Lost And Sound
Lost and Sound is a podcast exploring the most exciting and innovative voices in underground, electronic, and leftfield music worldwide. Hosted by Berlin-based writer Paul Hanford, each episode features in-depth, free-flowing conversations with artists, producers, and pioneers who push music forward in their own unique way.
From legendary innovators to emerging mavericks, Paul dives into the intersection of music, creativity, and life, uncovering deep insights into the artistic process. His relaxed, open-ended approach allows guests to express themselves fully, offering an intimate perspective on the minds shaping contemporary sound.
Originally launched with support from Arts Council England, Lost and Sound has featured groundbreaking artists including Suzanne Ciani, Peaches, Laurent Garnier, Chilly Gonzales, Sleaford Mods, Nightmares On Wax, Graham Coxon, Saint Etienne, Ellen Allien, A Guy Called Gerald, Jean Michel Jarre, Liars, Blixa Bargeld, Hania Rani, Roman Flügel, Róisín Murphy, Jim O’Rourke, Yann Tiersen, Thurston Moore, Lias Saoudi (Fat White Family), Caterina Barbieri, Rudy Tambala (A.R. Kane), more eaze, Tesfa Williams, Slikback, NikNak, and Alva Noto.
Paul Hanford is a writer, broadcaster, and storyteller whose work bridges music, culture, and human connection. His debut book, Coming to Berlin, is available in all good bookshops.
Lost and Sound is for listeners passionate about electronic music, experimental sound, and the people redefining what music can be.
Lost And Sound
Damian Lazarus
Damian Lazarus joins me for a wide-ranging conversation tracing his path from the early 2000s electroclash scene to his position today as one of dance music’s most consistently influential figures.
We talk about how it all began — from getting his first DJ residency at 16, to working as music editor at Dazed and Confused, to his A&R role at City Rockers, where he helped shape the early sound of electroclash alongside labels like Gigolo and Turbo. He shares stories from that era: warehouse parties in Shoreditch, impromptu gigs in disused toilets, and encounters with everyone from The Strokes to Jarvis Cocker.
We also get into what came next: founding Crosstown Rebels, building immersive events like Day Zero and Get Lost, and working with artists like Jamie Jones, Francesca Lombardo, and Maceo Plex.
Damian also talks candidly about sobriety, how it affected his creative process during the making of his Magickal album, and what changed for him on a personal level. He describes the early signs — creative blocks, burnout — and the shifts that followed once he made the decision to stop.
We cover a lot: longevity in music, what it means to stay curious, and how looking back at music’s past helps him think about where things might go next.
Listen to Damian Lazarus’ music:
🎧 Bandcamp | Crosstown Rebels Bandcamp
Visit Damian Lazarus’ website:
Follow Damian Lazarus on Instagram:
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Thanks also Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear. Not only that, but sponsors of this very podcast. Check them out here: Audio-Technica
Bored on the beach this August? Grab a copy of my book Coming To Berlin, a journey through the city’s creative underground, via Velocity Press.
And if you’re curious about Cold War-era subversion, check out my BBC documentary The Man Who Smuggled Punk Rock Across The Berlin Wall on the BBC World Service.
You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.
From Electroclash, shoreditch and the birth of the modern hipster, to Ibiza and Sunrises, mayan temples and sobriety. Hi, paul here and my guest today on Lost in Sound, to paraphrase the LCD Sound System song was there? Damian Lazarus joins me for one of my favourite chats of the year so far. One of my favourite chats of the year so far. So, yeah, welcome to the show. This is Lost in Sound, the podcast that goes deep, with artists shaping music and culture from the underground up. But before we get going, lost in Sound is sponsored by Audio-Technica. Over 60 years old and still a family-run company. They make headphones, microphones, turntables and cartridges. Their gear is studio-grade, affordable and built on the belief that great sound should be for everyone. So wherever you are in the world, head on over to AudioTechnicacom to check out all of their range of stuff. Okay, I'm speaking to you, as usual, from the side of a bit of street in Berlin and, yes, this is the show. Thank you, hello, and welcome to episode 179 of Lost in Sound. I'm Paul Hanford, I'm your host, I'm an author, broadcaster and a lecturer, and each week on Lost in Sound I have conversations with artists who work outside the box about music, creativity and about how they're navigating life through their art. So, whether you're new here or you've been listening for a while, it's good to have you along. So, yeah, I did a call out on Instagram last week to find out what you're listening to, and I posted a lot of the responses and, yeah, you've all got really, really good taste. There's a lot of stuff there, but I've not yet checked out, and so, yeah, I'm currently working my way through some really wicked suggestions that have been sent, and so I posted a lot of the results on insta stories last week, but it's not the most permanent place. There was a lot of interest in it, so please dm me if you want me to figure out a more permanent place to put the results. Um, I mean, it's kind of a playlist. Really. Maybe I could resurrect my sub stack. I don't know, it's been sort of lying dormant for a while. Maybe it could become a regular thing. I don't know. What do you reckon? Dm me anyway.
Speaker 1:My guest this week is someone who I think epitomizes being somewhere between cult figure and superstar, dj damian lazarus, founder of crosstown rebels, the long-running electronic label that has helped launch and support artists like jamie jones and francesca Labardo and many more as a DJ and producer. He's known for building immersive experiences through events like Day Zero and Get Lost. The first Day Zero event took place in the remains of a Mayan ruins, before successive additions have grown into fully fledged festivals in the jungle. Um, what I found really interesting is chart in the course of his practice, like very, very, very early on in his career he was music editor. Dazed and confused, he was there and on the scene at the birth of shoreditch as a fashionable place. Um, he was behind the label city rockers responsible for the uk wing of electro clash, like miss kitten, felix the house cat, artists like that. Um, I know that they're not uk based, but you know what I mean. You know what I mean. I'm just talking. I'm talking on the street, on the side of a street in neukölln in berlin, and this is just what's coming out my mouth and so in a way, we're talking about like he was there right at the birth of the modern hipster late 90s, early 2000s.
Speaker 1:But somehow along the way, damien morphed and transformed into this global ibiza huge dj and label owner and meeting him, he's someone, as you'll hear shortly, who's extremely down to earth and very, very open about his journey. He makes a joke at one point about how many of his songs are about sunrises. He's also in recovery. We talk about sobriety in this. He offers his own personal reflections on what music means in the current climate as well. I mean so, yeah, I mean this is.
Speaker 1:I love this chat and you're a bit about to hear in a second. But if you like the show bit of housekeeping here and you haven't already, please do give it a subscribe. It really, really, really does make a difference. It honestly fucking does make a difference. I know I talk about this every single week. It's like the blah, blah, blah bit, but it really does help. And if you really fancy being extra special, nice to me. Give the show a rating and a review on the platform of your choice. So we had this chat on thursday, the 31st of july 2025, and this is what happened when I met damian Lazarus. Damien, thank you so much for joining me today. Where in the world are you?
Speaker 2:I am on the magic island of Bethel where I've been for the past couple of weeks with the family. I actually have a place here for the season, so I'm generally in and out on a weekly basis, but a few times across the summer we'll stay here with the kids for an extended period and I'll be full on dad mode. Yeah, it's quite an interesting balance, you know, between playing the club every week and being at high and then coming home to kids waking up in the morning. But you know it's also quite fun. It's nice for them to kind of like see what goes on behind the scenes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can imagine, like you know, like a few decades into your career, like the concept about what you need and what you want out of like music and like having being a music professional changes, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:It does. Yeah, I mean, I think when you're very young, you're very eager for things to happen. You know, I want this to happen, I want to be this, I want to be acknowledged for doing this, I want to be respected for my music and how I play, and I think that over a period of time, you just naturally, through the experiences that you have, you just naturally kind of chill out and things become much easier, less demanding. I'm definitely in that place at the moment where I'm. I'm enjoying the knowledge and experience that I've gathered over the years and you know whether I'm using it to enhance my next decisions or to kind of advise other people. It's a real, it's a real beautiful thing once you start to appreciate that. But yeah, you don't really understand that at the beginning, you know yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Can you think of a particular point or part of your life where that started to shift?
Speaker 2:um, I think that in in life you tend to go through so many disappointments and you know, there comes a certain point where you can actually just sit back a bit and go. Well, actually, that that wasn't so disappointing, because I've learned X, y and Z from from that experience. I don't know, you're just like you're each knockback and each kind of minor success that goes toward the bigger picture of a life well lived. I think you know, and as life moves on, you start to kind of really appreciate the real things that matter in life, and that's connection with people, it's love, it's um respect and enjoying the, the small things and and not worrying so much about how many people are following you on social media. Or you know, did, did that, did that post get enough likes? Or, you know, did enough hands go up in the air when that you dropped that breakdown? You know, did, did that? Did that post get enough likes? Or, you know, did enough hands go up in the air when that you dropped that breakdown? You know, you know these things, they tend to be pretty insignificant given the bigger picture and the bigger picture being which we I said we you know, we've chosen.
Speaker 2:I've chosen a life of music and dedicated my life to being in music and sometimes you forget what that decision was based on originally and I think that for me it was based on the feeling, the emotions that I get from from music. And sometimes in the business of music, you forget to check those boxes. You know what I mean. You forget, you're, you're moving along in life, kind of like living moment to moment, based on decisions that you make and deciding whether something was a success or not, and sometimes you forget to re-look at the reason for doing this thing in the first place, and that should be. You know, the creation of music, the love that you're giving out in playing music to people. You know you start chasing the money, the dream, the success, but actually it all means fuck all. At the end of the day it's all about are you happy doing what you're doing? And I I think that you know it can take a while to kind of get to that point.
Speaker 1:I think yeah, it's interesting, I think. I mean, I'm totally like prone to that as much as anyone else, and I think sometimes like getting this kind of form of validation from things that really don't matter, like sort of social media numbers or like an instant reaction to a, like a short moment, like a drop, like a dopamine hit of a drop they're very tangible to see, aren't they, you know?
Speaker 2:they are, and they're very momentary, yeah, um, but the the real important moments in life are the things that those moments that are gonna, you know, carry you through for the to the end of time, those really special moments that maybe happened by chance or by accident, or a piece of music that made you cry, or a conversation that you had with someone, even about music or anything else that really helped you to expand your mind and your consciousness.
Speaker 2:And I think, maybe back in 2010, going to Burning man for the first time was a real key.
Speaker 2:It was a real opportunity for new doors to be opened for me, and it certainly helped me to appreciate where I feel most comfortable with my art, you know, playing music and what I'm, the music that I make, what's it about, what's the essence of it. And I think it helped me to appreciate my connection with sunrises and sunsets, playing those, playing music for those special moments, uh, helping to create a feeling shared by a gathering of like-minded people and and understanding the importance of the responsibility of of of that. And also, it showed me a new way of life, you know, because I'm, you know, walking into a place like Burning man. It's like entering into a alternate dimension where people are really pulling together, working, working together, helping each other, um having fun with each other completely, being completely open-minded and and um open to new experiences, and I think that I've genuinely been looking for that, you know, throughout my life, and it wasn't until I experienced that that I started to find it.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and I feel like and that's a really good way of putting it and I feel like there's such a deep connection to your work and everything you do and things like nature and outside they all seem to be. You know, the music is very in sync with what's going on, like in the natural world and outside.
Speaker 2:I write a lot of songs about the sun rising. It must be said sometimes I'll be, I'll be in the studio and like jotting down ideas. I'm like, oh, not another bloody song about the sun, but yeah, well it's. You know, honestly, though, it's one of the very few um recurring themes in in life, isn't it? You, no matter how bad your day is, the sun's going to rise for a brand new day in a few hours. It gives us so much optimism and hope. I think, especially these days where hope seems to be lost in so many situations, there is the hope and the promise of a new day just around the corner, when things can turn themselves around and, um, you know, things can improve, you know yeah, yeah, um, that's something that sometimes feels like in berlin, where I live.
Speaker 1:It feels like, in a way, like it seems like where you're playing and your your thing.
Speaker 2:It seems like a kind of a flip side to where I am in berlin, which is sort of, you know, like industrial and dark and it's like fucking july here and there's no sun whatsoever, you know yeah, but what you have in berlin is you have a, you have a freedom of expression, which is um, which is quite unique to the city, and um, for all its faults, you know, berlin has retained that. I think, and yeah, it's. It can be cold and gray, but it's warm and weird inside the parties, you know yeah yeah I had a very interesting experience recently.
Speaker 2:I played at the kit kat club oh nice, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:How did you find that?
Speaker 2:well, unlike unlike anything I'd really experienced before. I'm extremely open-minded and I've experienced quite a lot of different situations over the years, but yeah, I don't want to say too much about it because what happens there behind closed doors should probably remain there. But let's just say I was pleasantly shocked and it was real fun to play. I actually played a disco set in the bottom room there and, yeah, it's an incredible place. It's like nothing I've experienced before. It's not the kind of place I play every week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love that. In berlin on you get like the monday tube thing, as I call it, where you know you'll be on like the u1 or the u8 and you'll see people that just emerging out of the clubs like mingle, you know like on the same tube as people going to work. You know people in their weird sort of fetish gear, you know sat next to next to someone you know in there. I love that.
Speaker 2:I love that. Yeah, that's the true essence of a city like Berlin right, where the real underground clubbing culture intermingles with real life and you know people don't really bat an eyelid to it. You know, unlike in stiff upper lip Britain, where you know everybody would look at you and stare at you. In Berlin it's the norm, do you?
Speaker 1:feel like you've, because how long have you not lived in Britain for?
Speaker 2:I have not lived in the UK since 2008.
Speaker 1:Right, and is there anything that you miss about it? Not much.
Speaker 2:No, that's not true and I had a good example of that just recently.
Speaker 2:I went to Glastonbury for the first time in a few years and you can forget sometimes If you don't live in the UK but you're from the UK, obviously you might meet any group of friends who are mainly English.
Speaker 2:But if you don't live there and you're just kind of ducking in if I'm just kind of ducking in and out to see family or to play at a club or festival or whatever you just get a quick snapshot of life in Britain as it is on that weekend. Whatever, you just get a quick snapshot of life in britain as it is on that weekend, you know. But but at glastonbury you you're amongst 200 000 nutty brits and it's so heartwarming to be back amongst it and, um, you know, sharing the fun and jokes that you have that you can only really have with people that you are brought up with yeah, because I've seen this nutbags. You know we do things in a very particular way and, um, often you can't get away with a lot of that in other cities, so it's only when you come, when everybody comes together, one mass that, um, it kind of rears its head. I don't know if you know what I mean, I do, I mean I have my own interpretation of that.
Speaker 1:Like I feel like I mean there's a lot of everybody comes together on mass that it kind of rears its head. I don't know if you know what I mean. I do. I mean I have my own interpretation of that. Like I feel like I mean there's a lot of things that I feel a lot of awkwardness and shame for about, like Britain and, like you know, the post Brexit Britain. But at the same time as that, there are things like you know, like our sense of humour, humour, like just the fact that you could be you know, like we will find something like the most serious topic. We'll find some way to kind of like take the piss.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, I was at dinner the other night here with some friends and an English friend of mine that has a restaurant here on the island and I were trying to explain the two Ronnies to an American friend, explain the two Ronnies to an American friend, but much hilarity ensued, you know, just from me and the other guy remembering like a lot of old English comedy and you know English comedy helped to shape so many of us in so many positive ways. You know, if you think back, you know there was so much hilarity like stuff that we saw when we were growing up, you know, through the years and it's a humour that's very specific to Britain, I think. You know I'm often kind of checking old videos of like stuff from my childhood.
Speaker 1:It warms my heart yeah, it's really interesting what you say about like that connection, when you know living, living abroad and finding that like little bit of humor and like the forecast, was it four candles? Four candles, indeed, yeah yeah, so yeah, like I mean I wanted to kind of go back right to the beginning, if that's all right. So like um, we got, I mean I guess that was.
Speaker 1:Is there a point where you felt the music, you first had like a really deep connection with music in your, in your life? Where was that and what was going on if there was?
Speaker 2:it was. It was there very, very early on. You know, I meant, like christmas, like everything, the only thing I wanted was something connected to music, was an albums from adam and the ants or whatever the jam or whatever it was, you know. But the thing that I think got me on the real road to bjing and spending a life in music was probably my older cousin, who I revered.
Speaker 2:He had a record collection, this pristine, pristinely organized record collection that fascinated me and I would. He would let me rifle through them, play his records, and it kind of came along with this whole fashion concept as well. His, his sneakers were like pristinely organized, um, he's um clothing was just immaculately put together. And you know, he taught me, I smoked my first cigarette with him, I saw him with girls, you know. So he was like an idol, if you like, and I, I guess I, I was like majorly inspired by everything that he was showing me and I guess I was, like you know, 10, 11, this time Around 12,. I was going to a youth club in my local area and we'd have these like 24-hour discos, you know, to raise money for charity, and the DJ, um, just fascinated me and I, um, honestly, he wasn't very good.
Speaker 2:But just the idea that this guy was making everybody dance for 24 hours was massively important to me, and I would spend most of the time next to the DJ watching what he was doing and just trying to understand it. And then I asked him if I could, because he was like a mobile dj, he was playing part of the private parties in in the area and I asked him if I could, like you know, spend time with him, and he kind of took me under his wing and I'd go on the road with him and be his assistant, I guess. And around the same time I just got myself like saturday jobs so that I could go and buy records on a Saturday afternoon after work, and that started the ball rolling. Really, it just became an obsession. I'd be listening to Pirate Radio Station every day. I'd be trying to enter competitions to win records and tickets for shows that I was too young to go to.
Speaker 2:I was reading magazines like Blues and Soul magazine at the time was the one that was showing you all the cool music that was coming out from America, and they were holding parties and raves and events that I'd go to, and so, yeah, it was like very early, I was like 12, 13. And by the time I was 14, I persuaded my parents to to help me buy um techniques in a mixer. Hmm, so I kind of knew at the age of 14, the only thing I really wanted in life was to to be in music, to be connected to music and to be a DJ. It was a little bit pre the advent of the DJ as a career move. Yes, so my parents were very focused on me getting up, you know, learning some kind of trade and getting a proper job, you know. But I was always rebelling against that and saying no, no, this is what I want to do, this is what I want to do what were you playing at the time?
Speaker 1:what were the, what were the kind of influences going on?
Speaker 2:um, a lot of like british soul, like loose ends were my favorite band. Um, there was like change anything that Niall Rogers was involved in. Um, you know that crossover of like soul, funk, jazz, hip hop. Yeah, um, I was listening to Charles Peterson, a lot of people like Patrick Forge on the radio Later on I'd go to their parties and like try to befriend them and do that same thing that I did when I was 11, you know, standing next to the dj and and ask, quite ask questions and be annoying, but, um, yeah, I'd end up.
Speaker 2:I ended up, you know, answering the phones at kiss fm before it went legal and for, you know, for certain djs and and just and just trying to play music in local bars and clubs and spots. I had my first residency in a club when I was 16 years old. Actually, I wasn't old enough to be in there, but somehow I managed to get this gig. It was like every Thursday they paid me 20 quid or 30 quid or something, but it was an incredible experience. Where was that club? That was in Ganshill in Ilford.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and it's funny you mentioned about as well, like, about like answering the phones at Kiss FM, because I remember when I was about 14 or 15, like in the late eighties, there was this sort of thing of like. It might've been Kiss fm, it might have been just like another, like pirate station, but it was a thing that we would do, like me and my school friends. It was like it was early social media, like this whole thing of like calling in a station and, uh, the dj would like reading out, like you know, these sort of often kind of quite cryptic messages between, like friends you must have read out some really weird shit yeah, totally you know.
Speaker 2:And then there'd be like competitions and there was like some really cool music on capital fm um, this is before radio one like got into dance music, yeah, um, and then the state in london there were stations like lwr, center, force, and then later they would become like Girls FM, cool FM, when the music kind of progressed. But yeah, I just wanted to immerse myself completely in this whole thing connected to music. I was so inquisitive. Like there was this guy in my area who started organising these under-18 parties at a club called Busby's off Tottenham Court Road next to the Astoria. It was Sunday nights and it would be, I guess, like you know, 5pm to 10 or 10.30pm and then it would finish and you could get the last tube home and my parents allowed me to go.
Speaker 2:I was very young but like this guy was bringing like really cool music and DJs to to a very young audience and it ended up being really inspirational for me. I mean, I saw Daryl Pandy do love can't turn around, uh, uh, the very young age and was blown away. And then again there was a DJ there called Lee guest who was one half of a double trouble. I don't remember double trouble and, um, I kind of bef Trouble I don't know if you remember Double Trouble and I kind of befriended him. He invited me around to his house, his studio, and he'd made these mega mixes that were released on vinyl and they were like all the cool tunes of that particular summer or whatever, and he'd mixed them together and made like a 15, 20 minute mega mix that was then sold in workshops.
Speaker 2:So at that very early age I was like introduced to the world of production, mixing, you know, and these guys, like I don't know, I think I guess my um, ambitious nature and I don't want to say pushiness, but I think that I think that I was always quite confident young boy, you know. So I guess that really helped me because I knew that I was really into this thing and I wanted it to be. You know what I'm doing, you know. So, yeah, I would do anything to to make that happen and I just I was just so inquisitive and it was just an obsession, if you like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean sort of forward on a few years you know in like the City Rockers you've established yourself through like Drum and Bass Nights, what and that, and also like you had like a tenure at Dazed and Confused right.
Speaker 2:I did, yeah, so I was assistant editor and music tenure at dazed and confused. Right, I did, yeah, I was. Um, so I was assistant editor and music editor at dazed and confused. Um, and that was a an incredible place to be that the I think. I started working for that magazine around issue number 10, so it was quite early in their development. Um, they just literally moved offices from soho to an office in Curtin Road in Shoreditch when I started to work for them full time and so we were the first, literally the first cool, I want to say happening business in Shoreditch.
Speaker 2:I'd been going to Shoreditch Whitechap. I was born there, so I was brought up in that area and I've been in and out of, I've been seeing the development over the years, but essentially it was just warehouses. My grandfather had a market stall for 60 years and he'd buy his, his stock, uh, from warehouses in Shoreditch and that's all. It was big brown, you know, ugly warehouse buildings and so, but they used to confuse. Magazine moved on to curtain roads. Um, the only other thing really in the area was the base cleft club which became the blue note on hoxton square. Yeah, is today.
Speaker 2:Um, so yeah, and like life working at the magazine was crazy. I'd come in for work one morning, there'd be the orc sitting on my desk. I'd have to ask you to you know, can you just move so I can sit down? Or there'd be damon alban or um alice island queen, or you know, and we were. It was a very happening time for london and um, there'd be Damon Auburn or Alice Arlen, queen. It was a very happening time for London and I guess I was in the epicenter of it. And every month when we'd release a new issue of the magazine, we'd throw a party in the front garage of the offices and I was the DJ. And that was pretty much where things kind of really started for me.
Speaker 2:Um, because I was being heard by, um, some pretty influential people um and through, um, through my time there I I met Zoe Richardson, who I later married and became Zoe Lazarus, and we started a thing called PM Scientists. I was heavily into drum and bass and for me at that moment I'd been into house prior to that house and techno but for me drum and bass was the most forward-thinking electronic music at the time and I wanted to kind of be, I wanted to be part of this new thing that was coming out of the UK and yeah, so we had this club PM Scientists new thing that was coming out of the UK and yeah, so we had this club PM scientists and through that I met um. One day I had to, I had to try to reach Goldie for something connected to the magazine and he was signed to London FFRR and the contact I had was this guy, phil Howes, that worked at that label, um, he was head of A&R there and uh, and through that phone call basically changed the trajectory of my life there, because meeting Phil Howes and then being introduced to Pete Tong, I was then offered a job as an A&R consultant at FFRR. So that was my first job. So I left the magazine and I started my life as an anr man and um, and after a couple of years there that led to myself and phil leaving ffr and um, uh and starting our own label, city rockers, as you mentioned, and I guess spearheading that whole kind of like being part of that whole electro clash sound. Uh, hell, with uh international dj gigolo he was doing in germany, uh, what tiga was doing with turbo in canada.
Speaker 2:Um, ellen alien and the bp label, you know, and city rockers became the uk version I, I guess you know of this sound and a network was then created around that, you know, with Felix the House Cat, miss Kitten, soul Wax, and, yeah, we had a bunch of successes around the early days of City Rockers. And then that culminated in a joint venture between us and Ministry of Sound, which I didn't approve but my partner who owned the label wanted to do it and it coincided with Ministry signing Fisher Spooner for a ridiculous amount of money and for me that was, like you know, starting to suggest the end of my tenure there. And at that time we had this killer party running in London called 21st Century Body Rockers and that was really where I'd moved out of summer bass and moved back to house and techno and electro. And it was really then that my sound, my sound as a dj, had developed to a point that my closest friends were saying to me like you know, damien, you've actually started to get quite good at this. You should really, like you know, try to focus on djing, you know, and that for me that was the, that was the, the information that I I'd been, I'd been waiting for.
Speaker 2:I think it was a really important moment for me because up until that point I knew, like I said, djing was my thing, but I'd never really had any support around it. You know, until that club, until my friends who cared about me were like you know what you're actually, you know this can work out for you. You know what you're actually, you know this can work out for you, you know. So maybe focus a bit more on that. So I left City Rockers and I started, began Crosstown Rebels and and kind of went out on my own and and that was coinciding with the beginnings of my DJ career really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's so much there. And, like before I get into like Crosstown Rebels, I wanted to just like ask a little bit more about that time and that era Because, like I remember, I was living in Shoreditch like around 2001, 2002. And you know, city Rockers was in full bloom around then and I remember, like you know, the Electro Clash thing. There was a sort of connection between that and williamsburg, berlin, you know. And then also like the kind of indie stuff, like the strokes. It sort of felt like there was this, you know, and I remember like mullets were really fashionable just for about. You know, like they're fashionable again now, but like they were. There was like that thing and there's the whole sort of, I guess, the dawn of the hipster in the modern form. You know how do you look back on that time? It was at the beginning of the 21st century.
Speaker 2:Really, really really funnily, you know we were, you know we were like the coolest kids around At that point. The City Rockers was winning accolades like the label of the year, album of the year and you know all the music magazines were writing about us. It was my first kind of introduction to a level of fame, you know, but I kind of hadn't been that confident in really kind of putting my own name out there. I made this pretty iconic compilation, this mix album called futurism um, which basically was a it's a time capsule of that, of that moment, and it features like all the big records and and a lot of underground stuff from around that time, from david caretta to, uh, northern light to adult.
Speaker 2:You know these killer bands. There was a very interesting connection between people. Like you said. Williamsburg you had Larry T and his these girls, wit, and then Felix the house cat was very instrumental in helping to introduce me to various people. Berlin was really the epicenter of it, especially around Love Parade, the Gigolo Party. You know some of the labels that were coming out of Berlin at that time were just like so creative and so different and yeah, we just had our own take on that and you know City Rock is taking the name from the Clash.
Speaker 1:Oh, we didn't realise that right?
Speaker 2:well, clash city rockers is the. Is that that tune? And um, you know we were very rebellious and, um, anarchic, you know, I, I, I was. I actually discovered by accident one day walking through shoreditch I did I saw this like this, like hole in the ground, basically opposite Smithfield market, and it turned out to be this uh, converted gentleman's toilet underground. Um, it was called public life, um, it was like, and these guys that owned it like turned it into like an art gallery below the ground.
Speaker 2:So I came back to the office and I said to Phil, my partner, I was like I've just found this place. I think we should have a look at it because it seems like we should maybe do something there. So he came over to it, we went in there immediately. We made a deal with the owner and that summer we made 10 parties on Friday afternoon. We started at 2 pm on Friday afternoon because we were like who the fuck wants to work on Friday afternoon in the summer and we brought, like Felix the Housecat, fc Kahuna, errol Orkin, too many DJs. I think Tiga played and you know we'd be throwing these parties on Friday afternoon in this underground toilet in Shoreditch and in would walk the Strokes in would walk Jarvis Cocker, and you know it was the place to be. There was no flyers. An invite was the red, white and blue wristband that Paul Simmerman from the Clash used to wear, so that's how you got in.
Speaker 2:So you know, it was a really fascinating, exciting time. You know, I'd just come through a few years at dazed and confused and I'd come out of that and it helped to create like one of the coolest record labels around and and this was the beginning of like making parties that worked. You know, because even when I was at college I was trying to make parties and they never worked, but I always had the best intentions and so it's all a big learning experience. But this is when things were really starting to work. So they were, you know. There was also like clubs like nag, nag, nag and trash, and that it was like London at that moment was was fucking cool and I really look back in those days with a great amount of affection.
Speaker 2:But yeah, but then the gentrification assured you it started quite rapidly and then the next few years it felt like it was a ticking clock there, felt like it was on a. Uh, there was a ticking clock there. Uh, I'd eventually go on to make an amazing party of uh, in the early days of crosstown, um at um the tea bar, and we did this party called stink, which was um every month, no, once a month on a monday, and that was an incredible session that we did over the course of one year, and it was towards the end of that that I started to look around at London and think, you know what? I think I've had the best days here that I could have. I want to go and experience the rest of the world.
Speaker 1:Well, it certainly seems like you got quite a lot of London at that time.
Speaker 2:You can take what's the expression? You can take the man out of London, but you can never take the London out of the man.
Speaker 1:Yeah no, totally. That goes back to what we were saying earlier on as well, and what would you feel like, in terms of your vision, was the biggest difference between Crosstown Rebels and City Rockers?
Speaker 2:Well, I think with City Rockers we had a very specific musical palette, although I was always trying to fight against that and release more kind of techno-orientated music. But we'd had so much success in the early days with the electro-pop, if you like, that was kind of what we were known for, um. We did then start a, a seven inch label. That was very alternative and we'd I'd signed um. I saw I went on to sign some more psychedelic rock bands that's like spirit spirit. I signed um, the war locks, yeah, yeah, yeah, and these were bands that I really loved and this was like you know, this was me branching out musically and trying to work outside of the comfort zone, and I think this is something that's always kind of stayed with me throughout my life, really Always trying to push the envelope a little bit and try to do things a little bit differently. But yeah, so I think at that point I was like ready to branch out, you know. So I've been through pretty much every style of music that there is. You know I've experienced a little bit of everything and I didn't want to be pigeonholed. I guess I wanted to have the freedom to, to do what you know, whatever I wanted to do and hope that there was people out there that would understand my vision and follow it. And I think that I needed to start my own label in order to do that. So and not work for anybody else. And, you know, create my own team, my own community around a label.
Speaker 2:And in 2003, I started Crossdown Rebels with that in mind. And you know, it was a daunting thing to do because, you know, I was walking out of a very successful record label that had this JV with the Ministry of Sound, as I said, and we'd had all this success, and I just felt that I wasn't so aligned with the, with my partner's vision. Uh and um, after a lot of, you know, back and forth, I decided to I guess quite bravely, go go at it alone, um, but I was like I said I hadn't really put my name to city rockers. It was like City Rockers was the brand and there was no real focus on Damien Lazarus, if you like.
Speaker 2:So this is, I guess, my opportunity to present to the world, you know, damien Lazarus as an A&R man, as a record label owner, as someone that can make a decent party, as a DJ and, you know, later, as a producer, label owner, as someone that can make a decent party as a dj, um, and, you know, later as a producer, you know so. So, yeah, I needed to kind of have that, give myself the space to do that. So creating, you know, I don't know if you you know, but the the reason the label is called cross hand rebels is because I was worried that I might get forgotten and my people wouldn't associate me with City Rockers, so I decided to take the same initials.
Speaker 1:I heard the same initials, but I didn't realize that was the reason for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's one of the reasons.
Speaker 2:so yeah, so I kind of then like put um, I remember very vividly, I think, david, I think I'd learned it from David Bowie, but it was like you take a bunch of words on one side of the floor and a bunch of words on one side of the floor and a bunch of words on the other side of the floor and start putting things together. And so I kind of made a bunch of words, cut out pieces of paper beginning with C and a bunch of words on the right beginning with R and started putting things together, and Crosstown Rebels just kind of gravitated towards each other.
Speaker 1:That's really nice, actually, because I think that's the kind of um that remind me. I bet this was like a later question, but I'll just jump in now with it. Like I think you know, I heard that you used like like brian eno's cards a bit and these kinds of things and sort of sort of more, like jumping into like now and like you mentioned about this big sort of thing that happened like burning man in in 2010, like this whole thing with like ideas, about like chance and I guess even like mysticism or mysticism and magic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, if you look at you mentioned brian eno's uh, other strategies it's something that I, I, I, I love delving into because it's it, it kind of it's a guide and a a very open-minded opportunity to reach for something that you might not have considered before. So it's like it's giving you a, uh, giving you an opportunity to. For anyone that doesn't know them, they're basically a deck of cards that you use in the studio and they're basically black on one side and on the other side they're white with a little bit of text on them. Um, and you're supposed to shuffle them. Put your hands on it and, magically, one card will jump out of you and you read the card and the card will give you some kind of mystical direction as to where to go with the music that you're making.
Speaker 2:So, for example, the one that I often talk about that I really like is, um, listen to the quiet voice, and for me that's a really special uh suggestion, you know, because then you like, listen, go back to the music that you're making and then you're like, you start to really listen beneath the surface of the sounds that you're creating and you're listening for something that you didn't think could be, you didn't know that might be there before. And if it wasn't there, you can start thinking maybe I can add it. And how can I do that, you know? So there's, it's a. It's a different way.
Speaker 2:I like to use them if I'm feeling a bit stuck in the studio. Yeah, it really opens some some often spiritual, doorways to to where you can go musically. So, but I, I, you know, magical, magic and mysticism and spirituality and, uh, esoteric ideas and and symbolism is something that's been with me for a long time and um, and I, I think it just kind of coexists really nicely with my, my feelings about the world around us and, and you know, trying to find the magic beneath the surface, you know, and the reason for things, and you know, and um, and it gives me some kind of strange purpose in a world that often feels that it's lost its purpose, you know.
Speaker 1:Right, like a way of finding a meaning in something that can feel quite like Lost, lost, yeah, yeah and how do? You sorry. So, um, how do you feed that into, uh like, because I feel like, as a dj, you know the very journey focused dj, you know? I mean, how, how do you feed that sense of like I don't know, mysticism I guess into over, over, like a series of hours of dj?
Speaker 2:um, well, yeah, I'm, I. I guess I'm very open to playing different styles and I like to find ways to connect different sounds and structures and ideas throughout long dj sets. Um, I like warm, rich sounds and weird ideas, you know so, and it's about for me, it's about finding a way to to take someone from a to b in a interesting, unusual, unusual, exciting way, and most of the time I'm doing it for myself. These days, it's very easy just to play the big records of the moment and, you know, take your money and run if you like, and the hardest thing, the harder thing to do, is to really try, with every set that you play, to try and create your own magic, and, you know, keep yourself and your own imagination occupied and, you know, trying to be creative at all moments. But sometimes, as I say, it's very easy just to rock up in a place and play the tracks that you know are going to work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's kind of becomes kind of formulaic and sometimes and I think actually this year, sometimes it's, um, it's difficult to find the kind of music that I really wish to play. Um, I think this year's, but it started really on a very difficult uh level. There was hardly any music coming out that I wanted to play and I was finding it really difficult to to find anything creative. It felt like there's a period this year where people just like lost the will to live in terms of making music, and I spoke to a lot of dj friends about this and we're all feeling the same thing.
Speaker 1:So it's not just you, then it wasn't just me, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I've talked to various DJs about this and we'd all be saying the same thing, and it struck me that I just needed to do a lot of digging at the beginning of this year, going back to trying to re-imagine some of the better moments over the past however many years, I started to think, you know, like the early days of minimal techno were really exciting. What was really exciting about them? What were the tracks that not the ones that went on to become the big ones, but what were the ones that really moved me and I was so bad to listen to those. Like, right, this track's gonna work, work now. I can definitely make this work now, and then I've been then. That would kind of help me maybe reach out to certain producers and say, listen, what have you got at the moment, what you're working on? Because I'm this is the sound I'm looking to work with right now and I've gone back there, but I want to take it. And then I try to do that myself in the studio and you know, and of course you've always got this incredible palette of, like, old house and disco, but there's certain producers and certain tracks that if you go back, you can find like stuff that's like actually super relevant at all times. So it's just a question of like picking up. Like you, you go back and listen to music from the mongoloids or armand van helden or, um, some some master at work, dubs or you know, you can find even if it's not a full track, you'll find like element sections of stuff that actually you really want to play now and that starts to reinvigorate the momentum of like being a DJ. And I think you know it's like. It's like with all things over time.
Speaker 2:Whenever there's like crisis in the world, people tend to kind of like go back underground to kind of reestablish where they are with art and good things eventually will come and we are experiencing some of the worst things in history that I've ever experienced in my life these days, you know, um. So it's a really difficult time for people generally out there in the world and I think you know it's been a little bit of a difficult time for for music. So for me it's a constant, not battle, because it's like it's um, it's fun, it's like you know it's what I do, like discovering music and so, but it's fun, it's like you know it's what I do like discovering music and so, but it's a constant um uh mission for me to like, you know, what is the best possible music I can be playing at the moment. If that means going into some older sounds to like reinvigorate, like I said, my ideas about future stuff, then so be it.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I think this is one of the joys and the advantages of like having a few years of experience in in djing, so a lot of people coming through these days. You know, regardless of how amazing they are, uh, technically brilliant they are, you know that you can't beat a lifetime of the experience. Yeah, you know, um, and they will have that in years to come. But, uh, but you know, for me, it's like I need to kind of tap in on my life's experience and music, musical loves in order to kind of, like you know, work out where I'm going next yeah, I love what you're saying, though, about like how, um, I mean there's a lot there to dig into, but just um, I remember like, did you ever read?
Speaker 1:like, was it? The medium is the message by marshall mccluhan. I did not he's sort of going on about the idea that, like the art always remains the same, but just like the way we interpret it is different in different eras. You know, like, uh, like something can be like not taken, we interpret it is different in different eras. You know, like, uh, like something can be like not taken seriously when it comes out and then 30 years later, we understand it or it. It relates to our times, you know, and.
Speaker 1:I think what you're saying about, like, going back into the past, you know, finding elements of tunes that, like carry perhaps more of a weight now than they used to.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I mean looking at like someone like Delia Derbyshire in the Radio Phonic Orchestra or Stockhausen.
Speaker 2:I was listening to just the other day. You know, so advanced, incredibly advanced, but misunderstood and not respected and acknowledged really at the time, usually soon after. You know Not many people are kind of like there at the time, it's usually soon after you know, not many people are kind of like there at the moment and suddenly, you know, considered a visionary. You know, I think maybe someone like Atheist Twin has managed to maintain that. You know, but in many cases, like there's a lot of like musical, you know, great musical minds that kind of got missed at the time that have been discovered in later years. I'm often, like you know, digging back into, you know, that kind of lost music when I'm in the studio.
Speaker 1:It's really good for for my, you know, creative juices to get flowing yeah, and what kind of things were you feeding into the new album Magical? It sounds like it has a lot of warmth to it.
Speaker 2:Well, honestly, it was a struggle. If I'm honest with you, this is my fifth studio album, one of which being a soundtrack album, and I I'm very focused on the idea that the importance of an album you know, these days it gets a lot, it gets a bit lost and, um, especially with the, you know the advent of the, you know streaming and the, the rules and algorithms, and you know how. You know how the success of people's careers is based on. You know streaming and the rules and algorithms, and you know how the success of people's careers is based on. You know a two-minute blast of you know. So for me it's quite an old school idea but, like an album is a testament of a life in a way. You know, if you go back to the beginning of an artist's musical career, you can really chart their progression as an artist and as a person through the releasing of each album, and I think that, in terms of legacy and history, it's a really important thing to do. Now. There's a lot of new artists that I advise, you know, with my Bustard Rebels A&R hat on. There's a lot of new artists that I advise not to write the album that they're working on at the moment because they haven't established themselves as an artist yet and you know it takes a long time. I think you don't want to rush into it. You need to be ready. It needs to be a real, truthful, honest appraisal of who you are as a person and if you haven't, you know, gone through some of life and music's experiences, it's like it's too early. So, but for me, you know, I could try to release one single a year and, you know, try and have something of a hit record or whatever. But it's more important for me to be able to create a body of work that you can listen to from beginning to end and it means something for people and about me, you know.
Speaker 2:So, honestly, I really felt that it was time for me to start work on a new album, and I spent a year creating a bunch of ideas and I had some good stuff there, but there was also a lot of I want to describe it as okay-ish, mediocre ideas. I was getting confused because something within me was telling me it's time to make an album, but I was finding blockage and a lack of direction and after the first year of working on this album, I kind of took stock of what I had about 20 or 25 ideas, some of which were almost fully formed songs and some were just two minute ideas with loops and stuff, and but I'd written, like, some lyrics and like, but I, I well, I think that I just there was something holding me back and I started to think you know what, what's going on here? And I realized that actually the problem was within me. I, I, I've been partying too much, I've been traveling the world so rapidly, trying to keep myself awake, you know, staying on my toes, so I'm using drugs and alcohol and I just like I, I just think I just came to a point where I was like I, I don't really want to be this person anymore. It's affecting my creativity, I guess it's affecting everything else in my life. And I started to look at that and it was the music that kind of helped me realise it.
Speaker 2:So I then started on this journey of getting myself clean and sober and once I kind of made that realization and started that journey, other things started to kind of fall into place. I started to realize, you know, I should, I've been looking at the wrong things. I've been thinking about this music in the wrong way. I need to kind of read deep, like we. At this point in my life I need to kind of dig deep within myself, realize, like I was saying earlier about finding, going back to minimal techno and finding, you know, the tracks that really meant something to me, for me making this album.
Speaker 2:I started to realize I needed to go back to my own uh, history of music, the music I've made over the years, and try to try to establish which are the moments that really meant something, not only amazing for me, but amazing for other people as well. And I pinpointed a few moments, a few songs, a few little ideas in some of the music I've made since I started producing back in 2009. And I then looked at those and thought, okay, how can I take some of the early ideas that I've already been working on and connect them to some of these earlier moments of myself, to bring myself back to myself? Does that make any sense? Yeah, yeah. And I looked at songs like Moment and Vermillion and the things that connected these things and there's a feeling of love and connection and, again, you know, the rising of the sun, the people gathering together, creating moments for people that are special and rewarding memories that I've helped to create. How can I, how am I going to do that again now?
Speaker 2:And you know, and that's when songs like Sunrise Generation started to kind of appear, working with artists like Think that's when Falling Down, you know, connecting with Teed on that track and Are you Dreaming? Working with someone like Matthew Johnson. You know I looked at like who do I want to connect with? You know to make music with that. You know what are the themes that I want to talk about? And and you know being alive and um, searching for things. And so I started to kind of like put this like project together with a new, sober frame of mind. I was more, I had more clarity, I felt better as a person. You know, it was very difficult, the early days of sobriety. I don't know if you've ever been through anything like that, but um, yeah yeah, so you know it's a, it's a daily, daily battle.
Speaker 2:It's a. It's a real mission. Uh, you know I was keeping this very much to myself. I was, you know. Obviously my family and my closest friends knew about it and everyone was very supportive and gave me the time to sit in the studio and try to come up with this album, which ended up being magical, which I'm very proud of actually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lovely thing to say. I mean, do you feel like it's a different epoch for you?
Speaker 2:100%. I feel like it's a different epoch for you. 100% I feel like a new person. It's kind of crazy. I feel I'm sleeping well, which is something that I never really did. Apparently, I'm looking better than usual, so that's nice. I've been getting quite a few compliments recently usual, so that's nice, I'm getting quite a few compliments recently.
Speaker 2:Nice. So that's nice. You know, I'm generally in a happier place, I'm more present with my family. The kids see a big difference. I think I'm more emotional, I think my senses are open. I can smell things. You know, it's like it is a new era. An interesting thing that happened last year is that I was starting to sorry this year, or last year, this year, yeah, earlier this year is that I was approaching a year of sobriety and I couldn't quite believe, given how my lifestyle was before, which I kind of like hid very well, quite honestly. Someone said to me the other day I didn't know that you were going through that, and that kind of annoyed me a little bit because it kind of made me think I probably could have got away with it then for a bit longer but I think that's the big thing about it is.
Speaker 1:It's like, I think, so many people that um go through it like you wouldn't know, you know, you wouldn't know well, I was a very functioning well-functioning, uh drug addict.
Speaker 2:So you know, I'd I'd, over the course of many years, I'd learn how to kind of handle myself in public situations, you know. But, uh, but ultimately I had a problem and I needed to deal with it. And um, and I then I got to like it was approaching a year of sobriety and I've been going through the steps and and uh, you know the steps of sobriety that you need to to work on, and uh, going to meetings and I had I got this like kind of new community of people around me and support network, and I was really kind of feeling, uh, I was kind of apprehensive about getting to a year and I hadn't really said anything publicly about it. And um, I kind of just felt like I'm clearly a pretty different person than I was a year ago and, um, if I can, if I have an opportunity to help one person that's suffering or struggling with a similar situation, then it would be worth me saying something out loud about it. So, yeah, I thought long and hard about it and I was like I'm going to do it, I'm not going to do it, I'm going to do it, I'm not going to do it. And then, eventually, I decided to do it. I'm going to do it, I'm not going to do it. And then, eventually, I decided to do it and I made this video. I filmed it in one take and I just thought you know what this feels like. It's honest, it's from the heart, and I think that it could potentially help some people.
Speaker 2:And it was very early in my journey to offer a hand of assistance, but I figured, you know, given the platform that I have and the fact that people you know like to come and hear me play music and you know follow me around the world or whatever, it's an opportunity to do something positive beyond the usual.
Speaker 2:You know making parties and festivals and you know releasing music, and so, um, I just I went for it and honestly, I think it's one of the best things I ever did, because it kind of freed me of this kind of um. I've always been quite an open person, uh, but this kind of gave me a, a level of freedom to kind of walk through the world, you know, with a new aura around me and immediately it had a really interesting effect, and every week I have people that I don't know reaching out to me and asking me for advice, and you know I'm very early in this journey, but there are things that I can say to people that are looking for help and have no one else to turn to and don't know what to do, and so you know I'm there for people if they need me, not on a daily basis, of course. We've got to be, you've got to prioritize yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's be realistic, but you know, but it's a, it's a nice thing for me to, to be able to do, to, to think that, you know, maybe I've just helped that person, you know, not kill themselves next week, you know, and yeah, and it's like I say, as you know, it's a, it's a daily journey, it's one day at a time and who knows what's going to be tomorrow, but for today, I'm feeling good about things and, yeah, in a pretty good place, and I think that it's affecting the way I play, it's affecting the way I'm making music, it's affecting my daily routines, and all for the better.
Speaker 1:That's so nice to hear and I think, particularly in the world of DJing and dance culture, having this kind of positive representation like is really good to see that kind of representation, because you know there is a lot of the opposite.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is a lot of the opposite. Yeah, there is, I think, that the gen z, like there's less, I think there's kind of less drug taking and less alcoholism in the new kids coming into the scene right now. This is what I'm seeing, like looking out. I don't I'm not seeing, you know, people chewing their faces off in the way that we used to, um and listen.
Speaker 2:I'm not, uh, I'm not completely against, like you know, having having the odd night out, um, you know, using, like you know, fun substances in a very uh, uh, safe way. You know I'm not anti that, but there are pitfalls, you know to, to spending a entire life in that world and um, so I don't know where things are going, but it worries me that we have wars and political situations that don't seem to have a bright future, things going from bad to worse around us. It worries me that, you know, drugs is something that people generally turn to when they feel lost and desperate, and you know when life can feel like it's meaningless. You know when there's starving children and people being murdered and, uh, tyrants, and in the rest of it, you know, sometimes it's. It worries me that that we could slip into some dangerous, um, um, you know, habits, um, so, um.
Speaker 2:So I think for me this was a good time to to. You know, writing this album helped me realize that about myself, and and the knock on effect of that is, I think, that I produced and released a really, really strong, you know, beautiful record that I hope people will appreciate for years to come. And and then, at the same time, I've I've started this new journey as a human being to try and be, you know, a better version of myself. You know, and, uh, you know, nobody's perfect. I'm certainly not, um, but I'm definitely feeling better these days. Brilliant.
Speaker 1:Brilliant, damien. That was it. Thank you so much. Cheers, paul. Thank you so much, man. So that was me, paul Hanford, talking with Damien Lazarus for the Lost in Sound podcast, and we had that conversation on Thursday, the 31st of July 2025. Thank you so much, damien, for your time and thoughts there. I really, really loved having that chat.
Speaker 1:Damien Lazarus's most recent album, magical, is out now on Crosstown Rebels and if you like the show and you haven't already, please do give it a subscribe. Give the show a rating and review on the platform of your choice. It really really really does help. And if you like what I do and you want to hear more of what I do, you can check out my bbc radio documentary the man who smuggled punk rock across the berlin wall by heading on over to the bbc sounds app or on the bbc world service home page, and my book coming to berlin is still available in all good bookshops or via the publisher's website.
Speaker 1:Velocity press lost in sound is sponsored by Audio-Technica, the makers of headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones. They're a global but still family-run company that make really, really nice stuff, stuff that I use, stuff that I've used since I was a skinny little indie kid back in the late 90s. They make studio quality yet affordable products because they believe that high quality audio should be accessible to all. So, wherever you are in the world, head on over to AudioTechnicacom to check out all of their range of stuff. The music that you hear at the beginning, at the end of every episode of Lost in Sound is by Tom Giddens Hyperlink, as always in the podcast description. So yeah, that's it. I hope you really enjoyed the show today and, whatever you're doing, I hope you're having a really fucking good one and I'll chat to you soon, thank you.