NORTHERN EXPOSURE
John Digweed and Sasha are virtually inseparable within the prevailing language of DJ culture. The international Northern Exposure tour consolidated their success not only as individual DJs but also, and perhaps more significantly, as a dynamic team. They captured the clubbers' imagination with their back-to-back mixing routines. Together they now represent the backbone of progressive house scene in the UK. 'Because we've played a lot together, everyone thinks we're kind of joined at the waist,' jokes Digweed. For the moment they will continue gigging separately around the UK until their next album. 'We've given it a break,' says Digweed, 'because we did so much touring with Northern Exposure over the last eighteen months.'

They do join forces, however, for their regular date at New York's Twilo club (best known as Danny Tenaglia's haunt). 'We do that on the last Friday of every month and it's going really well,' Digweed says.

'In April we will have been there for a year, which is quite good 'cause apart from Junior Vasquez and Danny Tenaglia, a lot of the American DJs don't actually play in New York.' Even Digweed is at a loss to account for this. 'A lot of the American DJs are more popular in Europe than they are in the States,' he reasons. 'The crowd don't support them like they do in Europe and other countries.'

Regardless, he and Sasha seem to have found their niche in the Big Apple where the flamboyant style promoted by Vasquez and Tenaglia has long dominated dancefloors in house venues. 'The European trance we play is quite fresh to them,' Digweed says. 'When we started, there weren't really a lot of DJs playing that kind of sound, so we've cornered the market and got our own regular crowd who are really into what we do.'

Of course, Digweed never imagined that he would morph into celebrity DJ like his partner on the decks, Sasha. 'The scene grew and I grew with it,' he says. Digweed maintains a detached bemusement at the parallel explosion of media interest in club culture, but insists that DJs are not pop stars. 'It's not like I've got people going through my litter bin. 'Mind you, when Northern Exposure hit Johannesburg -- a city like, Moscow, known to be precarious -- both DJs were accompanied by beefy bodyguards. Digweed cringes at any implication that this makes him look like a wannabee pop idol.

Digweed has just released "Global Underground: John Digweed" which was recorded at the Metro in Sydney during his recent Australian tour.

GODFATHER OF ACID
London's Godfather of acid house, Danny Rampling is a difficult man to corner. That's because he is among the hardest working in the business. Rampling has DJed for the best part of fifteen years. His early phase was a hard slog. He spun hip hop, funk, soul, commercial stuff. Nothing extraordinary. But things changed for the better in 1987 after Rampling holidayed in Ibiza. There he discovered house in all its glory. He soaked up the positive, internationalist, liberating spirit and brought it home. Now in 1998, his Saturday night slot is broadcast on the 'net through the BBC's website. Rampling is especially keen because he's long valued the transglobal spirit of house music.

Unlike some of his contemporaries Rampling is not at all ambivalent about the near deification of the DJ: 'I think it's good,' he says. 'It's made people sit up and think, "Hey DJs are not just about flashing lights and stupid shirts and mobile discos and there to be abused or whatever. Now lots of young people want to become DJs. It's like wanting to become a guitarist or a sportsperson or something. It's good that the role of the DJ has become more prominent. Rampling made news last year when he collapsed from overwork. He is not the only leading DJ to suffer from the stress of juggling live dates, radio, production and business.

"DJ Excursions #4" mixed by Danny Rampling is out on MDS.

GERMAN TECHNO
So how does a man who has made global clubbing his career look back on the highlights? 'You always tend to say the early parties were the best,' Ian Pooley muses, 'like back in 1991. But I've had so many good times.'

The German DJ/producer, one of techno's leading lights finds the Australian scene very different to that of Europe. 'I think they're more enthusiastic about the music. In Europe, especially in Germany, you have so many international DJs every weekend that it's sometimes hard to get the people into the music.'

Pooley didn't launch his solo career until fairly recently, preferring to collaborate with the likes of DJ Tonka. 'When I started I was basically just doing beats and experimenting with new sounds. Now I'm doing lots of different stuff. In the beginning I was doing mainly Detroit techno but now I'm doing lots of house, downbeat and techno also.'

Just lately Pooley visited the States for the second time, discovering, much to his surprise, that the once avant garde techno scene is flourishing -- no doubt due to the hype generated by more mainstream electronica acts. 'I think it's a kind of college thing -- a lot of students are into Prodigy and Chemical Brothers,' he reflects. 'They were playing it on the radio. Last year when I went over they were only playing indie stuff or hip hop and R&B. So I think it's getting better for the techno scene in America. There only used to be like Chicago, New York and maybe Washington on the East Coast, but now a lot of smaller cities are getting into techno, too -- like St Louis, Cincinatti or Milwaukee.' After focussing on house for the last year or so, the versatile DJ is himself rediscovering techno-his first love. 'I'm bored with house at the moment,' he declares dismissively.

DOWNTOWN TOKYO
Although born in Tokyo, Satoshi Tomilie made his name in the US where house identity Frankie Knuckles lured him after hearing his instrumental wizardry.

Ditching law school, he commuted between Tokyo and the US to start his dance music career. Satoshi has since produced and remixed for the likes of Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, David Bowie, Diana Ross, Shabba Ranks and Simply Red and worked with David Morales among others, and released remixes under the guise of The Hard Shell, as well as his own name.

Satoshi has spun at locations as varied as the Ministry of Sound (London), Cream (UK), Gold & Yellow (Tokyo), Pacha Ofir (Portugal) and Rave City (Germany). 'When I'm hanging out, I like to hear a good mixture of vocals and tracks. I never really think about what I'm going to play or in which order I'll play them. I just play what I like.'

UNDERGROUND
As Japan's original turntable maestro, DJ Krush is something of an anomaly in hip hop culture. Aligned with James Lavelle's progressive Mo' Wax label in the UK, Krush may not have been directly exposed to America's gritty urban environments, but he is widely regarded as an underground innovator.

Over the years Krush has hooked up with calibre contemporary artists ranging from his labelmate DJ Shadow, Ronny Jordan, Guru (Gang Starr), CL Smooth, The Roots and Coldcut. Significantly, Krush was among the first DJs to use the turntable as 'live instruments' during jam sessions with real musicians (an increasingly popular practice with the emergence of the Fugees and Beck).

Does Krush feel that Americans are intrigued by Japan's love of hip hop? 'I don't know,' he responds. 'Maybe that's one of the things that I would want to ask people in the US. But as far as I know, all the people who I've met are extremely happy about it. Evil Dee (Black Moon's DJ/producer) once told me that when he first heard my music, he thought I was somebody from his hometown Brooklyn. He was surprised to know that I was Japanese. But he felt that we just happened to come from different continents and that's the only difference between us. I think that, hopefully, hip hop is becoming an international scene in a true sense. The scene in Japan is yet to mature, but now that the torch has been lit, it's up to us to see how long and how bright we can make that light last and shine.'

Krush's latest project is called "Holonic-The Self Megamix", which he explains means wholly 'in a sense that a lot of different elements are gathered together but exist as one. We found it in an encyclopaedia. I thought it describes what I do well.'

PERSONALITY PLUS
Jeremy Healy was one of the first DJs to mix talent and personality as well as records. Even during his brief period as a pop star in the early 80s Healy had set up turntables at home to practise his scratching skills alongside Grandmaster Flash records. It worked.

Healy is now one of the most famous and famously well-paid DJs in the world. He has worked every weekend since 1990 with no sign of stopping. 'It's well paid, it's glamorous, it's really fun, I lucked out,' Healy says. 'It's a great job.'

He's also fallen out with Moss's buddies, Oasis. 'I did a remix of "Wonderwall" with the NWA drumbeat on it,' says Healy, 'and then I sent it over to Oasis, because I know Meg (Noel's wife) because she used to work at the pool I went to, but anyway, they said they didn't like it and six months later their next record ("D'You Know What I Mean") came out with the exact same drumbeat on it. I won't be doing any more records for them.'

BALEARIC AMBIENCE
Padilla is widely recognised as an international envoy for the Balearic sound, an ambient house that emerged around the late 80s. Since then, his name has also become synonymous with Ibiza's celebrated hub of opulent grooves, Cafe Del Mar, where he first became resident DJ in 1991. The seaside venue provides the perfect setting for his epic, cinematic and evocative sets. Like aural postcards, Padilla's series of Cafe Del Mar compilations has put his Mediterranean club/bar/party venue on the cultural map.

NEW AGE SOUND SCAPES
'People have this impression of me as some wild, lunatic English DJ,' laughs Brian Transeau, better known as BT. That popular perception couldn't be further from the truth. Sure, his first UK single, 'Embracing The Sunshine', was welcomed by the UK's progressive house fraternity when it came out on Paul Oakenfold's Perfecto Imprint in 1995. And the trendy "Muzik" magazine subsequently named his full-length debut, "Ima" as its album of the year.

But Transeau -- based in pastoral Maryland, where he grew up -- projects himself more as New Age composer than as an epic house hypnotist. Whether composing futuristic moodscapes on his remote farm, or shooting a surreal video clip for the "Remember" single in majestic Iceland, BT is above all a romantic. This nature lover didn't even discover club culture until a couple of years ago during an intoxicating visit to Britain, with none other than London DJ Sasha as his guide. 'I wrote the whole of "Ima" without ever hearing a dance record in my life,' Transeau insists. He recently unleashed its followup, "ESCM", which finds him drawing on his ever-widening net of influences.