Biography

There are few producers on the drum’n’bass scene who are as respected and revered as Dillinja. With his trademark combination of dirty stomach-churning basslines and tighter than tight beats, his reputation has been secured as one of the most influential producers in drum’n’bass history, as well as one of the scene’s most called-upon remixers, having worked with everyone from David Bowie to Bjork and Basement Jaxx. A true connoisseur of sound, Dillinja’s mighty 96k Valve Sound System is recognized the world over as being second to none.

Dillinja began to shadow a local guy who had made Jah Shaka’s amps, and not long after, at the age of fifteen, he was making his own custom built amps and bass bins; a hobby that soon became obsession, with his teenage bedroom so full of audio equipment, he had no choice but to put his mattress on the speaker cabinets and sleep there.

Dillinja: “I wasn’t making any money for years, I just had such a love for the music. I was knocking tunes together in my room, getting a hundred white labels pressed and running around with them to record shops myself. It was a great learning process and I loved it”. It is an often cited fact that by the age of 23, Dillinja already had 50 releases under his belt. His initial records were all on white label, including his first ever release ‘Tear Off Your Chest’, produced with Batmix, but within a couple of years he went on to form a myriad of labels such as Cybotron, Logic, Target, IQ and Deadly Vinyl, the latter being home to such Dillinja early classics as ‘Sovereign Melody’ and ‘Deadly Deep Subs’. As well as his own label, Dillinja went on to record for many other drum’n’bass labels, including Bryan Gee and Jumpin’ Jack Frost’s V Recordings and Philly Blunt labels, Hardleaders, Prototype and Goldie’s pioneering Metalheadz imprint. It is this fusion of dark basslines and tightly produced beats that has become Dillinja’s trademark sound today, a sound that has resulted in Dillinja being called to remix for the likes of David Bowie, Bjork, Faith No More, Soul II Soul, Basement Jaxx, Amon Tobin, Artful Dodger and Jeru the Damaja. The various aliases under which he has recorded include Trinity, Capone, Cybotron and The Specialist.