Matthew Styles

Matthew Styles isn’t very good at social media. He doesn’t post funny pictures or say really clever things about politics. There’s not even a single cat video. Instead he makes music (Ostgut Ton, Running Back, Crosstown Rebels), mixes and masters music for many of the best in the game, manages a record label (Running Back) and concentrates on maintaing his reputation as one of the most refined DJs in the business. Matthew Styles is good at music.

A linchpin in the turn-of-the-century London scene, Styles helped shape the city’s electronic landscape indelibly through his years as managerial man-behind-the-curtain at Damian Lazarus’ climate-changing Crosstown Rebels label, as well as fronting the essential Sunday afterhours iniquity that was Dig Your Own Rave at Shoreditch’s T Bar. Impressive but extracurricular; making music was always where the heart was.
His mature and timeless brand of house music – always simmering with latent soul – has long been sought after and signed by artists and labels of esteem and standing: Derrick Carter’s Classic, Sven Väth’s Cocoon, Radio Slave’s Rekids, Gerd Janson’s Running Back. Most recently the commanding Ostgut Ton have put pen to paper for the Englishman to join their august ranks. An expert studio engineer, his skills are in equal demand as a producer for others and have prompted leading publication Resident Advisor to cover him for their ‘Machine Love’ series; while the repeated and regular bookings at Berlin’s Panorama Bar speak to Styles’ reputation as a DJ.

Now entrusted by Janson with the running of his revered and influential label, the respect and admiration Styles commands from the industry he himself has done so much to enrich is more assured and evident than ever. You won’t hear him bragging about it on Facebook though.