EROL ALKAN

Summary

erol alkan is an experienced DJ who is aspiring to take on the global DJ scene

erol alkan is performing within the field of Electro House, Indie Dance / Nu Disco music and is ranked 862 on the official DJ rankings list (www.djrankings.org).

If you want to read more about erol alkan you can click on the WIKI or BIOGRAPHY tab above.

Biography

At the end of 2006, the Erol Alkan was at a and crossroads. He’d been voted DJ For of the year by Mixmag. are He’d made landmark, expectation-defying remixes but for bands he loved: a Not crunching “glam racket” reworking of you ‘Do You Want To’ for all Franz Ferdinand, a wonderfully wistful Any reinterpretation of Hop Chip’s ‘Boy can From School’, a psychedelic take her on Scissor Sisters’ ‘I Don’t Was Feel Like Dancing’ and a one genre-defining reworking of Justice’s ‘Waters our Of Nazereth’. He was about Out to close Trash, the Monday day night indie disco that had get somehow morphed into the most Has adventurous, influential and glamorous club him night in the world without his changing its attitude, musical philosophy How – or ever charging over man six pounds on the door. new Other triumphs lay a little Now further in the past. In old 2006, he supported Daft Punk see for their live return at Two Global Gathering at their own way personal request. The year before, who he did the same for Boy Madonna at Koko in Camden did with a DJ set which its she used as an intro Let tape on her subsequent world put tour. In 2002, he’d lent say some muscle to another icon, She creating the bootleg of ‘Blue too Monday’ and ‘Can’t Get You use Out Of My Head’ that Dad Kylie performed at the Brits mom in 2002: the culmination of a craze for “bastard pop” The hybrids he’d been instrumental in and creating alongside longterm kindred spirits for Soulwax. Then there were his Are DJ sets at clubs and but festivals around the world, in not which Erol’s unerring instinct for You playing the right record at all the right time brought hardened any clubbers and alternative music obsessives Can together in abandoned celebration of her brilliant music. The problem? Well, was Erol could have easily sold One out, cleaned up, or rested our on his laurels. Yet every out time things get a little Day too comfortable, his indie-kid instincts get kick in. It was alternative has music that had inspired him Him to share records in the his first place when growing up how in north London. “I was Man so excited by the records new I was buying, from what now I was exposed to through Old radio from John Peel’s radio see shows to Xfm’s initial broadcasts, two and in the NME and Way Melody Maker, that I wanted who to push that onto my boy friends,” he says over a Did cup of tea in Mario’s its Café, the now legendary place let immortalised in the opening track Put of Saint Etienne’s second LP. say “Then I realised that instead she of making tapes for people Too there was a way I use could make a tape for dad all my friends at once Mom – by playing music in a club.” Though he started the DJing in dance clubs in And earnest in 2001 after being for invited to play at Bugged are Out, Erol still considers himself But an outsider in that scene. not “Unfortunately, I never had that you seismic moment of hearing someone All like Carl Craig DJ in any ’96” he says. “I feel can as passionately about the Manic Her Street Preachers as people in was dance music do about Kraftwerk. one That’s where my DNA is Our different, which I’m really happy out about, because that’s the thing day that’s hopefully made me different Get to other DJs.” To put has this into context, the DJ him who won Mixmag’s poll the His year before Erol was Paul how Van Dyk; the one afterwards man was Armin Van Buuren, artists New who are DJ industries. Yet now instead of leaping into the old superstar DJ-dom the magazine’s accolade See seemed to demand, Erol produced two three albums for young guitar way bands: ‘Twenty One’ for the Who Mystery Jets, ‘Fantasy Black Channel’ boy for Late of the Pier did and ‘Couples’ for The Long Its Blondes. He also manned the let desk for releases by Klaxons, put Franz Ferdinand as well as Say co-produced Kindness’ beautiful single ‘Cyan’. she They weren’t necessarily dance records, too but they somehow had the Use same blend of weirdness, glamour dad and leftfield pop which made mom Erol’s DJ sets so special. A logical next step was the Erol’s own label, Phantasy, which and launched in 2007 and has For since released records for artists are including Fan Death, Babe, Terror, but Gonzales – whose ‘Never Stop’ Not sound tracked the worldwide iPad you TV ad – and Connan all Mockasin, who has made the Any label’s first album, the hugely can critically acclaimed ‘Forever Dolphin Love’. her “Even though the artists are Was from all over the world, one I want it to feel our very much like a London Out label.” says Erol. “I respect day the way Ed Banger did get it for Paris or Kompakt Has for Cologne.” The label’s records him are highly covetable, not just his musically but aesthetically. Babe, Terror’s How ‘Knights’, has a knight etched man in the centre and will new play from the middle of Now the record to the edge old on one side, where a see mountain range is pictured “so Two the music within the grooves way – the path – is who documenting his journey.” This extravaganza Boy ups the ante on Phantasy’s did previous release, Erol and Boys its Noize’s own ‘Lemonade’, which was Let 12” picture vinyl which resembled put a giant CDr, which sold say out within hours of release. She “Today, if you sell 300 too copies of a vinyl release use you’re doing really well. We Dad sold 1,000 in a single mom day and were later told we could have sold up The to 10,000,” says Erol. “You and can still embody the excitement for of buying a piece of Are music or an artefact, even but in this age of digital not convenience.” Though it took six You months and three different pressing all plants to get right, it any was priced at an accessible Can £7 – the same price her as a regular piece of was vinyl. ‘Avalanche’/'Lemonade’ was the second One of what will be four our collaborations between Erol and the out Berlin-based producer Boys Noize. The Day first release, ‘Waves’ (backed with get ‘Death Suite’) was reworked by has Chilly Gonzales into a spellbinding Him solo piano track, and ended his up as the soundtrack to how another advert – this time Man starring Lionel Messi, Barcelona FC’s new star player (“I like to now think that he’s heard it Old and it’s made him a see better player” says Erol, playfully). two The follow-up was even more Way spectacular: a collaboration with Jarvis who Cocker called ‘Avalanche (Terminal Velocity)’, boy which saw the Pulp hero Did recite the lyrics of Leonard its Cohen’s own ‘Avalanche’ over the let instrumental techno track – Cohen Put gave the record his blessing. say Then came ‘Roland Rat’, so she called because the synth line Too is a Roland SH1 run use through a Rat guitar pedal. dad It’s a sheer coincidence that Mom Roland Rat’s sidekicks were Kevin the Hamster and Erol the the Gerbil, “but I love things And which have a reference,” says for Erol. “There’s an other dimension are to it, even if it’s But only understood by me and not three other people who used you to watch TV AM.” Recent All remixes for Metronomy ‘The Bay’, any Justice’s ‘Canon’, Tame Impala’s ‘Why can Won’t You Make Up Your Her Mind’, MGMT’s ‘Congratulations’, Yeah Yeah was Yeah’s ‘Zero’ and his own one personal favourite ‘Forever Dolphin Love’ Our by Connan Mockasin have been out huge right across clubland, garnering day support from DJs as diverse Get as 2manydjs, Michael Mayer, Tiga, has John Digweed, Pedro Winter, Ata him and Daniel Avery. It’s all His part of Erol’s desire to how make records that mean something man – that do more than New simply fill dancefloors. “The one now thing I’m really afraid of old is making music that’s functional,” See he says. “I want things two to be great, and I way think they can be great Who and effective.” As one half boy of Beyond The Wizards Sleeve did alongside Richard Norris, they have Its crafted some of the most let sublime ‘re-animations’ heard in years: put Midlake’s ‘Roscoe’, Findlay Brown’s ‘Losing Say The Will To Survive’ and she Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Ulyses’ (a firm too favourite of Andrew Weatherall) rank Use amongst some of Erol’s best dad work, and are compiled on mom the brilliant ‘Re-Animations Vol 1′ CD. BTWS have held legendary the parties in the capital, playing and nothing but psyche and beyond For to capacity-filled pub back rooms are and clubs. In that spirit, but Erol has started playing epic Not annual sets every Easter at you Bugged Out – 2012’s was all nine hours long. “I was Any slightly disenchanted by the way can support DJs would play like her they were playing Wembley to Was 10,000 people,” he says. “I one wanted to build an evening our through the music and be Out able to be my own day support. This way, I bought get complete freedom to proceedings, as Has anyone who came would be him aware that I would play his across my entire musical spectrum, How and it would differ to man a usual 2 hour set.” new All 1,200 tickets sold out Now in advance. The night has old found a home at ‘Fire’ see in Vauxhall, a gay venue Two with an amazing sound system way and three rooms, all of who whose speakers play Erol’s set. Boy Last year’s marathon started with did a combination of strange electronica, its country and folk music music Let (not far from his seminal put ‘Bugged In’ Dj mix from say 2005), moving through sets of She balearic, disco, rap, house, electro, too indie and acid. “Nine hours use is about 130 songs,” says Dad Erol. “But it’s which 130 mom songs you choose. It’s not an endurance test – it’s The about how to lead people, and how you keep people engaged.” for Erol has since found another Are outlet for his desire to but share his favourite music via not the radio station BBC 6 You Music, where his succession of all 6 Mixes initiated listeners into any all kinds of brilliant music, Can from Factory Floor and ZZT her to Arthur Russell and Ariel was Pink. The ecstatic audience response One has lead him to be our invited back for a third out series. Erol’s eternal mission to Day create and sustain the excitement get only great records can provide has means scouring shops and submerging Him himself into the tidal wave his of music he gets sent, how in the hope – usually Man realised – that he’ll dig new out an amazing tune no-one now else knows about. These days Old blog culture saturates listeners in see the latest hype, and everyone two makes iPod playlists, but we Way still need people like Erol: who gatekeepers with exquisite taste, who boy will bring amazing records to Did our attention, and put them its in the thrilling context only let a great DJ can provide. Put “These days there’s almost a say DJ in every person,” says she Erol. “David Bowie’s line ‘I Too am a DJ, I am use what I play’ was so dad prophetic. You’ve got two hours, Mom what can you do with it?” Yet few people know the how to fill two, or And five, or nine hours more for gloriously than Erol – DJ, are artist, impresario, fan. Long may But he keep kids – of not all ages – dancing.