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Derek Howell is a progressive house & breaks DJ/producer from Houston, Texas.Derek Howell grew up surrounded by music. His first encounters with music at close range were personified by the purchase of his first record player. A seemingly new world opened up as he was introduced to single after single of popular classics by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and The Who. Little time passed before cassette tapes, and eventually CD’s boasting the sounds of Pink Floyd and Def Leppard filled his cluttered room. His mother, a Country Western singer, greatly encouraged his musical and vocal abilities at every turn, eventually resulting in the desire to create music of his own. This desire was realized when his father purchased what would become Derek’s first musical instrument. The guitar consumed Derek’s life for the better part of four years as he spent countless hours, day after day, picking away and experimenting with chaining every distortion and effect pedal he had on hand. When the underground dance bug hit southwestern America Derek quickly dropped his guitar and picked up turntables. After listening, fervently, to the sounds of the time in dance music (Sasha, John Digweed, Dave Seaman), Derek decided that he wanted to spread the good news. He strove to create something fueled by his musical roots, but driven by the future. To this day he has sought to invent a place where the products of others’ musical heydays and his visions of the future of music can come together and groove. At the start of his career he released records on such labels as Fade Records, Bedrock Records and 3 Beat Breaks. He has since had releases on Matthew Dekay’s DK Records, Randall Jones’s Mynt Music imprint, Proton Music and the ever present Global Underground. In addition, he has been featured on quite a few well known compilations including the infamous Nick Warren’s GU 028: Shanghai, Desyn Masiello’s Balance 08, GU’s Electric Calm v2 downtempo compilation as well as their Digitized 2 compilation and two of Hernan Cattaneo’s Renaissance compilations. Derek’s collaboration work with fellow producers Peter Martin and Joshua Michael has birthed the Pinkbox Special/Alley Qats and Lonestar projects respectively, under which releases on Armada Music, Maris Music, Proton Music and Fade Records have ensued. These things being all in the past but certainly never forgotten, Derek’s goal for tomorrow and the years to come is to create dance and electronic music, not simply dance tracks. He strives to push himself in different directions and to never be content with settling on any one style, genre or subgenre of the music he chooses to create. Music has always remained a very important part of his life, and that trend shall continue. Hopefully, with a lot of hard work, and a boat load of faith, his music will become an important part of so many others’ lives as well. |
