NOW into his second decade as a true innovator in the electronic music scene, Charles Webster is one of the few real mould-breakers in the dance music world. Charles has sold over 100,000 albums without ever being considered ‘mainstream’ or having a major hit single. He is comfortable making music at any tempo, straddles numerous genres, both real and imagined, and even indulges in a little songwriting.
He has toured the world with a full live band. He has also DJ’ed worldwide, played in every continent, without ever having had the need to be feted by the dance media as a flavour of the month.
As a youth he was enthralled by the works of Berlin era David Bowie and the electronic future music of Kraftwerk leading to involvement in early electronic bands around his hometown of Derby and Sheffield.
From hereon, Webster describes his career as a “blurred tale of late nights in studios and clubs, collaborators aplenty, all pieces fitting together” helping to shape the electronic soul sound that is Webster’s trademark. Earning his dance music spurs engineering for the great, the good, and just occasionally the god-awful at the seminal Square Dance Studios, Charles came of age as a producer in his own right with 1990’s Sine and 1992’s Megatonk projects.
A move stateside saw his production career go into overdrive as the prime mover behind the acclaimed ‘Love From San Francisco’ label. Charles also met 16 year old Terra Deva around this time and launched the prodigious talent into the dance music world via Furry Phreaks with the tracks ‘Soothe’ and ‘Want Me Like Water’.
Now many years later Terra collaborated with Charles on 2002’s ‘Ready’ from the album ‘Born On The 24th July’ (Peacefrog / Statra), his first album under his own name. The 2002 release achieved worldwide acclaim and success and is arguably the closest thing yet to a full depiction of Charles’s musical vision, it is a deep yet uplifting, soulful, diverse collection and makes for a truly coherent album, rather than a patchwork of club tracks and fillers.
More recently Charles has been dj’ing relentlessly worldwide, as well as remixing the likes of Salif Keita and Martina Topley-Bird. New Presence demos are being recorded, and more releases are lined up for Miso Records.
