Deep Dish, No Cheese

DJs typically are unassuming types. Unlike pop performers, who have to entertain a crowd visually as well as musically, DJs are only responsible for sonically facilitating as much posterior shaking as possible on a dance floor of limited size. Even so, their job is arguably more difficult: because they have no flashy costumes or choreographed routines, they must hold the audience’s attention exclusively with their beats.

Deep Dish is as inconspicuous in appearance as DJs come. The Washington, D.C.-based duo was indistinguishable from every male patron of Boston’s Axis nightclub at their Feb. 1 performance. But their ease at turning out the best beats in the industry belied the tremendous skill and impressive talent they possess. For hours their eclectic blend of beats and samples showed the hype surrounding them has not come undeserved.

Recently ranked among the top five DJs in the world by Britain’s DJ Magazine, Deep Dish is comprised of Ali “Dubfire” Shirazinia and Sharam Tayebi. Both emigrated from Iran while still children. The pair met while DJ-ing separately for a party in 1991, and soon afterwards formed Deep Dish Records. Shirazinia met fellow producer and DJ Brian “BT” Transeau (producer of ’NSYNC’s “Pop,” among others) while in middle school, and Transeau was to become an important early collaborator. Despite gaining a significant underground following, success in the mainstream still took several years for Deep Dish to achieve, especially in what they called the “cheesy” clubs of Washington. Their first production credit came with the 1992 Moods album A Feeling, followed by their first remix in 1993 of Angela Marn’s “Slippin and Slidin.” Only in 1998 did Deep Dish achieve international prominence with their critically acclaimed debut album, Junk Science. Over the past five years, Deep Dish have remixed the world’s hottest artists—everyone from Tina Turner and the Rolling Stones to Madonna and ’NSYNC. In 2001 they earned their first Grammy nomination for Remixer of the Year; their second nomination came this year for a remix of Dido’s “Thank You.”

Deep Dish’s exacting understanding of what makes people move characterized the night’s music. They began their set with immediately danceable beats and tunes that did not let up until the very end. An early track was a vivid demonstration of their obsession with the texture of sound—overlaying an ethereal instrumental sample onto a jagged, edgy beat. With that exception, the set’s first half was dominated by heavy bass rhythms without much of the airy, dreamy vocal samples that have characterized trance’s radio-friendly appeal. Deep Dish exemplified their love affair with the beat by adopting as a motif one relatively simple clip that began as the main beat, then migrated around and through the layers of music. By the end of thirty minutes, it had appeared—delightfully—in virtually every layer of the music.

The pair skillfully manipulated their sound, here bringing up the underlying bass track, there turning up a wispy vocal. Anthems like one based around a spoken “Underground” sample were most successful in bringing a raucous crowd response. Deep Dish punctuated an otherwise continuously driving sound every ten to 20 minutes with climactic flourishes that inevitably brought noisy approval and renewed the dancing. Trite as it may sound, diversity was a key component of Deep Dish’s music. Ranging from gruff spoken words to exotic Middle Eastern sounds, their samples were not limited to a single genre or form. The rhythms were even more exciting, with a highly developed complexity that enabled the widest possible range of movement.