Call him Sessomatto, Akabu, Jakatta, Doug Willis, Raven Maize, Joey Negro or even Mr Bottyspank but, whatever moniker he is releasing under, pioneering UK DJ-producer Dave Lee can always be called ‘quality’.
Owner of the acclaimed Z Records and collaborator with everyone from Robbie Williams to Seal, Dave Lee commands the respect of musicians worldwide like few other names in the global house community.

When a cut drops on Z it receives support from everyone from Tony Humphries to Laurent Garnier. Similarly, his club sets are the stuff of legend: disco samples intertwine with house beats like they were always meant to be together. So, when a relatively rare Australian tour takes shape like this one, house fans – and broader lovers of music – really have something to be excited about.

Returning down under for the first time since NYE 2007-08, Lee is again being hosted by quality Sydney house brand SHE, with appearances in Melbourne and Brisbane also confirmed. As he explains down the phone from his studio in London, it’s good to be coming back.

“That SHE New Years gig was really good; I enjoyed it,” he recalls. “I always look forward to coming out there; it’s a nice part of the world [and] I suppose it’s always good for me because I don’t play in Australia very often [and] when I do play you get quite a lot of the people you want coming to your gig. You know there’s people who will make an effort to come and see you.”

“I know when I play in London for example – even though I’ve got a fanbase of people who will come to my gig – it’s not the same as when someone from America plays in London who maybe plays [there] only once or twice a year. It’s good because you’ll have the heads there so you can play a more obscure record that they’re going to know.”

While perhaps best know for his house cuts, Lee’s production work for some of mainstream music’s biggest names – including Take That, Simply Red and Seal – cannot be ignored, and demonstrate his wider-ranging talents as a producer. Mainstream chart success with tracks like 2000’s _American Dream, My Vision and Make A Move On Me has proven Lee’s ability to walk the thin line between underground credibility and commercial accessibility.

Touring widely nearly all year round, Lee is in a unique position to comment on current economic conditions and their perceived effect on clubland. “So far so good,” he says. “Touch wood; there’s all this doom and gloom in the media but I haven’t so far seen anything in our industry or in clubbing that might see things go down the toilet. It seems OK, but we’ll see.”

Long revered for his tireless work ethic, Lee is the first to admit that getting a track “just right” can be a frustrating process but says also that modern technology has resulted in him being even more ruthless during a final mix down. He cites both his forthcoming Akabu album (a release he promises will be ‘a bit more deep and techy’) and his 2009 remix of his classic Ride The Rhythm track as examples of projects that take longer to complete than first thought.

“A lot of these things in my head I think ‘Oh I can do that in a week’ or ‘I can do that in a couple of days’ and it ends up taking three times as long,” he says. “It’s frustrating sometimes and you wonder ‘why is this taking so long?’ but it’s sometimes not easy getting something really right. Sometimes you can end up pissing around with something for ages and then it doesn’t make any difference and then other times you can fine tune something and you do make quite a big difference. Sometimes I’ll play something out on the weekend and I’ll think ‘that bass sounded a bit loud’ or ‘the sound didn’t cut through as much as I thought it would’ so you end up going back and making a few changes that should take ten minutes but ends up taking half a day.”

As further proof of his prolific output, Lee reveals the next few months will see the release of a new compilation Locked In The Vinyl Cellar featuring everything from soul, funk and house to reggae and rock, in addition to a remix album from The Sunburst Band, another of his side projects. Z Records’ has already showcased a few of the remixes of tracks from last year’s third album Moving With The Shakers, including superb reworks from the likes of Freerange’s Milton Jackson, Dennis Ferrer and Henrik Schwarz, and Lee says additional, as yet unreleased remixes from the likes of Swing City’s Grant Nelson and Detroit techno legend Carl Craig should make it a standout release.

“Sometime remix albums aren’t that great but because we’ve had quite a few remixes done I’m only putting on the best ones,” he says. “The second CD will be a DJ megamix of various Sunburst Band tracks off all three albums; I think it will be quite a good package.”

With over 20 years experience in the music industry, Lee is justifiably happy to speak frankly on any number of topics, and the topic of this year’s Miami Winter Music Conference – and Lee’s decision not to attend – provokes a typically candid response.

“I don’t think I’d bother again to be honest with you,” he says of the annual industry event. ‘I always say to people that it’s definitely worth going once if you can afford it but it is expensive. I hadn’t been for five years and it felt very similar to the previous time I’d been.”

Ibiza isn’t such clear-cut case for Lee. While a familiar face on the island for many years playing at parties for MN2S, Defected and many more labels, he admits the island is becoming prohibitively expensive for clubbers, and the current strength of the Euro against the Pound is doing no one any favours.

“Ibiza is fucking expensive,” he says forthrightly. “No matter what people say, Ibiza isn’t as good as it used to be. I think the government in Ibiza are (sic) just clamping down. They don’t seem to want the clubbing thing there. They are making the clubs shut earlier, so the clubs are then putting up their prices [and] a lot of the bars are putting up their prices to compete. A lot of the clubs are like 50 or 60 euros to get in. Now for English people that’s going to be 50-60 pounds to get in. I just thing they’re pricing themselves out of the market a little bit.”

No such worries for Australian fans. Catch Mr Lee over the Easter Weekend for a song!

Fri 10th April – Alumbra Melbourne
Sat 11th April – Alhambra Brisbane
Sun 12th April – SHE, Bungalow 8 & the loft, Sydney