‘People have got to move forward’ Dubfire

In October of 1992, two Washington DC – based DJ/musicians set out to redefine the boundaries of what was then loosely termed as ‘deep house’. Heavily inspired by the New York / Detroit innovators as well as a myriad of musical styles, they took this otherwise degenerating music to the next logical step.
Fast forward to 1998, its often been said that if something’s not broken, why fix it? With this in mind, house music welcomes the three-tier toolbox and big spanner of Deep Dish. Signed to Deconstruction at Christmas ’95, they have since released their own debut LP, ‘Junk Science’, which was release in June 1998.

Via a series of mixes and releases on their own Deep Dish and Yoshitoshi labels, spanning vocal house, dirty trax and subterranean dubs, Dubfire and Sharam assured us that there was no messing about. A set of radical remixes for a number of artists including Joi Cardwell, Ashley Beedle, The Shamen, Sandy B, Janet Jackson, Kristine W, and BT has turned tired heads. ‘Penetrate Deeper’, a compilation encompassing both original material as well as remixes for their sterling efforts on De’Lacy’s ‘Hideaway’ (August 95) assured their status as true originals. More recently, their remixes of D*Note’s ‘Waiting Hopefully’, the Rolling Stones ‘Saint Of Me’ and Adam F’s ‘Music In My Mind’ sent them to even higher levels of originality and recognition.

Ali ‘Dubfire’ Shirazinia and Sharam Tayebi met in 1991, Dj’ing at the same party. In 1992 they formed Deep Dish Records and quickly earned a reputation with an uncompromising underground agenda. With the help of collaborators such as Brian BT Transeau, they carefully crafted a distinct and instantly recognisable sound. Swap mixes with friend Carl Craig further enhanced their profile. Later the association with Tribal America continued to hone their no sell out profile. They continued to Dj in and around Washington and earned a reputation for doing just as they pleased, dragging slackers into the future whether they like it or not! Their subsidiary Yoshitoshi Recordings, opened its doors in 1994 with a deep sea voyage called ‘Submarine’. Subsequent releases helped to establish the careers of like minded DJ based producers such as Alcatraz, Hani, Kings Of Tomorrow/Mysterious People, and more recently, Bobby Brown and Eddie Amador.

Piling on the pressure (obviously some kind of penance for wrong doing in a previous life) they have recently started a hip hop label called Middle East Recordings with new signings , Ring. Having no time to tie their own laces, they’ve both recently taken to wearing slip ons!

They visited the UK for the first time in October 1996 for that memorable DJ set at Creams 4th Birthday and since then have played a few desirable places like The End, full circle, Shindig and Tribal Gathering, Universe and Hard Times.

They have attitude in buckets and are looking forward to wiping the floor with DJ’s and producers asleep at the wheel. “A lot of people are just lazy, doing the same thing as everyone else” says Dubfire. “We’ve always been about the new and looking to the future. People have got to move forward”