Find all my music on Spotify:
http://sptfy.com/kidnap

For all enquires: sophia@tinysaturnmusic.com

Kidnap is an artist whose music overflows with emotion - rich and powerfully evocative.

Recording in London, Kidnap (real name Matthew Relton) likens his process to that of a sculptor, starting with a block of sound and chopping away until a shape emerges. As such, each song exists ornately carved with a handcrafted subtly.

Still just 33, Relton is already something of an industry veteran. Releasing his first single in 2012 kicked off an eight-year stretch of global touring that came to a grinding halt when the pandemic put the world on pause.

2024 marks a new chapter for Kidnap, with his next body of work on the horizon. Set against the backdrop of a changing world and the arrival of a baby daughter, Relton offers a bittersweet reflection on the passing of time. ‘It’s about looking back on the last 12 years — the touring and the friends and the sleeplessness,” says Relton, “and realising that in order to embrace the life I have now, I need to let it all go.’ The music shimmers with nostalgia. Signature sad melodies dance deftly around commanding synth lines, altogether sounding like an artist with a new found sense of purpose.

Nothing Really Matters: 
https://gabrielleaplin.lnk.to/NRMPreSaveFa

For those that have frequented the many raves a burgeoning South West party scene has had to
offer, they’ll be more than familiar with the names of two of it’s most talented sons. Antony ‘D-ice’
Davies and Damien ‘Reality’ James aka powerhouse DJ, Producer and Promoter combo D-ice &
Reality are quite simply the dynamic duo in every sense of the proverbial, in that they’ve spent an
entire decade and then some mastering the craft of not only entertaining ravers UK and Europe wide
during that time, but also finely mastering some big room anthems, putting in the ground work to
promote some of Bristol’s most memorable events and even making sure on the side that ravers get
to other promoters events by running a now infamous Bristol based coach service.
Taking every aspect of what they do very seriously and none the less providing a one stop rave shop
in so far as they’ve been making sure they put great events on, ensured people could get to them,
provided the soundtrack by playing at them and then post event made some slammers to bring back
the memories – D-ice & Reality are now to many a very important addition to the UK hardcore
phenomena.
Reality has been an avid and most supportive fan of hardcore since 1996, being hooked into the
scene by borrowing his first DJ SY tape at just 15 off a friend from the Hysteria 9 pack. He quickly set
about getting decks and buying up every vinyl he could afford from the fondly remembered Replay
and Giant record stores in Bristol. In 2001 he met DJ Blite and was asked to be part of Delirium for
which he would become co-promoter of with the first event at The Maze in Bristol being a huge
success. The two then took the fresh and exciting new brand to a number of Bristol venues The
Station, The Depot, The Brunel Rooms, Trinity and eventually Lakota which has remained their
home for many years, making them often regarded as Bristol’s longest running hardcore event.
D-ice’s career started back in 2000 when he got his first real taste of event promotion on a bigger
level hosting the second room for Fusion during its epic reign at the Bath Pavilion under the
management of Chris Grayston and DJ Supreme. Having been a DJ for some time before that, it
proved the perfect platform to present his talents to a busy South West scene leading to bookings and
ultimately residencies with Obsessed at Dance Academy Plymouth and GBH for Mike David aka
The Tormentor in Bristol, fast making D-ice a much sought after artist.
Not limiting his skills to turntables, D-ice was also initially an MC too and whilst MC’ing at an old skool
event in Bristol with ‘the detonator’ Robbie Dee, he met Reality, forging a DJ, production and
promotion partnership that would last a decade and is still rolling strong to the present day. Sharing a
mutual love for hardcore music and similar tastes in their relative sounds it seemed to make perfect
sense at the time to hook up as a duo, as D-ice was taking bookings left, right and centre and Reality
was regularly hosting Delirium as well as an ever building list of his own bookings. In their eyes there
couldn’t be a better time and so D-ice became D-ice & Reality and the two have since put an
insurmountable amount of effort into helping to do their part to contribute to the UK wide rave
community.
As part of said contribution and amongst continuing to DJ as a pair, promote and produce, D-ice also
started up the Kushti Coaches company in 2001, a service that would supply an all in ticket and
travel coach service to every major rave event in the UK from Bristol and the surrounding areas. Still
running strong to this very day, the company now sees to it that thousands of ravers from the South
West find their way to some of the UK’s leading parties every weekend.
With everything from being booked every week, to putting on events, to getting people to events all
high on the agenda, the next logical step was production. Not wasting any time on bouncing
backwards and forwards with ideas, D-ice & Reality would set about producing a number of now
much loved anthems including ‘Why Worry’ (with Deejaybee) and ‘Touched’ (also with Deejaybee) on
Breeze’s Infinity label, ‘Love You More’ and ‘Hear Comes’ (Reality, Diverse and In Effect) on
Higher State.
They would also produce a number of exclusive promo releases, unreleased DJ tools and
forthcoming releases such as ‘Wheels Of Time’, ‘Run’, ‘I Feel’, ‘Open Ur Mind’ and ‘Falling’ as well as
a number of tracks with Deejaybee such as ‘Breathless’, ‘So Shy’, ‘Raveday’ and ‘Run With Us’.
They’ve also completed a selection of successful remixes, both independently and as two separate
artists working collaboratively on Breeze’s ‘Let’s Fly’, Reality working with In Effect on Coalescene’s
‘Catch My Breath’, Reality working with Deejaybee on ‘Walkaway’ for Deejaybee and Sketchy and
D-ice and Deejaybee on Hixxy’s ‘More & More’.
As a partnership they have also been honoured to be part of many mix album projects with inclusions
on Hardcore Addiction, Slipmatt’s Hardcore Reunited and Deca Dance Hardcore 2 mixed by DJ
SY, with D-ice most recently mixing the infamous SE1 Unleashed download mix with breakthrough
THC artist DJ MOB hosted by SE1 pioneers Static & Enemy. This saw a recently completed D-ice &
MOB 2010 remix of ‘Open Ur Mind’ leading to the forthcoming single collaboration ‘Fire’ with MOB
also on the release horizon.
These well received releases, combined with a massive amount of love and devotion from the
following in their home town soon led to a boom in the D-ice & Reality legend, with top tier event
promoters such as Slammin Vinyl, Hardcore Heaven, Raindance, Fusion and HTID all regularly
supporting them with bookings over a steady ten year period at events such as NEC NYE, Westfest,
Hardcore Heaven (at the historical Sanctuary Milton Keynes), Tranzmission, Sanctuary Festival,
The Hardcore Heaven Weekender, Uproar, Absolute Hardcore, HTID In The Sun, Innovation In
The Sun, Oxygen, Stay Hardcore, Hardcore Evolution, Tasty, Fruit Club, Total Bedlam,
Freeformation and Future Dance.
Their brilliant, active entertaining and fun fuelled party animal style and blend of tune selection, tight,
focussed mixing and unbeatable approach to crowd pleasing also led them to being awarded
residencies with the likes of famous underground rave venue Lakota in their native Bristol, Hush in
Swansea, Hardcore Frequency in Exeter and After Hours in Bristol, for which they also respectively
promote. Speaking of which, neither D-ice or Reality are strangers to producing and putting on a
memorable party session, they have both equally put sincere amounts time, effort, money and no less
the required blood, sweat and tears into putting on events too with D-ice presently responsible for the
aforementioned After Hours and Reality having been responsible for the above mentioned Delirium
and later on – Core Connection.
However, it wouldn’t just be in the UK alone that the word would spread about these two dance floor
damagers, their CV would in equal measure be swelled by bookings in Spain, Ireland, Germany and
Ibiza too, enlisting their talents with a number of renowned foreign party providers only further adding
to an already finely crafted track record.
Such achievements would also gain them the honour of being nominated three years in succession
for the Hardcore Heaven Awards, to which they would make second place each time behind worthy
winners Gammer, Re-con and Joey Riot which even at second place is still quite a difficult feat to
achieve and one they carry with pride.
Presently the two are busily beavering away on a number of all new upfront hardcore tracks in the
studio, with plans for a collaborative digital label on the horizon, a selection of contributions to albums
and independent download mixes planned, more to come from both the After Hours and Delerium
event brands and a choc full schedule of events that indeed D-ice will making sure ravers find their
way to under his Kushti sideline. This is supported by an unmistakably quickly filling diary of the very
best hardcore events that you will no doubt catch both of them at very soon.
Bringing experience, sure-fire live performances, exceptionally good parties and a whole host of
solidly produced new music your way, D-ice & Reality is a partnership that packs punch, make sure
you make a date to catch them imminently, you won’t be sorry you did.
JB

Weekly roundtable in which our guests try to answer some of the challeging and controversial questions in modern society.

Where to Start is out now.
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Singer/songwriter

26 

Male 

Music is a passion

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