Deep Dish - or the power of weirdness in plain sight

Plus Poor Creature, Rufige Kru, Gazella and more

"Ether Rabbit's whispered gilded conversation with the Moon", Anna Jane McIntyre, Woodcut relief print and chine collé

In mid 90s Britain, Deep Dish were BIG: top ten single, major-label deal, always on the radio big. Their remix of Hideaway by US house group De’Lacy hit nine in the UK charts in September 1995 and they followed it to the edge of the top 40 with their own Stay Gold in 1996, the year in which their take on Sandy B’s Make The World Go Round became ubiquitous.

But Deep Dish were also weird. Profoundly weird and brilliantly different. For a start, they operated out of Washington DC, far from the typical house hotspots of New York, Chicago and Detroit. And, while US house always was a broad church, the fact that Deep Dish’s Ali “Dubfire” Shirazinia and Sharam Tayebi were Iranian Americans, who had come to the US as children, was certainly notable, even if the duo don’t think this influenced their music.

Most interesting, though, was the Deep Dish sound. The duo made house music, sweet, deep house music, with swinging drums and large vocal hooks. But, to the disco and funk underpinning New York and Chicago house, Deep Dish added elements of industrial, indie rock, punk and noise, a legacy of Dubfire’s past as a guitarist in DC’s punk scene.

“I would play with whoever was a budding musician that had an instrument,” Dubfire told me, when we recently spoke. We were talking for an interview around the 2025 Deep Dish reunion, with the duo releasing new music and performing DJ dates. You can hear the full interview on Line Noise now. “It didn't really go anywhere, although one of the guys that I played with started a band with some other people, and they opened for Nine Inch Nails on the tour for Pretty Hate Machine.”

Dubfire’s punk career may not have gone far. But that wasn’t really the point. He was inside DC’s punk scene, hanging out with the right people and listening to the right records.

“I was always skipping college classes and hanging out at this record store called Yesterday and Today, which was very close to the college. And Brendan, the drummer of Fugazi, worked there, Brendan Canty. That was the big hangout for people like Ian MacKaye from Dischord. Dave Grohl, I would see him in there, before the Foo Fighters, before Nirvana,” Dubfire explained,

“So it was a real meeting place for all the local punk and hardcore musicians…. The store owner, Skip [Groff] and and others, they would always turn me on to things like on the On-U Sound catalogue, Adrian Sherwood, the Wax Trax! catalogue. So I was going there, seeing all these super-incredible punk musicians, buying the odd punk rock single, but also keeping tabs on what was happening with electronic music, before I fully immersed myself into the early house and techno sounds.”

The Deep Dish spark, for Dubfire, is the combination of his background in alternative and industrial music and Sharam’s love for house, disco and more European sounds. “The magic of Deep Dish is those two sensibilities coming together,” he said. “Sometimes it's a serious argument. Sometimes it's a very light-hearted argument. It's a creative struggle between us in terms of pushing our individual musical agendas and ideas into whatever we're working on. And sometimes Sharam wins, sometimes I win.”

That, perhaps, makes the duo’s relationship sounds slightly antagonistic - and Deep Dish did split in 2006 after years of producing, DJing and running a label together. But Dubfire underlines the importance of the collaboration between the two producers. “It’s always been a shared vision but sometimes it leans heavily, more in my direction, and sometimes more in his direction,” Dubfire explained. “And I think that makes it interesting for the listeners, for the fans, and and also for us.”

This is one of the reasons I find Deep Dish so fascinating. For most producers, the gap between industrial music and house would either be too wide to bridge, or would result in a horrendously stilted Frankenstein’s Monster of a sound. But Deep Dish translated this into swinging house hits that were sparkling and poppy on the surface, with all kinds of weirdness frantically paddling away just underneath. (In this their work sometimes reminds me of what Murk were cooking up down in Miami - the combination of mechanical rough and house groove.)

“For me, alternative, New Wave, goth, industrial, in some ways dub, it was all occupying the same universe that I was traveling through,” Dubfire said. “I think maybe that opened up my creativity in terms of experimentation and studio. I wasn't afraid to sample a Test Department record for one of the early Deep Dish remixes or something from Einstürzende Neubauten and make it our own.”

(I asked Dubfire about this Test Department sample later. He said, “Hmm I think I was more describing my production approach to Deep Dish; and that example was the drums on the De’Lacy Hideaway remix”)

The group’s fabled remix of De’Lacy - simultaneously grooving and clanking - is the perfect illustration of this. “De’Lacy - that's a good example of us trying to bring my industrial, drum-y elements into a soulful… I mean, the original is a soulful diva vocal track from New Jersey and we somehow managed to turn it, in our pursuit of trying to do the best remix that we can for this UK label that was really hot at the time [deConstruction],” Dubfire said.

This idiosyncratic approach to sound was nurtured by the duo’s relative isolation in Washington DC. “While there were certain artists that came from the DC area, we felt like we were on this island, unto ourselves,” Dubfire explained.

The duo would make regular trips to New York, Chicago and Detroit and Dubfire made clear that they have a great deal of respect for artists like Masters at Work and Todd Terry. Carl Craig even became a kind of mentor for the group. But Deep Dish had their own thing going on in the nation’s capital and they weren’t ashamed to celebrate their roots. The group also recorded as Watergate and DC Deepressed (with Victor Imbres), while their song titles included Chocolate City (a nickname for DC).

“It was all of these influences coming together with ideas that we felt like weren't necessarily being explored musically by any of those artists or labels that we were following,” Dubfire said of the duo’s individual stance. “Part of it is also when you sit down to make music, especially early in your career, you know there are artists that you look up to, and you sit down, you try to do something like them, or do something as good as them. And somehow, in that pursuit of trying to mimic your favourite artists, you come away with your own sound.

“In trying to achieve something else you you realise after a while that, ‘Hey, we actually have a sound that people are gravitating towards and so now we can explore what we can explore.’ And that gives you the confidence, to realise that you have something to say and that you're unique among all the other music producers and artists around the world.”

It was at this point that I asked Dubfire if his and Sharam’s Iranian backgrounds also influenced their sound. Not really, he said. “I was seven years old. I came during the revolution [in 1979]. Sharam came, I think 84 or 85,” Dubfire explained. “I don't see any correlation between our Persian roots and what we did as Deep Dish. The only thing I would say about culture is it kept us grounded. We have a very strong work ethic and we're very closely tied to our families, and I think that kept us, you know, on the right track all these years. And it kept us, I guess, inspired.

Like many people in the UK, I got to know Deep Dish via their remixes and only later traced their sound back into early singles like Chocolate City (Love Songs), Lonely Winter (as Watergate) and Come Back, a 1995 single by Deep Dish presents DC Deepressed originally released on the duo’s Yoshitoshi Recordings label.

Deep Dish’s original productions are brilliant. But their remixes - for De’Lacy, Sandy B, Janet Jackson, The Rolling Stones, Global Communication, Adam F and so much more - are touched by genius. With all respect due to Carl Craig, Armand van Helden and 4-Hero, Deep Dish might actually be the best remixers of the whole 90s.

I asked the duo - by now Sharam had joined us on the call - why they were so incredibly good at remixes. “I think because we never looked at the remix as, ‘Let’s just take the original elements and beef it up and keep more or less the same arrangement,’” Dubfire said.

“We really tried to completely take a different approach. Because what would be the point of reproducing something essentially in the same way? So we always try to be as creative as possible. Chopping up the vocals, changing the arrangement, zeroing in on certain elements that we were given that were quite low in the original mix and finding a creative way to chop those up and and bring them to the forefront.”

Like any good producer, the duo normally started their remixes with the drums. “We had a fascination throughout our whole career - and we still do - with rhythm,” Dubfire explained. “We always tried to find the groove and the rhythm initially, before throwing all the other elements in there.” I don’t want to keep going on about the duo’s Hideaway remix - but just listen to the drums, the staunch bass drum thud going up against what sounds like someone battering on sheet metal, a perfectly nagging two-note bass line that seems totally insignificant and utterly necessary at the same time, and hi hats that rise and fall, slip and slide, like George Clinton lift shafts.

(For the record, the group’s favourites of their remixes are their takes on Aquarhythms’ Ether’s Whisper, Love and Rockets’ Resurrection Hex, Dusted’s Always Remember To Respect And Honour Your Mother and Adam F’s Music In My Mind. I would have to add their Chocolate City mix of Janet Jackson’s When I Think Of You, which brings me out in absolute shivers. It’s a simpatico mixture, too: Deep Dish’s industrial swing has quite a lot in common with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’ steely pop productions.)

After the success of De’Lacy et al, Deep Dish signed to deConstruction in the UK and, in 1998, the label released their fantastic debut album Junk Science, a record on which Dubfire’s roots in rock and alternative music blossomed into a very elegant crossover between house and indie, a kind of indie dance record where the progression was from dance to indie, rather than the more traditional indie to dance pipeline (think: Primal Scream.)

Everything But The Girl’s Tracey Thorn adds vocals to a new version of Stay Gold, re-baptised The Future of the Future, while Richard Morel, a long-time Deep Dish collaborator, lends his voice to Mohammed Is Jesus and Stranded, his slightly rough drawl giving both songs the distinct air of country rock. The latter song also features Dubfire on guitar, his sonorous licks contributing to the song’s hangdog air.

Pushing further into the unexpected, My Only Sin is straight-up industrial pop, of the kind you really don’t expect on what is ostensibly a house album, while Persepolis featured Nader Majd on vocals and tar (an instrument from the lute family that is popular in Iran) over an ominous electronic drone.

“We always wanted to do things that nobody else was doing,” Sharam explained when I asked his about Junk Science’s dance / rock crossover. “But also be influenced by our influences and incorporating all of it together. I think that's how the whole Junk Science era was, us just fucking around bringing together the rock world and the dance and the house world and deep house and progressive.”

When the duo were in the studio, Sharam explained, “all of those things converged”. “And we were not like, ‘OK, well, I don't want to go here, or I don't like that. We kept experimenting. We were really open minded about trying different things.”

This probably explains why Deep Dish managed to pull off what is possibly my favourite remix of any classic rock group, with their 1998 Club Mix of The Rolling Stones’ Saint of Me. I love The Rolling Stones and Saint of Me, from the 1997 album Bridges to Babylon, is a decent enough attempt to bring their R&B style into the 20th Century. But the Deep Dish remix is perfection itself, with Deep Dish fusing significant elements of the original song - that moody organ, Jagger’s yearning vocal, Keith’s blues-y guitar licks - with their own razor-sharp beats to create a magnificent rock / dance hybrid that feels true to both the Stones themselves and Deep Dish.

Junk Science also included - why not? - a thunderous drum & bass tune in Monsoon, evidence of the duo’s interest in the genre in the late 90s. “We were both huge drum & bass followers,” Sharam said. “We used to buy drum & bass records and play them at 33 which, sounded like a break record, but slower - it sounded amazing. We used to actually do shows like that.”

“I think the underlying layer was that we were always super open minded,” Dubfire added. “We didn't feel the necessity to stick to a particular lane. We were just sponges absorbing it all, especially when we started to come to the UK from 1996 or so… When we did start to come to London, we would spend, two weeks, three weeks at a time and we would go to drum & bass parties. We'd absorb as much as we could.”

Junk Science was followed by George Is On in 2005, a record on which Deep Dish pushed the rock / house hybrid into slightly slicker territory, resulting in a number of huge hits, including Say Hello and Dreams. (Not to be confused with Prana’s The Dream, a 1994 collaboration between Dubfire John Selway and Brian Transeau, which is, to my mind, a far superior record.)

Deep Dish wouldn’t be around to enjoy their success for long, though: the following year the duo split, worn down by years of doing everything together, and embarked on successful solo careers. A brief reunion in 2014 resulted in the one-off single Quincy before Dubfire and Sharam went their separate ways again.

And now, in 2025, Deep Dish are back again. I’ve only heard brief excerpts of their new material but the duo sound enthused about what is coming next and full of the delights of collaborative musical life.

My hope is that the 2025 Dubfire and Sharam are as open minded and musically adventurous as ever. Because in a dance scene that can sometimes feels stale, particularly around the upper echelons, we really need Deep Dish to keep hiding their weirdness in plain sight.

PS I assume most of you reading this will be familiar with Deep Dish. For those who aren’t, I would usually make a playlist by way of introduction. But Deep Dish’s catalogue is very poorly represented on streaming, so you have to go to YouTube instead.

Anyway, if you want an introduction to Deep Dish, I would start with the classic remixes mentioned above - but make sure you get the right, full-length versions. So that’s the Deep Dish remix of Hideaway (not the radio edit or Dubfire’s remix); the Deep Dish Round The World Remix of Make The World Go Round; the Deep Dish Chocolate City Mix of When I Think Of You etc.

I’d then go back - as I did - to the early singles. The 1995 compilation Penetrate Deeper is worth checking out for this, although the pacing maybe feels a little too minimal for home listening and it doesn’t include some classics. The next step is Junk Science, the duo’s best album, then, if you’re like me, it’s back down the rabbit hole, with the duo’s remix catalogue being particularly deep. And if you want a representation of Deep Dish as DJs, their Cream Separates 02 mix from 1997 is basically unimpeachable, while the two One Nation Under House mixes from 1998 are also fantastic.

Some listening

Poor Creature - Adieu Lovely Erin

In Catalan “adéu” is a simple goodbye; in French “adieu” is dramatic, a goodbye forever only to be used in extreme circumstances. Poor Creature’s beautiful Adieu Lovely Erin falls somewhere in between the two, the lightness of the Catalan word meeting the climactic power of the French send off, as Ruth Clinton’s gorgeous voice floats off on the melancholy air above Cormac MacDiarmada and John Dermody’s broody electronic backing.

Goat - Nimerudi (Malcolm Catto / The Heliocentrics remix)

I always confuse Goat with Ghost, so I was confused as hell when this Malcolm Catto / Heliocentrics remix arrived on my playlist, wondering how a theatrical Swedish arena rock band could end up like this, all sunshine funk, flutes and MC Yallah’s imperious rhymes. When I later realised we were instead talking about Goat - a very different Swedish band, who push the limits of funks global adventures - it still didn’t make that much sense. But who cares about meaning when the grooves are this irresistibly strange, a kind of woodland funk that sounds like it might charm you straight down into hell itself. (Yeah - I’ve seen Midsommar, Goat, so don’t get any ideas.)

Rufige Kru - Sandcastles

Goldie has called the new Rufige Kru album a return to his roots and you can kind of see that on a track like Sandcastles, with its shy Let No Man Put Asunder vocal sample and drifty chords; but the drums sound so incredibly sharp throughout the album, the production so brain-bendingly tight, that nothing really sounds retro at all. Sandcastles is full of the contrasts that made Timeless such a beautifully ground-breaking album in the first place, simultaneously heavy as hell and light as touching fingers, chaotic but ordered; beautiful and kind of nasty.

Gazella - Aracea

Valencian shoegaze / flamenco / electronic act Gazella have made the best Spanish album of the year, their musical mixture being genuinely one-off but also entirely casual. Volver is the best song on the new album, Vías, but we have already talked about that, so how about you listen to Aracea, which is perhaps the song where singer Raquel Palomino’s flamenco influences are best heard, their sheer bloody drama sitting perfectly atop the band’s moodily epic rock? (PS We interviewed Gazella for Radio primavera Sound this week and you can listen to that here.)

The playlists

“We don't stop playlisting because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playlisting.” So said George Bernard Shaw and who am I to disagree with the great man? Luckily, I have two playlists: The newest and bestest 2025; and The newest and the bestest (unharried by time). Do follow them for all the best new music.