Dylan Rhymes

Dylan Rhymes – Biography

With the exception of Paul Weller, Dylan Rhymes may well be Woking’s favourite son. Dance music has been the biggest part of Rhymes’ (otherwise known as Marvin Beaver – and yes, he’s heard all of the jokes) life from a young age. Inspired by early hip hop and electro a la Kraftwerk and Doug E. Fresh, Marvin purchased his first set of decks at 15 and caught the bug in a bad way.

While working for British Airways after leaving school, a chance meeting with a nu-beat-writing co-worker who was selling his equipment to go travelling led to Marvin’s first “studio”. Supplemented with the now legendary Roland TR808 and TR909 drum machines Beaver started, as most people did in dance music in the late eighties, by putting out a few acid house white labels. Before long the talent was noticed by owners of the seminal Wax Factory imprint, Ron Wells and Chris Simmons, who began to release more of his material. Dave Pearce’s Reachin Records also bought into the young producers skills, fuelling the fire and enabling Beaver to set up a commercial studio with his mate Justin Drake in the early 1990s.

Rhythm Design Studios in Uxbridge became the birthplace of Outsiders, Drake and Beaver’s much-lauded project for Junior Boy’s Own Chicago influenced Jus Trax label. Friend, DJ and London mainstay Clive Henry then joined the team and the trio became Peace Division, a project that gained props from every corner of dance music without exception.

Leaving Peace Division to focus on his own material, Beaver invented the Dylan Rhymes moniker (a reference to Bob Dylan) and set about working on a breakbeat track for Junior Boys Own. The result was 1996s “Naked & Ashamed” which, due to a Smirnoff ad campaign, became one the label’s biggest tracks (no mean feat considering JBO’s pedigree). Since then he has cemented his reputation as one of the leaders of the breakbeat and tech house scenes through his output through Kingsize Records, Meat Katie’s Whole9Yards and Lot49 labels and his own Blue Black imprint.

Besides original work, Beaver has also remixed the likes of Deep Dish, Infusion, Dave Gahan, Overseer, Unkle and Puretone while he has collaborated with Meat Katie, Christian J, Force Mass Motion (as Silencer) and Anthony J Gorry (on his 2004 album, Dead Famous).

Rhymes is currently working a brand new project for Adrift Records.

 Dylan Rhymes Live:

UK Bookings - dean@adriftrecords.com
US Bookings - hugo@godskitchen.com

 Dylan Rhymes Discography