James Lavelle

@james-lavelle · London

He began DJing in Oxford aged only 15, where he started his first night, Mo’Wax Please. Relocating to London to start the record label of the same name, Lavelle took up a residency at The Fridge for Gilles Peterson’s Talkin’ Loud. The pair went on to start their own night together, That’s How It Is, a legendary Monday night session at Bar Rumba on Shaftesbury Avenue that saw Lavelle become a major fixture of London’s burgeoning club scene. This period saw his influence expand as he DJ’d across London and the UK, playing clubs from The Blue Note and Plastic People to Ministry of Sound and Cream. The opening of Fabric in 1999 was a major turning point in his career, and saw him take up a residency and starting the iconic Friday night FABRICLIVE that lasted for five years. Alongside his time at Fabric, Lavelle has also served as resident at a number of the world’s top nightclubs including amongst others, Zouk, Womb, Watergate and Space, where played most recently at it’s closing, for Carl Cox’s birthday. He was one of the first DJs to play China and Eastern Europe, and has played in all six inhabited continents. The development of his UNKLESounds project saw him traversing the globe, headlining festivals and clubs everywhere from Tokyo to Mexico City, with one of the first audiovisual DJ setups. His ability to craft genre-spanning mixes translated from to the club to the studio, where he created contributions to a number of iconic mix series. After releasing mixes for Trib