Paul Oakenfold is a British trance DJ and producer who helped bring the Ibiza sound to the UK in the mid-90s. He also runs Perfecto Records, trance's most successful record label.
Oakenfold started playing records at parties when he was a teenager. He spent the summer of 1987 on the Spanish island of Ibiza, going to clubs which played European dance and Italian house tracks. Oakenfold brought the musical influences back to the UK and incorporated the sounds in productions that he and Steve Osborne released on their Perfecto Records label. Their production can be heard on albums such as the Happy Mondays Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches, and they have remixed for bands including U2 and The Shamen.
Influenced by the high BPM music he heard on the beaches of Goa in India, Oakenfold put together a two-hour set which BBC radio transmitted in 1994. Known as the Goa Mix, it mixed the trance sounds of artists like Hallucinogen and Man with No Name with other slower tunes from Vangelis and Wojciech Kilar, among others. The mix is one of the most acclaimed and requested 'musical journeys' that the BBC have ever transmitted.
For three years he and Osborne performed their own music as Grace, with their most successful single, "Not Over Yet", making it to No.6 in the charts in the UK.
Oakenfold's production work was reaching new audiences and his reputation as a DJ was spreading his fame far and wide. Residencies at one of the UK's largest clubs, Cream, put him into the newly emerging league of Super DJs.
Oakenfold's work has also been used by other media, including video games and soundtracks for films, such as The Matrix Reloaded and Die Another Day. Channel 4 in the UK used an Oakenfold track for the theme tune to the Big Brother series.
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