Scratching the Surface

As a final project for his university marketing class in the early '90s, Matt Darey chose "How to market a rave record" as his topic. He wrote a tune called "Overdose," got a student loan, paid to have 1,000 copies pressed and shopped the records around to stores and DJs himself. Within two weeks, he had sold every copy. Needless to say, he passed the class and discovered what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Darey's production skills had a considerable influence on trance becoming a dominant force in electronic music at the turn of this century. His biggest tune, "Li Kwan--Point Zero," was all over the U.K.'s Kiss-FM and was frequently played by the likes of Paul Oakenfold. And his Euphoria series of mix CDs has sold millions of copies and led to DJ gigs worldwide. But what makes Darey's approach to deejaying unique is his complete disregard for vinyl. These days, he mixes entirely off CDs and CDRs. This allows him to create his own edits and effects and saves him the strain of lugging heavy record bags around when he tours. Catch Matt Darey at Rise this Friday, September 10.