Erol Alkan

Trash Mondays and the clash of two dancefloors

Every Monday for ten years, Trash turned a London basement into one of the most influential nights of the turn of the century. Erol Alkan founded it in 1997 at the age of twenty-three and ran it as promoter and resident until 2007: first at the original Plastic People on Oxford Street, a brief stint at The Annexe, and finally at The End. The Face once called it the best club in the world. It hosted the first British concerts for LCD Soundsystem, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Rapture, Peaches, Bloc Party, Klaxons, and Scissor Sisters, as well as secret sets from Soulwax, Phoenix, and Suicide. The son of Turkish-Cypriot immigrants raised in Archway, North London, he had started DJing in 1993 at indie nights; his palette crossed guitar rock, electro, and dancefloor hedonism without asking permission from any scene.

Fabric, Bugged Out and the rework culture

An emergency DJ set in Room 3 at fabric, covering for David Holmes, opened up a residency at Bugged Out and a club career that Muzik awarded as best breakthrough DJ in 2003 and Mixmag crowned as DJ of the year in 2006. As Kurtis Rush, he signed mash-ups that defined an era: Kylie Minogue performed his blend of Can't Get You Out of My Head with New Order's Blue Monday at the Brit Awards. Later, under his own name, he has rewritten tracks by Daft Punk, Justice, Hot Chip, Tame Impala, The Chemical Brothers, Interpol, and Depeche Mode. Many of those cuts were gathered in 2017 on Reworks Volume 1. With Richard Norris, he formed Beyond The Wizards Sleeve, a duo for psychedelic re-edits and the album The Soft Bounce (2016). As a producer, he has signed Mystery Jets' Twenty One, Late of the Pier's Fantasy Black Channel, records by Ride, and a good portion of Duran Duran's Future Past, alongside Mark Ronson and Giorgio Moroder.

Phantasy Sound and the To The Rhythm nights

In 2007, he founded Phantasy Sound, first as a singles club and later as the home for Connan Mockasin, Daniel Avery, and his own music: the EP Illumination (2013), Spectrum (2018), and Automatic (2021), the 100th release in the catalog. In 2017, To The Rhythm was born, a thirteen-week residency at XOYO that has expanded to all-night sessions across London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Birmingham, with appearances at Printworks, Warehouse Project, Drumsheds, Nitsa, or Sónar. After more than a decade on BBC 6 Music, he is a resident at NTS Radio. In 2024, he reissued A Hold On Love and in 2026 returned to the Reworks vinyl series with the sixth installment. More than thirty years after his first public set at The Gass Club, he continues to cross house, electro, techno, and alternative pop with the same criteria: reading the dancefloor and never repeating himself.