Every so often a DJ or producer comes along who inspires the collective imagination. If you’ve seen Loco Dice perform at his ten-year-long Tribehouse residency in his hometown Düsseldorf, or at DC-10 in Ibiza (from ’02-’06), you will have clicked to this. Via his DJ sets or his productions on labels like M_nus, Cadenza, Ovum, Four Twenty and Cocoon, he merges perspectives in his delicate sense for sounds and reflective atmospheres, underpinned with solid, physical grooves inspired by the hip hop that was his early sonic stomping ground in the mid- to late '90s. His DJ sets, whether at Germany’s biggest rave Timewarp, Cocoon in Ibiza or a beach party in South America, are spontaneous orchestrations fueled by the nuances of a night/venue/crowd. He began a fruitful studio partnership with Martin Buttrich in 2002 leading to tracks like Phatt Dope Shit, Menina Brasiliera, and Seeing ThroughShadows, and these productions are meticulously planned by Dice. It’s a directorial, cinematic outlook, which permeates Dice’s everyday life, and comes not just from the outlandish escapades and scrapes that he has sometimes found himself living out in real life. Catch Loco Dice at Tripod on Februrary 18th.