DJ Harvey

DJ Harvey, born Harvey William Bassett, launched his recording activities in understated fashion by drumming for Ersatz, the Cambridge, England post-punk outfit he joined while still a teenager. That period is documented on the band's 1980 Leisure Sounds 7-inch "Smile in Shadow." Several years afterward a visit to New York sparked his turn toward DJ culture. By the close of the 1980s his relaxed stage presence and wide-ranging selections, delivered across lengthy TONKA Hi-Fi sound-system performances, had become objects of both envy and respect among up-and-coming club selectors. International bookings followed in Japan and on Ibiza, and he opened the early-nineties Covent Garden club Moist, which welcomed Larry Levan, François Kevorkian, Kenny Carpenter and additional guests. On the mainstream side he held a Ministry of Sound residency, compiled the venue's 1996 Late Night Sessions mix, and supplied remixes for the Police, the Brand New Heavies, Super_Collider and Ian Brown.

In the early 2000s Harvey relocated to California partly because of visa complications. He stayed in the States for an extended stretch, his profile expanding through ongoing DJ engagements, sought-after re-edits and unofficial mixes, further remixes for Electronic, the Avalanches and LCD Soundsystem, and a link with Sarcastic Clothing. One of several side projects that decade was Map of Africa, formed with Thomas Bullock (A.R.E. Weapons, Rub N Tug), which let him explore retro-rock-frontman impulses. At the start of the following decade he fronted the left-field house project Locussolus and the neo-psychedelic group Wildest Dreams (three of whose members also played in Orgone), each releasing an album. Throughout he maintained his reputation as an iconoclastic DJ whose biker/surfer persona matched a broad, open-ended musical approach. Although he later gave up alcohol and other substances, the frequently quoted remark "You can't understand the blues 'til you've had your heart broken, you can't understand my music 'til you've had group sex on ecstasy" still summed up his outlook.