King Unique are two guys called Matt who make rough-edged dirty house music, Matthew Roberts and Matt "Watkins" Thomas, a pair of studio junkies with a taste for bulldozer beats and sick synthesizers.
Over the last four years their records and remixes have hit home with house-heads, nu-ravers and electro-rockers alike, being championed by everyone from
Sasha to
Danny Howells,
Carl Cox to
Tiësto, and
Pete Tong to
Zane Lowe. Their music has turned up everywhere from Hollywood soundtracks to mobile ringtones, not to mention countless compilations and mix albums. Their Decks'n'FX DJ sets have made them regulars in some of the world's most respected clubs and biggest festivals, turning heads with both the music they play and the way they play it.
King Unique hit the floor running in 2001, claiming the title of Undisputed Remix Champs by scoring five Essential New Tunes in five months on
Pete Tong's BBC Radio 1 show. The
King Unique sound has been in constant demand since, appearing on dozens of remixes including King Dong sized floor-fillers such as
Underworld's "Two Months Off", Planet Funk's "The Switch",
Mutiny's "The Virus", Jamiroquai's "You Give Me Something",
Luke Slater's "Nothing At All", Foremost Poets' "Moonraker" and Baz's "Believers". Most recently
King Unique have reworked LA rockers The Killers' "Somebody Told Me", Dirty Vegas' "Walk Into the Sun" and Chable and Bonicci's "Ride".
The productions make for an equally impressive line-up; "Obscene, dirty, filthy, immoral" set out the
King Unique agenda on "Dirty" by Dirty, the first of a series of singles released on Junior Boys Own. Next they raised the stakes with "Sugarhigh", a track dreamt up in a tiny techno bar in Tokyo whilst under the influence of too much vodka and too little sleep. A melodic powerhouse of a track that fused classic house and melodic Detroit vibes, "Sugarhigh" gave KU a sixth Essential New Tune. The next
King Unique single "Lighters/Music Please" followed in early 2003 and saw KU experimenting with new sounds. "Lighters" poured out a relentless cascade of slow and heavy electro-house that "sound like it's raining synthesizers on your head" (Mixmag), while the DJ-friendly "Music Please" delivered a slice of psychedelic breakbeats favored by Danny Tenaglia and
James Zabiela.
On the very few days that they aren't locked in the same studio both Matts have found time to release their own solo productions and remixes. Ubu (Matthew Roberts with brother Leon) got completely twisted with the drug'n'bass sound of "Pixels" and "Ride The Snake". Matt Thomas re-emerged as Watkins with emotional vocal-house classic "Black a.m.", and remixes for Frou Frou and Telepopmuzik. Not content with one pseudonym Matt T also unleashed several tracks in his Mainframe alter ego, including remixes of
Pete Heller's "Sputnik" and Tomy or Zux's "The Music Makes Me Happy" which scored yet another Essential New Tune.
At a
King Unique show you may well know some of the records, but you'll never have heard them sound like this before; by packing their whole studio into a pair of laptops,
King Unique are able to re-edit, remix and re-fix any track on the fly, serving up the killer dirty sound of their studio work all night long - live. This four-armed, twin-headed, single-minded mash up of vinyl, CDs, custom made re-edits and live samples has made it's mark at all the best UK clubs;
Cream, Tribal Sessions, Ministry Of Sound, Renaissance, The End, Turnmills, Lush and Progression. Worldwide demand for the
King Unique sound has seen them playing in Tokyo, Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Athens, Bucharest, Singapore and the huge Skol Beats (Brazil) and Exit (Serbia) festivals, as well as filling guest radio slots for The Essential Mix, Kiss 100 and
Annie Nightingale.
