DJ Harvey

Marking the end of a ten year self-imposed exile across the pond, Red Bull Music Academy is thrilled to present DJ Harvey’s return to the motherland for two, long-awaited UK comeback shows. Touching down in London on Friday 19th October, The Oval Space in East London will play host to DJ Harvey’s first UK appearance in a decade. The following week sees him journey northward, shaking the floor at Manchester institution The Warehouse Project for a Thursday night special on 25th October.

Harvey comments: “I'm really looking forward to coming back to the UK to play after 10 years. These homecoming parties have been a long time in the making, and between RBMA and I we're gonna throw one hell of a party and make it nice, twice. I'm so excited. Let's bloody ave it!”.

In a musical sense, the term ‘legend’ is an oft liberally applied one. But, in the case of Cambridge–bred, Hawaii-dwelling Harvey Bassett, it’s a descriptor he duly deserves. In fact, he commands it. Famed for extended, meandering sets ticking off proper disco, rock & roll, Balearica, proto techno and electro-funk, Harvey has earned his stripes as the quintessential DJ’s DJ. Having popped up at some of Europe’s finest clubs and festivals over the past year – Berghain, RBMA's Sónar showcase, Robert Johnson, the list goes on – his return to Blighty is finally here.

Already a proficient drummer as a boy - his school band ‘Ersatz’ winning a weighty nod from John Peel in the 1970s - it took a trip to New York and a love affair with hip-hop to coax Harvey into DJing. As he saw it, cutting up breaks being but a natural extension to drumming.

From his outlandish parties around Brighton, Cambridge and the festival circuit, via residencies at Ministry of Sound, to his own night ‘Moist’ bringing New York legends such as Larry Levan, Kenny Carpenter and François Kevorkian to British ears, Harvey honed his craft to become one of the most respected DJs around the globe.

One half of the ‘Black Cock’ label, he’s been responsible for a string of anthemic releases, and remixed everyone from Jamiroquai to The Police, Cornershop to Ian Brown. Recent years have seen Harvey settle Stateside, hopping between gallery-cum-event space ‘Hotel Thirty Nine’ in Hawaii, his sporadic ‘Sarcastic Disco’ parties in LA and other discerning discos in between.

After hosting him for a seminal lecture for the 2005 edition of the Academy in Seattle, Red Bull Music Academy is pleased to end the hiatus, bringing Harvey back for some of his signature “All Night Long” appearances, channeling the party spirit of those original blow-outs and reaffirming the man behind the myth, no doubt winning more converts in the process.