Pittsburgh, PA · drum-and-bass

Dieselboy

1 upcoming festival

The most important American drum and bass DJ of his generation, and still an exceptional technician — Pittsburgh-bred precision that helped build the US scene.

Dieselboy is the stage name of Damian Higgins, a DJ who came up in Pittsburgh and became one of the central figures in American drum and bass. He began playing in the early 1990s, when the music was still largely a British import, and built an audience through mixtapes and mix CDs that circulated widely in the US rave scene. He also founded the Human Imprint and Planet of the Drums labels and imprints associated with his work.

His sets favour the darker, heavier end of the genre — techstep, neurofunk and industrial-leaning tracks — arranged with heavy use of layering and effects rather than straightforward beatmatching. He tours as part of the Planet of the Drums collective alongside other long-running American drum and bass DJs.

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