THIS Thursday December 15, Al Kent is the special guest DJ for the December series of international selectors on the decks at Melody on Foxes Bow.
Glasgow based Al Kent (real name Ewan Kelly) launched the Million Dollar Disco label back in the ’90s releasing in the Disco House boom.
Sticking house drums on top of disco samples, Al released somewhere in the region of twenty 12″ singles, many of which found their way into top DJs’ charts.
Looking for new challenges he ditched house music in favour of pure disco, cutting between two copies of each record, until he discovered he could save the hassle (and money spent on doubles) and make re-edits instead.
Soon his sets were made up entirely of his own exclusive reworks. He’s released a ton of those edits over the years on Million Dollar Disco as well as a slew of labels like Jisco, Kat, Real Thing, Edit, Stilove4music, People Must Jam, Kalakuta Soul, Kojak Giant Sounds and All Out War.
His DJ sets have taken him around the world a few times.
Despite Kent’s reputation as a crate digger of quality rare soul and disco, Al is no musical snob when it comes to DJing.
He knows how to move a dance-floor with music that ranges from the most obscure disco to bona-fide classics.
It’s his edits that elevate him beyond the normal conception of a “disco DJ”.
Al’s sound is, “big and bad and perfectly mixed,” says Resident Advisor. His style has earned him kudos from Sadar Bahar, Mike Huckaby, Theo Parrish, Red Rack’em, Joey Negro (who once famously called him Scotland’s answer to Walter Gibbons), Dimitri From Paris and Horse Meat Disco.
