Ad Brown

Marking a new dawn in British progressive-trance, his precision-built, evocative electronic soundscapes have fast found the ears of many of the scene’s leading lights. Prog maestros like Sasha, Nick Warren & Dave Seaman are ardent supporters, as are forward-thinking trance legionnaires like Ferry Corsten and Gareth Emery.

No less a talent behind a pair of turntables, he has become the warm up man-of-choice for some of the biggest names one the scene. In the last 3 months of 2009 alone he has supported Calvin Harris and Paul Oakenfold on their respective UK tours. He’s Ad Brown and in 2010 he’s going to be an impossible-to-miss presence. Ad Brown – The Early Years: Attending the prestigious Academy of Contemporary Music (the starting point for stars including Sugar Babe Amelle Berrabah and Mercury

Music Prize Award Winner Toby Couling), Ad took his degree in Business and Music.

Whilst studying he learnt the label ropes whilst moonlighting in the promotions department of heavy-hitting dance label, Serious Records. Upon graduating, Ad had to decide whether to go down the record label or DJ/recording artist route. He opted for the latter…

Release The Music: Through both his Ad Brown and Maxi Valvona releases, he

quickly began to made a name for himself as the go-to man for enriched prog-

themed atmospherics. Think the melodies of Above & Beyond crossbred with the

backing tracks of Digweed and you’re nine tenths of the way there.

Signed to Black Hole Recordings and releasing on the progressive tipped off-shoot

Fris, he debuted in late 2008 with the double-header release ‘Smoke’ and ‘I Just

Do’. Just a few months later recognition came fast to his door with the ‘09 releases

‘Hope’ and ‘Chasing Rainbows’. The latter scored the 5/5 Money Shot review in DJ

Mag, with the publication stating that the track “positively bulged with

dark synthery, thudding drums and imaginative percussion” and added that it was

one with “a murderously good chiming top line”. A month after its release the track

was compiled onto the 2009 Trance Energy album and Ad himself was named by the

music-critics.com website as “a producer to watch in 2009”. Over the course of the

year Brown also drew many plaudits for his much-spun bootleg rewiring of Holden &

Thompson’s prog house classic ‘Nothing’. It was music again championed by a

remarkably broad spectrum of DJs. In May of that year he also delivered the ‘Velvet

EP’, his debut release under his new pseudonym, Maxi Valvona (for Solarstone’s

Insatiable Records). On the immediate horizon for 2010, he has an intensive release

schedule with tracks & remixes forthcoming on imprints including Anjunadeep, Black

Hole, Baroque, microCastle and Slinky.

Ad Brown – The DJ: You will rarely see a spinner more at home and at ease in

front of a pair of CDJs than Brown. Combining flawless mixing with sophisticated

selection and electric audience interaction, both UK and abroad, he has brought clubs

under his spell. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.