Tim Exile

Did you knowHe got so fed up with ordinary DJing that he built his own performance software from scratch, and Native Instruments turned it into the commercial plugins The Finger and The Mouth. He later rebuilt the idea as Endlesss, a remote jamming app that blew up during lockdown with artists like Imogen Heap jumping in.

Did you knowHe recorded his debut in a Brixton flat using an emptied-out wardrobe stuffed with duvets as his vocal booth, and the whole thing cost under £4,000 to make. He still writes his lyrics as text messages to himself.

Did you knowStraight out of jazz school he spent six months in an Osho ashram in India studying the bansuri flute, and came back with a new name. Years later his single 'Sigh' camped out on the Billboard charts for over 70 weeks and landed him a US deal on a label co-run by Dave Koz.

Did you knowTheir 2007 debut is titled 'Prah Suomafni Ruoy' — literally 'Your Infamous Harp' spelled backwards. They also moonlight under solo aliases Kept Blue and Ceratops, so the rabbit hole goes deeper than you'd think.

Did you knowBefore going solo he was the bassist in indie band The Housemartins, and his iconic 'Weapon of Choice' video starring a dancing Christopher Walken almost featured Norman himself — he had to bail because his wife Zoe Ball was giving birth that weekend.

Did you knowThe name comes from the M25, the orbital motorway that ferried ravers to illegal parties around London. Their breakthrough single 'Chime' was recorded on their dad's cassette deck — and at the 2012 Paralympics opening ceremony Stephen Hawking joined them on stage wearing their trademark torch glasses.

Did you knowHis name is a Thelonious Monk ballad and his debut album title nods to Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come — a breakcore producer who thinks like a jazz musician. He's also Igorrr's regular partner in crime: the two made the album Maigre together in 2014.

Did you knowHe didn't just sample orchestras — he assembled a real one. Worakls co-founded the Hungry Music label and tours as 'Worakls Orchestra,' conducting a full live ensemble at major European venues, fusing the DJ booth and the symphony hall into one show.

Did you knowThey started out on legendary labels like Digital Soundboy and Renegade Hardware before launching their own imprint, Narratives Music — and Goldie himself once said of their work, simply, 'this is art.'

Did you knowDavid Bowie loved them so much he showed up as a guest vocalist on two tracks of their 2006 album, quietly co-signing a scrappy Brooklyn band at the height of his own mystique.

Did you knowThe name 'Lu:k' was picked to mean nothing — it happens to be Estonian for 'hatch' or 'trap door'. Their two cassette albums and one 12" vanished for decades until Tallinn label Memme Vaev pressed eight of the tracks to vinyl in 2025.

Did you knowBefore going solo he engineered and produced for Sinéad O'Connor, The Orb and Brian Eno, and he's a longtime collaborator of Shpongle's Simon Posford. His Hallucinogen 'In Dub' project basically reinvented psytrance as slow-motion dub and became a genre landmark.

Did you knowTheir tracks are studded with vintage film samples — 'Six Hours Starlight' lifts dialogue straight from Hitchcock's North by Northwest. They got a real career boost when their music started showing up everywhere in ads, TV and trailers in the early 2000s.

Did you knowHe's the grand-nephew of jazz legend Alice Coltrane and a cousin of Ravi Coltrane, so that spiritual-jazz DNA runs deep. He also founded the Brainfeeder label, produced years of Adult Swim bumpers, and secretly released rap as an alter ego named Captain Murphy.

Did you knowThe band started in 1994 when the Horntveth siblings were literal teenagers, with Lars just 14. They're so genre-resistant they openly shrug off the 'nu-jazz' tag everyone slaps on them, saying it never meant anything to them.

Did you knowThe name came from Yukimi's studio 'fuming tantrums' that earned her the nickname 'Little Dragon.' And Damon Albarn only found them because his partner was a fan — recruiting them for Gorillaz's 'Plastic Beach' before Yukimi even knew who Gorillaz were.

Did you knowAcheson is obsessed with field recordings — his work 'Wingbeats' was built almost entirely from manipulated bird songs, and he'll happily sample a cooker timer or a creaking board if he likes the sound. The 'orchestra' is hidden because it never actually plays in the same room.

Did you knowTrue to their Nordic roots, they've literally recorded out in the forests of Umeå, weaving in organic textures like wooden and stone percussion. The woods around their hometown aren't just an influence — they're practically a band member.

Did you knowFrontwoman Tokunbo Akinro has a German mother and Nigerian father, and grew up in Nigeria before moving to Germany at age 10 — a double-belonging that runs all through her lyrics. The band even won the German Jazz Award for the compilation gathering their early work.

Did you knowThe band formed by accident — Ricky and Modest were doing turntable-and-guitar sets in London bars, bumped into Kathrin at a market, and she sang over a cup of tea. Their track 'Northern Girls' later soundtracked Mercedes-Benz's 125th-anniversary UK ads.

Did you knowBefore joining Žofka in 2002, singer Myriam Russo lent her voice to none other than the Godfather of Dub, Lee 'Scratch' Perry — quite the leap from reggae-dub royalty to French-language lounge-pop.

Did you knowThey were Ninja Tune's first-ever Polish signing, picked up off a self-released demo called 'Polish Jazz.' The whole sound is built from sampling Poland's own jazz golden age — essentially a love letter to their country's record collection.

Did you knowIt started in 2001 as a pure studio project with no intention of playing live — but their very first concert kicked off a touring run across Europe and Asia. Over time they've leaned back toward live, classic-jazz instrumentation rather than programmed sounds.

Did you knowHe started out as 'L'usine' (French for 'the factory') before trimming it to Lusine, which happens to be Armenian for 'moon.' He's been a cornerstone of the influential Ghostly International label for over two decades.

Did you knowThey got nominated for a Mercury Prize AND a BRIT Award — a pretty wild range for a duo most people have never heard of. And every track on their final album '64–'95 sampled audio from a specific year between 1964 and 1995. That's commitment.

Did you knowThis wasn't some one-off vanity project — they had a proper musical director (Volker Meitz, collaborator of Jazzanova and Clara Hill), real strings, horns and vocalists. A 15-person ensemble built purely out of love for the music.

Did you knowHe gave away ALL his music for free — just put it on the internet like 'here you go, enjoy'. And Rick Rubin once called him 'the face and voice of the new American electronic music scene.' Casual.

Did you knowHe's also a legit visual artist whose paintings have been shown in galleries worldwide. Producer, DJ and painter — the man really said why not all three?