History

Few artists can trace their musical DNA from punk rehearsal rooms to underground raves to prime-time television, but Steven Botting is one of them.

Steve's journey began early, cutting his teeth as a drummer with the Kent Music School and Maidstone Youth Music Society (MYMS). By fifteen he was playing in a local punk rock outfit that had caught the attention of an independent label. But even then, Steve's ears were tuned elsewhere, to synthesisers, drum machines and the electric possibilities of electronic music. He walked away from the deal and never looked back.

Through the mid to late eighties, Steve immersed himself in a Roland W30 Workstation, sampling everything he could get his hands on. By the time he had truly mastered the machine, history was being made, the rave era had arrived. Steve was right at the heart of it, producing house and rave music and taking to the decks at all-night events across the South East, sharing stages with some of the biggest names in the scene.

A deal with Little Giant Music followed under his project Energise 2000, and his production ambitions continued to grow. Inspired by the experimental electronics of Aphex Twin and Autechre, Steve began crafting deeper, more atmospheric sounds in a local studio. The pinnacle of that era came with Dreamstate, a collaboration with production partner Tony Edwards under the name Aquilia. The track became a firm favourite with DJ Sasha, John Digweed and Tiesto, and found its way onto countless compilations and club magazine cover-mount CDs.

Into the early 2000s, Steve turned his hand to remixing, delivering Ibiza-influenced chillout reworks for major labels, including Jakarta's American Dream for Ministry of Sound and Push's Strange World, among others.

Today, Steven Botting channels that lifetime of sonic exploration into music for television and media, with placements worldwide that continue to grow.