - which was a real high point, as was being asked to play at a novamute night at Plastic People. In the last couple of years, I have DJed at quite a number of nights in the capital, including SEND, Clever Music, Bleep, Broken Funk / To The Bone, Freelance + +, at a wide variety of venues, but currently hold a residency at the Sud Electronic parties - arguably the best night catering for the more refined sound, and also London home of recording artists Portable and Lump. Check http://www.sudelectronic.com for news of forthcoming parties and releases.

If you like what you hear on this site, and would like to book me to DJ, drop me an e-mail at website@nickcraddock.co.uk

Cheers