Words by Mikko Anisimoff. Photo by Joe Whitney.

Whether you are an indie devotee, an old-time acid house raver, a Balearic enthusiast, a techno hedonist who has spent sweaty nights at London's Fabric, or just a well-rounded music fan with an ear for all of the aforementioned – plus probably some rockabilly and new electronic disco – the excitement is certainly in the air for Andrew Weatherall's DJ gig at Nolla on Saturday, January 8th. The "classic underachiever", as he describes himself, has been up to a lot of things since the mid-eighties. Here's an overview including some of his key songs, productions and remixes.

During the first days of acid house, Andrew Weatherall started playing records mostly because he happened to be the one who owned them. "I never considered myself a DJ when I first started. A lot of the early acid house clubs or what turned into acid house played a wide range of music. There were techno records and house records around but not enough to fill up an evening until 6 o’clock in the morning. I had a good collection of post punk, early electronica and dub, so I got a reputation as an “after-hours” DJ", he tells in an interview with Scene 360.

Around that time, along with his friends Steve Mayes, Terry Farley and Cymon Eccles, Weatherall was part of the crew who were releasing their home-made fanzine called Boy's Own, "the village newspaper of acid house" (neatly compiled and released as a book by DJHistory last year). "We got Andrew in because he was a lot cleverer than us, could spell and knew proper grammar", Farley told Resident Advisor.

Weatherall and Farley became regular DJ's at Danny Rampling's club night Shoom in London and at Paul Oakenfold's Future and Spectrum nights. They also did their own parties and started a record label under the name of Boys Own Recordings. Weatherall's first released studio work was alongside Paul Oakenfold on the 1989 club remix of Happy Mondays' "Hallelujah". With fellow Shoom DJ Pete Heller, Hugo Nicholson and Terry Farley, Weatherall released "Raise (63 Steps to Heaven)" as Bocca Juniors in 1990.

Also in 1990, Weatherall began remixing "I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have" from Primal Scream's epynomous second album. Eventually, the track had became "Loaded", the first single to be released from the band's next album, Weatherall co-produced Screamadelica, a Mercury Music Prize-winning record frequently acknowledged as one of the best albums of the nineties. To celebrate its 20th anniversary, there will be a massive box set released in 2011.

Weatherall's demand as a remixer and a producer began to rise: he lent his vision to Saint Etienne, My Bloody Valentine, New Order, One Dove and The Orb among others during the first half of the 90's. Test Pressing has compiled some of his early work into a mix.

In 1992, Andrew left Boys Own and formed the trio The Sabres of Paradise a year later with Gary Burns and Jagz Kooner. Sheffield's seminal Warp Records released the group's records, including the Wilmoth Houdini remake "Wilmot" and the Ibiza classic "Smoke Belch II", which owes more than a little to L.B. Bad. 

For about a decade since 1996, Weatherall was mostly releasing music under the name Two Lone Swordsmen with Keith Tenniswood, both on their own, short-lived Emissions Audio Output and on Warp Records. Andrew was known for playing straightforward techno and electro in his DJ sets at the time. The fans were puzzled, as the Swordsmen were playing live as a band with Weatherall taking over the vocal duties. "There’s nothing like being in front of hundreds of people, many of whom are shouting obscenities because they were expecting some techno, to test one’s mettle and force one to see things through. The main point of the exercise was to do something fraught with danger with a high possibility of failure. That and I didn’t want any celebrity guest vocalists”, he told in an interview with FACT Magazine.

In the beginning of the new decade, Weatherall set up his new label Rotters Golf Club. “I well and truly fucked up the first half [of the decade] but pulled it back with a reasonably productive late spurt.” While he wasn't probably releasing that much music in the beginning of the new millenium, there was something rather unexpected and original happening anyway. Andrew started to include more and more rockabilly and rhythm & blues into his DJ sets, particularly during the Wrong Meeting nights he ran with Ivan Smagghe at T Bar. This direction was also showcased on the Soma Recordings compilation Sci.Fi.Lo.Fi.

Lately, Weatherall has been playing sets of dubby contemporary disco, a sound that is also heard on the Anderw Weatherall vs. The Boardroom albums that came out on Rotters Golf Club in 2008–2009. Last year, the label released the first Andrew Weatherall solo album, A Pox On The Pioneers, which he talks about in a Dummy Mag interview. The article reveals that Weatherall is not signed up on Twitter (maybe not too surprisingly). "There’s too many books I haven’t read or art exhibitions I haven’t seen to tell people how many times I’ve been to the toilet that day".

After a break, Weatherall also came back to producing other bands' records with the second Fuck Buttons album Tarot Sport. On the remix front, he has been lately working on tracks by such contemporary artists as Trentemøller, Detachments and the Finnish duo LCMDF. His recent shows on BBC's 6 Music have gained him a lot of supporters (check out "The Music That Made Screamadelica", for example).

Next year will see Andrew release his second solo album, but that's not all we are excited about in Helsinki. It will be great to hear the influential gentleman play a DJ set in an environment which allows him to be as versatile as he wants to.