Magik J
Dick Johnson learned his trade in one of the most famous rooms in dance music history. The English-born DJ and producer, who records as Magik J, landed a residency at Manchester's Hacienda as a teenager and refined his house sound there until the club closed in 1997. Few DJs anywhere got that kind of education, playing to one of the most demanding and knowledgeable crowds in the world, night after night, while still young.
Before long he was producing for Cream's Olympic label, New Order's Pleasure Recordings and Manchester's Paper Recordings collective, which also released Those Norwegians. He set up his own label, Shaboom, which by his count went on to more than a hundred releases from artists including Joeski, Fred Everything, Doc Martin and DJ Sneak, a roster that shows how far his network stretched across the house world.
He first toured New Zealand in 1995 and relocated to Auckland in late 2001, where he started the club night Electric and, from 2009, Space Disco with Soane, Bevan Keys and Greg Churchill. His 2002 single "Piha," recorded with Ian Pooley near the beach of the same name, became a club favourite around the world. From 2007 to 2017 he hosted The Magik Sessions every Friday afternoon on George FM.
He is prolific in the studio, with albums for Darren Emerson's Underwater and Bristol's NRK, releases on Made To Play, Southern Fried and Saved, and remixes for Crookers, Claude VonStroke, Ian Pooley, Crazy P and Fred Everything. He also runs the MagikTrax and Neat labels. And he has stretched well beyond house: Weird Together, his eight-piece band with Nick Dwyer and its own twist on world music, signed with Sony Music Africa in 2017, and a year later he formed the nu-disco group Clicks with Anna Coddington. The slower, more futuristic MEDZ project adds yet another side.
By his own account he rarely spends a weekend away from the decks, road-testing music on dancefloors from Russia to Argentina and most points in between. That restlessness is the key to his personality as an artist: curious, hard-working and happiest when a new idea meets a real crowd.
His productions carry the Manchester DNA of funk and swagger, with chunky grooves, playful samples and a knack for a hook, but the range of his projects shows a musician who refuses to be pinned to a single sound.
On Red Melon, Magik J teamed up with Rob Salmon, the Dunedin-born, Auckland-raised DJ who made his name at Auckland's Box, for Transit in 2004. It is travel-minded tech and deep house with airport and pilot-radio chops floating over dubby stabs, a theme that suits two DJs who have spent their lives between continents.
From the Hacienda to Auckland, Magik J has never stopped moving, and Transit captures that spirit perfectly: a record about the journey, made by people who live it.
