It was at the age of 15 that Carl bought a set of turntables and began working as a mobile DJ. Disco was the first music that captivated him but by the early 80s Cox had moved on to playing the same music as other young London DJs \u2013 rare groove, New York hip-hop and electro. He was perfectly placed to hear Chicago house music in its earliest forms, and when the epic ‘Acid Trax’ by Phuture (a.k.a. DJ Pierre) came out in early ’87. \u201cIt was then that I thought, ‘This is it,\u2019 says Carl. \u201cI would do my parties, and I’d play old rare groove and hip hop and soul and I would say ‘Right you’ve got to hear this Phuture track\u2019 and people would just stop and listen.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a founder of the sound, Carl rode the exploding British rave scene. He played the opening night of Danny Rampling’s legendary Shoom, co-promoted The Project with Paul Oakenfold, held a residency at the Zap Club in Brighton and at the Sunrise rave in 1988, hooked up a third turntable for his dawn-breaking set, got 15,000 people back on their feet, and established a personal rep for three-deck wizardry. <\/p>\n
The next step was to make music, and Carl’s 1991 debut single for Paul Oakenfold’s Perfecto label, ‘I Want You,’ gave him a top 30 hit and a Top of the Pops appearance. Two more singles also made the charts. But Carl was a reluctant pop star and as the masses moved onto fluffy house and trance, and the hardcore created jungle, Cox retreated into the club world that had nurtured him, and instead embraced the underground sounds of techno. “Techno drives home somewhere,” he says of his core music. “It takes you to an element of surprise, not knowing where you’re going. It’s scary but wonderful at the same time.” <\/p>\n
Carl\u2019s classic releases include his 1995 mix CD, ‘F.A.C.T,’ which became a techno benchmark, selling over 250,000 copies, and the 1996 EP ‘Two Paintings and a Drum,’ which again broke the British top 30. Alongside Carl\u2019s \u2018Ultimate Music Management\u2019 company, which counted Josh Wink and Laurent Garnier among 27 clients, there was the Ultimatum record label, for which Carl recorded his third top 30 UK single, ‘Sensual Sophis-ti-cat.’ In 2005, Carl\u2019s third album, \u2018The Second Sign\u2019 caused a stir across Europe and reached number 3 in Spain\u2019s national chart. Also gaining critical acclaim was \u2018Dirty Bass,\u2019 a collaboration with Christian Smith, and the funky \u2018Give Me Your Love\u2019, both released on 23rd Century Records, an outlet for his own burgeoning production output. <\/p>\n
Carl formed his own label, Intec Records, in 1999, scoring a series of underground hits and enjoying eight years at the forefront of electronic music. After its closure in 2006, Carl was still inundated with new music, finally deciding to re-launch the label as Intec Digital at the start of 2010. It\u2019s been a triumphant return, thanks to exclusives from some of the biggest names in techno. \u201cThe label couldn\u2019t be going better,\u201d says Carl. \u201cIt\u2019s great to be back at the helm discovering underground DJs.\u201d <\/p>\n
Intec Digital was also the home for Carl\u2019s 6th studio album, \u2018All Roads Lead To the Dancefloor,\u2019 released to critical acclaim in 2011 on state-of-the-art, self-updating USB technology. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was at the age of 15 that Carl bought a set of turntables and began working as a mobile DJ. Disco was the first music that captivated him but by the early 80s Cox had moved on to playing the same music as other young London DJs \u2013 rare ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[579],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dj"],"yoast_head":"\n