Andrew Weatherall Dead At 56

Nick Pickles/Redferns

Andrew Weatherall Dead At 56

Nick Pickles/Redferns

Andrew Weatherall, the British DJ and producer famous for his work on Primal Scream’s classic 1991 album Screamadelica and for helping popularize the early-’90s acid house sound, has died. According the The Guardian, Weatherall died of a pulmonary embolism this morning in London. Weatherall was 56.

Weatherall started DJing at house nightclubs in London in the late ’80s after being recruited by scene godfather Danny Rampling. Within a few years, Weatherall changed the Scottish rock band Primal Scream’s sound when he went to work with them on Screamadelica, their third album. He combined the band’s sweaty, Stonesy rock hedonism with the new hedonism of the rave scene, adding breakbeats and utopian samples, capturing the UK zeitgeist in the process.

Weatherall also started the label Boy’s Own and the groups Sabres Of Paradise and Two Lone Swordsmen, the latter of which were part of the mid-’90s abstract dance music scene, releasing music on the storied label Warped Records. His remixes of tracks like My Bloody Valentine’s “Soon” and Saint Etienne’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” are classics of the form. Weatherall, who’d grown up with postpunk, always understood how to work with rock bands; in recent years, he remixed bands like Grinderman, Cut Copy, and Wooden Shjips. As a producer, Weatherall worked with artists like Beth Orton, the Twilight Sad, and Fuck Buttons. (He produced Tarot Sport, Fuck Buttons’ great 2009 album.) Weatherall also released his own music and spent decades DJing.

Below, listen to some of Weatherall’s work.

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