The ability to carve one’s own niche in the world of dance music has always been what sets people apart. And for Andrew Wright, known as XI to the dancefloor, this began at an early age. Eschewing the more commercial, radio based style of music, Andrew created mix-tapes to focus more on the music that he was passionate about. From the early 90s, taking in the rise of trance in the latter half of the decade, it wasn’t until he discovered Progressive House that this passion became on obsession.

Nights spent on the dancefloor at such seminal nights as Bedrock further refined his tastes. It was here he learnt, in the presence of John Digweed, the importance of building a set into a journey and just how dark music could be. From there his musical taste continued to expand taking all forms of music from Breaks to soulful house, Rock to Leftfield Electronica and everything in between. As long as it was produced with a passion for doing something other than the norm, to push boundaries and create something beautiful then it found a place in XI’s collection.

It was this want for intelligent dance music that lead him into minimal. Artists and DJs like Ricardo Villalobos, Matthew Dear and Craig Richards, at clubs like Fabric and The End confirmed that this was were he wanted to be and DJ’ing was what he wanted to do.

Following his debut at Fabric neighbour bar Raduno, stand out sets at some of London’s top venues such as The Brixton Academy, Unit 7, Egg, The Key, The Cross, Turnmills, SEOne, Corsica Studios, AKA, East Village, The Aquarium Public Life, Herbal, Hidden, Cafe 1001 and The Rhythm Factory for promotions like Lost Souls, Wet Yourself, Temba, Prologue, Heat UK, Zombies Ate My Brain, Nubreedz, Space, Twisted Audio have seen XI weaving his dark dancefloor dervish of distorted disco destruction around the city of London and in various locations around the UK including Brighton, Bristol, Norwich, Nottingham and his home town of Chelmsford.

With a burgeoning production career under the name Kontort further cementing his holdings, the sound of the underground he subsribes to is gathering more and more fans at every turn.
 

Influences: Ricardo Villalobos, James Holden, Luciano, John Digweed, Matthew Dear

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/andrew_djxi 

Website: http://www.dontstayin.com/members/xi