David Penn
David Penn grew up surrounded by his father's soul and funk records, Stevie Wonder, the Jackson 5 and Earth, Wind & Fire, and that inheritance runs through everything he makes. "When I want to make house music I always try to take something organic from the past to keep the harmonies going and create songs rather than just creating club tracks," he has said. It is a simple philosophy, and it has made him one of the most successful house producers of his generation.
Born in Madrid in 1972, he began his career in Spain in the early '90s, producing under another name for most of that decade. Through those years, he says, he loved electronic music but wasn't yet a DJ, and it was DJing that eventually gave him a clearer sense of his own path. He has also said that growing up in Spain he sometimes felt like someone in the wrong country. Mainland Spain leaned toward techno and tech house, so he looked to the rest of Europe, and he describes his style as more European than Spanish, with Latin and soul influences.
In 2003 he founded Urbana Recordings so his music could reach listeners everywhere at once. "The label is for me to put music on that I think is interesting," he said. His relationship with Defected goes back more than fifteen years, and the label he calls family has been central to his rise. After the EDM boom changed club music, Defected kept calling him back, and in 2020 he signed an exclusive publishing deal with the label.
Known for funky piano motifs, driving basslines and on-point percussion, he enjoyed a huge 2019 on the back of "Nobody," finishing the year among the top-selling house artists on both Beatport and Traxsource, by Defected's account. These days he notices more people coming to clubs specifically to see him play, and he says some of his best sets have happened in Miami and South America. He describes feeling more comfortable with his music than ever, free to follow his instincts.
What makes his records work is that they are songs as much as tracks: hooks you can hum, chords with a soul lineage, grooves built to last. That is a rare combination in club music, and it explains why his records cross over without losing the floor. The piano lines feel joyful rather than nostalgic, and the drums never forget who they are for.
On Red Melon, Penn & Chus released From Madrid with Love in 2001, a tribal and tech-house record in two versions: the Distraction Dub and the Stereo Mix. It was an early sign of the Madrid–San Francisco connection that ran through Red Melon in those years.
Looking back, the record captures two future stars of Spanish house at an early stage, already working with the warmth, percussion and sense of song that would define their careers, and it remains a proud part of the Red Melon catalogue.
