James Lavelle

Born in Oxford in 1974, James Lavelle emerged at the start of the 1990s British DJ scene by founding the Mo' Wax label, a key platform for a strand of instrumental hip‑hop, trip‑hop and electronic music characterized by collage techniques, slow basslines and cinematic atmospheres. Lavelle notably supported the rise of DJ Shadow, whose Endtroducing..... was released on the label in 1996, before developing his own project UNKLE. Initially launched with Tim Goldsworthy and later redefined with DJ Shadow, UNKLE took on a broader shape with Psyence Fiction in 1998, an album at the crossroads of trip‑hop, breakbeat, rock and spoken word, followed by Never, Never, Land (2003) and War Stories (2007), where Lavelle increasingly opened his songwriting to rock and psychedelic structures. He subsequently continued UNKLE with Richard File and then Pablo Clements, on records such as End Titles... Stories for Film (2008), Where Did the Night Fall (2010), The Road: Part 1 (2017) and The Road: Part II / Lost Highway (2019). In parallel, James Lavelle has maintained a steady career as a DJ, curator and remixer, moving between electronica, downtempo, abstract hip‑hop and more club‑oriented formats.