Plastician

Plastician aka Chris Reed started DJ'ing in 1999 after gaining interest in the UK garage scene which was emerging on the pirate radio stations of London. He eventually gained the skills to earn himself a spot on a small pirate station called Desire FM, with a collective known as the Fearless Crew. After a few months of hard graft on Desire, Plastician and the rest of the crew moved onto South London based pirate, 2G FM - where they found a home for a good year before eventually splitting, leaving Chris to find his feet as a lone DJ.

It was then that he became more involved in the music industry, getting himself a job at a distribution company called Streetsales - it was here he would gain knowledge of the way the industry worked from the inside, which led to him trying his hand at production - to further his career as a DJ by attracting more attention to his name.

Plastician was then known as Plasticman, and he had various releases in 2002 on labels such as Soulja, Road, Slimzos and Contagious. He was fastly becoming a hot property in the newly emerging genre we now label as grime. 2003 was a big year for Chris, he earned himself a DJ set at the established night "FWD", and began to really establish himself as a DJ / Producer within both the dubstep and grime movements.

Early in 2003, Terrorhythm Recordings was founded by The Plastician (still known as Plasticman then). It was an outlet for his own productions, with releases by himself and Mark One in the first year. After 6 months of FWD playouts and Terrorhythm releases, Rephlex took note of his production skills and signed him to their label for the release of the groundbreaking "Grime" compilation. He also gained a slot on Rinse FM, a station which boasts the discovery of artists such as Dizzee Rascal, Wiley and Roll Deep.

2004 saw The Plastician tour the USA, and many other countries - giving many cultures their first taste of grime and dubstep along the way. This trend has continued to this very day, as he remains one of the scene's biggest ambassadors.

In 2005 Plasticman officially changed his name to The Plastician to avoid any confusion between him and Richie Hawtin, this name change was synchronised with his move from Rinse FM (London's biggest pirate radio station) to BBC Radio One, where he would host the station's first ever dedicated grime and dubstep show in the beginning of 2006.

"I've been using Serato since October 2005, when I purchased it on tour in the States. I used it for the first time the day after I got back and I haven't done a 100% vinyl set since. I'd never consider cutting another Dubplate, and my stomach turns at the thought of using a CD deck! It truly has revolutionised my DJ sets and I even use it to record my Radio One show."

For more information on Plastician check out his discography: www.discogs.com/artist/Plasticman