Basement Wax

Shēz & Craven bring together two DJs whose musical journeys have been shaped by more than 25 years in the UK and international underground house scene. Both established DJs, record collectors, label owners and promoters in their own right, they share a longstanding passion for deep, groove-led and timeless underground music. Manchester-born Tom Craven discovered house music through the legendary Haçienda before beginning his DJ career in Leeds in 1997. Following several formative summers in Ibiza, including a residency at Space as part of DAT Elektronique, he returned to the UK to establish BackToFront, booking emerging artists including Jamie Jones, Matt Tolfrey and Jay Haze. He subsequently became a long-standing resident at Dirty Disco in Leeds and a regular at Below in Birmingham, two of the UK's most respected underground house parties during the 2000s. James Sheerin's (Shēz) journey began in Birmingham's underground after-party scene in 1999. With a background in jazz and influences spanning funk, soul, disco and boogie, his career has taken him across Europe, the US, Asia and Australia. Along the way, he held residencies at London's Egg and The Cross, Berlin's Farbfernseher and Birmingham's Rhythm Factory, sharing lineups with artists including Masters at Work, Motor City Drum Ensemble and Underground Resistance. Beyond the DJ booth, both have made their mark through their respective record labels. Shēz co-founded City Fly in 2003, initially as a club night before launching City Fly Records in 2011. The label has since built an internationally recognised catalogue featuring artists including Andrés, DJ Nature, Fred P, Red Rack'em and Byron the Aquarius. Craven founded Illusion Recordings in 2010, establishing a vinyl-focused imprint distributed internationally through Clone, with releases and remixes from Gerd, DJ Ali, Bodycode, The Mole and Norm Talley. He later co-founded Evolve in Birmingham with Paddy Lopaski, championing a new generation of underground selectors including Francesco Del Garda, Nicolas Lutz, Quest and Evan Baggs. Having first crossed paths at a Secretsundaze party during Off-Sonar in Barcelona around 15 years ago, the pair developed a friendship built around a shared passion for records and underground club culture. That connection eventually led to Basement Wax in Manchester, initially established to sell records from their personal collections, it developed into sourcing new music and bring records to the city that weren't readily available locally. What began as a record-selling venture has organically developed into a series of intimate parties, inviting friends and DJs they had played alongside and worked with throughout their careers. The Basement Wax podcast followed, providing a platform to showcase those artists and their musical influences, with a record label now the next step in the project's evolution. Today, Shēz & Craven bring their individual experiences together behind the decks, delivering extended back-to-back sets that move naturally between house, techno, acid, deep house and disco. Rooted in decades of collecting, playing and championing underground music, their approach remains focused on groove, musical depth and the dancefloor.

In A While. MXXMCR