Josh Wink

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Josh Wink, born Joshua Winkelman in 1970, is an American DJ, label owner, producer and remixer from Philadelphia. As a child he learned piano for three years and as a teenager clarinet. At thirteen he became an apprentice to a friend who was a radio and mobile DJ. He taught himself to mix beats and in 1988 met the DJ King Britt, with whom he began making tracks of his own. After turning eighteen he played in nightclubs.

Music and breakthrough

In the early 1990s he was a pioneer of the American rave scene and the best-known representative of the tribal forms of techno and house in the United States. In 1994 he founded his label Ovum Recordings with King Britt. In 1995 he had several hits, including Don't Laugh as Winx, I'm Ready as Size 9, which reached number one on the American Hot Dance Club Play chart, and Higher State of Consciousness, which topped the dance charts in Europe. Later came club hits such as How's Your Evening So Far? and Superfreak (Freak). He remixed Moby, Depeche Mode, Ladytron and Paul Oakenfold, among others.

Influence

His style mixes breakbeat, acid house, drum and bass and experimental music. He says that his music is built around tension and that he uses mistakes, by doing things with effects, filters and the sampler that you normally do not do. Rolling Stone described his records as a whirlpool of acid basslines and trippy breakbeats. He names Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, OMD, early hip hop and Chicago house of the late 1980s as influences and is a great advocate of new DJ technology.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1996Left Above the Clouds
• 1998Herehear
• 200320 to 20
• 2009When a Banana Was Just a Banana