josh butler

Josh Butler is a UK-based house producer and DJ. He grew up between Warrington in the north of England and rural New Zealand, and that split upbringing gave him a wide musical grounding early on. He started making music around the age of fourteen, before he ever DJed, and playing his first sets at outdoor parties in New Zealand where he'd drop whatever felt right, from hip hop to drum and bass to house.

He first came to wider attention with "Got A Feeling," a stripped-back track that took off well beyond anything he'd expected. Interestingly, it was a remix of it that broke through rather than his own version, and he has spoken about wanting to move in the opposite direction afterwards rather than be pinned to that one sound. A run of releases and a couple of industry awards followed through the mid-2010s, on labels including Cajual, MadTech, Roush, Avotre and Noir, alongside remix work for the likes of Fatboy Slim and Carl Cox.

In 2016 he started his own label, Origins Rcrds, with a nice idea at its heart: pairing house veterans like Marshall Jefferson, Todd Terry and Robert Owens with newer artists coming through. The label has since put out records from Kerri Chandler, Groove Armada, Richy Ahmed and Huxley, and grown into a respected name in its own right.

At its core his music keeps to a "less is more" approach, bass-driven house that leaves room to breathe. Building a sound of his own has been a slow, deliberate process for him, and by his own account it's still ongoing, which is probably the point.