Hysterical laughter greets the very first question I put to Charles Webster. I have just asked him if he think his rise to the top of his game has been rapid, and by the riotous sound emanating from the receiver he find this idea fairly amusing. Once he has sufficiently recovered, I ask him – why not? “Because the stuff I do is not particularly commercial” comes the reply. “It takes time”.

It’s a considered approach from a considered man. An electronic music pioneer and a producer’s producer, Webster has operated under numerous pseudonyms; Presence, Furry Phreaks, DJ Profile, Love from San Francisco, Lo;Rise and Megatonk.  Collectively those names have sold over 100,000 albums across the world but the Derbyshire boy remains understated and holds true his musical integrity. When asked if he would have liked his success quicker, his response is again careful and thoughtful. “No, I think it’s very dangerous to have overnight success because there’s only really one way to go from there. My career has steadily moved forward over time.”


Even the biggest fans of Webster will find it hard to exactly pinpoint what it is that makes him great and harder still to nail down just which genre he best represents. “Well that’s what I strive for” he explains. “I think once someone gets categorized it gets a bit boring. I do a bit of everything and I just call myself a musician or a producer. I’m lucky that a lot of my music does cross-over into the deep house, garage-house, techno and minimal genres, and I’m really pleased about that. It would be a really boring world if I was just playing to techno people for example. It’s lovely to educate people and to open their minds to new things a little bit.”



Opening people’s minds to new and exciting music across a broad range of genres is one thing, within a single genre is quite another, and to educate people who might consider themselves an expert on a particular area requires something or someone truly remarkable. Staggeringly, this is exactly what Webster has managed to do with his latest project.

Charles Webster has been chosen to mix the latest instalment of Strictly Rhythms; a digital-only series that brings to light some of the forgotten tracks from the Strictly vaults, dusts them off and breathes new life into them for a new generation of dance music lovers. “It’s a real dream for me to be able to do this, for many reasons” Webster admits of the project. “For me, they were the first really great label that I really loved. The records they released back in 1990/91 are just essential, and on a lot of the other compilations that they’ve released a lot of the DJs haven’t selected tracks from that period. It was amazing to re-visit some of those old tracks and I’ve picked out some of my real favourites for the compilation.”



It’s a testament both to the depth of the Strictly Rhythm back-catalogue and to Webster’s ability as a selector that this mix took us all by surprise. Choosing records that will be unfamiliar to most, he has managed to produce a mix that sound both contemporary and yet still highly representative of the Strictly sound of nearly two decades ago; no mean feat by anyone’s standards. “I picked quite a few from the first 50 releases, so they would’ve been from around 1991. ‘After Hours’, ‘Waterfalls’ - which I think is just the perfect iconic benchmark for deep house. Then there's Roger Sanchez under his DV8 name ‘This Beat is Over’ which again is totally essential. Then there was some more slightly garage things such as Arnold Jarvis & 636 with the track ‘Rain’ which was produced by Smack Productions and for me it’s like the last word in vocal garage.

“I’ve done about 5 exclusive things for it as well” he continues. “I’ve remixed Barbara Tucker ‘Beautiful People’, I’ve done a new a reprise mix of a Michel Cleis track and I’ve done a couple of edits of some really early Strictly tracks such as New Power Generation and a track called ‘It’s Obsession’. I did an edit of ‘Slippery Track by Mood II swing, a track called ‘After Thought’ by Underground Solution.”

So did he try to make these edits sound a little more contemporary in order to bring the mix up to date? “A little bit” he admits “but I didn’t want to go crazy because it’s disrespectful and it would be like shoe-horning something and it doesn’t really work. Those tracks are great because they’re great. It’s surprising because a lot of the Strictly tracks that are from my personal collection do sound very contemporary even now, they’re timeless and I was quite shocked because I haven’t heard some of these records for about 20 years.



“I think that’s the point of the compilation – to re-expose these great tracks to people because Strictly Rhythm’s catalogue is so important in the history of house music. “

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Words: Greg Sawyer

Strictly Rhythms Volume 4 mixed by Charles Webster is out 10th May