Layo & Bushwacka

Layo & Bushwacka!'s love affair with music started as teenagers at the dawn of acid house; it’s led both of them through techno, breakbeat, electro, dub, electronica, and any other pigeonhole that’s been thrown up in its wake. Emerging blinking into the light almost two decades later with a sound that fuses all their influences, they’ve maintained their position at the head of the pack. It's the same outlaw spirit of eclecticism that still informs their five hour DJ sets, whether at their spiritual home The End in London, a beach in Brazil (the inspiration for this album), or a superclub in Ibiza or Argentina. It’s this spirit that turned the limited edition 12” ‘Untitled’ into a global anthem, becoming 'Love Story', and crashing into the charts worldwide in 2003, including the UK Top 10.

Layo and Bushwacka! have come a long way from the teenager who frequented Clink Street's acid parties and the kid who dropped classical music for the hardcore scene. Together they took the emergent strains of techno, tech-house, electro and breakbeat and welded them onto blues, classical and film soundtracks of the last hundred years, creating the dance floor sound for our new century. The first decade of the new millennium has seen global club culture stretch its tentacles ever further. The rising epicentres of clubbing are no longer restricted to those affluent, Western nations of old, some of the brightest beacons are to be found in the new world. Rio is one such city.

On this album, Layo & Bushwacka! offer up a mix of the old and the new. CD 1 is a treasure trove of classic, lost gems, and defining moments in the evolution of house and techno. Ellis D rubs shoulders with Marshall Jefferson via Daou, Lil Louis, DJ Pierre, Francois K, and Eddie Flashin’ Fowlkes are all present, as are the likes of Cajmere, Detroit’s Kenny Larkin (with a rare Hawtin mix of ‘We Shall Overcome’). If you want to know how we came to the music you hear today, then this is no better introduction.

CD2 is all about more recent and forward-facing bumpy, electronica. Phonique, Pier Bucci, Guy Gerber, Stefan Goldman, Martin Buttrich, and Henrik Schwarz are all included for your listening pleasure. Also included in the mix are a host of Layo & Bushwacka!’s own material, including ‘Tabloid’ and ‘Saudade’.