Loco Dice

Loco Dice, a house DJ and producer whose style leans minimal, calls Düsseldorf, Germany home. Among the labels tied to his output are Four:Twenty Recordings, Ovum Recordings, Cocoon Recordings, M_nus, and Cadenza; he also runs Desolat, the imprint he launched alongside production partner Martin Buttrich. Born Yassine Ben Achour in Tunisia, he launched his career in the early 1990s under the name Dice'C, working as a rap MC and DJ. That phase brought modest recognition in his adopted country of Germany, highlighted by the 1996 12-inch EP Coming from D-Town on Flavour Records and support slots for major rap and R&B acts including Snoop Dogg and Usher. He later abandoned rap for house music, adopting the Loco Dice moniker at the same time. A residency at Düsseldorf’s Tribehouse club followed, leading to an encounter with Timo Maas; the superstar producer and DJ promptly signed him to Four:Twenty Recordings. Dice’s first production credit arrived on that imprint with the 2002 12-inch EP Phatt Dope Shit, initiating a long string of joint efforts with Buttrich; also in 2002 he reworked Maas’s track “Help Me,” which featured Kelis.

After two further Four:Twenty 12-inch EPs—City Lights in 2003 and Cellar Door in 2004—plus the 2005 DJ mix album Circoloco@DC10 Ibiza: Monday Morning Session, Dice shifted to Josh Wink’s Ovum Recordings for the 2005 release Menina Brasilera/Jacuzzi Gamez and the 2006 follow-up Flight LB 7475/El Gallo Negro. Concurrently he placed material on Cocoon Recordings (the 2005 mix album Green & Blue and the 2006 12-inch Carthago/Sorted), M_nus (the track “Orchidee” on the 2006 compilation min2MAX and the 2006 12-inch Seeing Through Shadows/Backroom Melody), and Cadenza (the double 12-inch Harissa in 2006). In 2007 he handled mixing duties for the seventh installment of the Time Warp DJ-album series, and he and Buttrich established Desolat. The label issued the full-length album 7 Dunham Place the next year.