They say time flies when you’re having fun, and if you ask Dubfire whether the last ten years of his career feels that long, it’s clear that he’s been having too much of a ball to notice. It’s only fitting, though, to celebrate this milestone with a comprehensive retrospective of his work: A Decade Of Dubfire.
Cast your mind back to 2007. Electro house was already beginning to implode in on itself, crushed by the weight of excess and formulas. Hard techno had fallen out favour after years of relentless intensity. Straight up house was sounding somewhat stale. ‘Minimal’ was increasingly the word on everyone’s lips, and in the wave of forward-thinking, boundary-pushing minimal techno producers came the birth of Dubfire’s solo career. Hugely successful as one half of Deep Dish – undisputedly one of the greatest house acts of all time – the man otherwise known as Ali Shirazinia was always fascinated by techno, but it was this new stripped-back approach that sucked him into its path.
His knack for combining a sense of minimalism and succinctness with a tough edge and sonic theatrics stood him out from the crowd and gave his tracks serious big room appeal, his productions instantly becoming firm favourites of every A-list DJ worth their salt. Over the years he increasingly fused his love for ‘80s synth pop and electro into his sounds, continuing his lineage of intensely electronic music with raw emotion at its heart. This compilation spans the breadth of his sounds, and is a timely reminder of just how many intense dancefloor moments he has soundtracked.