Leon D
Leon Dahl came to house music through the long way round. At sixteen he was playing guitar in a rock band called Fat Mannequin, but the sounds coming from his father's record collection had already got into his blood: funk, soul and disco, the music that would shape everything he did next. In 1998 he swapped the guitar for keyboards and samplers, and by the end of that year he had started DJing. Under the name Leon D, he was about to become one of the quiet engines of New Zealand house.
In 1999 Leon joined forces with fellow Wellington DJ Cuffy. The pair pooled their gear and know-how in pursuit of a sound of their own. That sound found a home at Reliable Recordings, New Zealand's first dedicated house label. Run by Joost Langeveld with Roger Perry as part of the Kog Transmissions family in Kingsland, Auckland, Reliable gave the country's producers an outlet between 1999 and 2004 for club records that could stand next to anything arriving from overseas.
Cuffy & Leon D became one of the label's defining acts. Their tracks ran through Reliable's EP series and its Algorhythm and Sun Valley Sound compilations, and through national collections like The Gathering and Loop. In 2002 Reliable put out their Slyboom EP, a set of warm, rolling grooves that still sounds fresh today. Leon was hands-on behind the desk as well. "Your Love", the duo's contribution to the second Sun Valley Sound compilation, features vocals by Anthony Gold, and Leon mixed it himself at the Ariki St studio in Grey Lynn.
In 2003 the duo's paths crossed with Red Melon. "19c Trumpet" was a brassy, sunlit groove already counted among Reliable's classics. The label pressed it to vinyl with the original mix and a "Trumpapella". It was a natural fit: a record from the house underground of Aotearoa finding a second home with a label rooted in the San Francisco scene, and both sides shared the same devotion to soul and swing.
Behind the decks, Leon built a reputation as a DJ's DJ. He has supported Ian Pooley, Eddie Matos, FC Kahuna, DJ Joshua, Dano, Miles Hollway, Dick Johnson and Jonathan Yeo, and he became a regular at Wellington's Studionine and Paradiso. His sets move freely between funk, soul, disco, boogie and house. He is a committed vinyl DJ, and he has held residencies where only records were allowed on the decks, something he still relishes.
His body of work has kept growing well beyond the Reliable years. Releases have followed on Hot Digits Music, That's Not An Edit, Deep And Under and Grass Green, alongside his earlier work for Reliable and Red Melon. Each of them carries the same feel for the groove and respect for the source material that runs through his DJ sets.
These days Leon also shares his crates on air with "Behind The Groove", his weekly show on Planet Sauce Radio, where the thread runs straight back to those records in his dad's collection. Decades after he put down the guitar, Leon Dahl is still doing what first drew him in: finding the groove and passing it on.
