IT HAS been over a year since a big drum and bass artist has graced our shores.

To be precise, it was July 2009 and Shy FX was using his charm behind the decks.

After a year’s break, Dub Sessions is returning to Fusion on 27 August with one of their biggest bookings to date, drum and bass pioneer Andy C.

For those of you who are familiar with the drum and bass scene, Andy C (pictured right) needs no introduction.

But if you’re still feeling your way around, here’s a little history.

Andy’s musical life started with nothing more than a drum kit, which his parents bought for him when he was five years old. Like most things he tries, it quickly became an obsession and he would practice at any given opportunity.

His fascination with dance music and its culture came about largely thanks to his older sister, who was heavily into it at the time of its emergence in and around 1986/87. One of the first tunes Andy heard was the legendary Voodoo Ray by A Guy Called Gerald.

‘When I heard that, something clicked and that was the start of everything,’ Andy recalls.

However, it wasn’t until 1991 that Andy decided he wanted to become a DJ.

It was in 1993 that the scene started to explode – jungle club nights and raves were packed out every week and Andy saw his bookings soar.

He became part of the drum and bass family and every Thursday would meet up with Hype and Brockie. They would go to Section 5, Black Market, Unity Records and end up down at the legendary Music House cutting dubs.

In parallel to his thriving DJ career, Andy was becoming an excellent producer, teaching himself the basics of computer programming and experimenting with beats.

Friend of the family Ant Miles, a talented sound engineer, heard one of Andy’s rearrangements of Voodoo Ray and offered help.

They began working together in Ant’s converted-garage studio, where Andy nurtured what was to become a sublime talent for chopping up and reprogramming breaks.

In early 1993 and with a budget of £1,000, Andy decided to set up his own label, Ram, and launched with his solo debut and now highly collectable ‘Sour Mash EP’.

Ant and Andy went around the shops selling the EP themselves and, to their surprise, it sold a promising 2,500 copies.

However, nothing could have prepared them for the consequences of their first track as Origin Unknown. Valley of the Shadows was released in 1993 and became an all-time classic. The track was so popular that Andy was even being booked to perform live PAs of the track, which he confesses involved nothing more than playing a DAT while standing next to an unplugged keyboard.

The unstoppable rise of Andy C as a DJ, producer, A&R and label boss continued through the nineties. The Origin Unknown remix of Busta Rhymes’ Woo Haa in 1996 added another string to the 20-year-old producer’s bow and was followed by many more, for Reprazent and Adam F among others.

Enrolling new members, including long-time friend Shimon, Ram compiled their first album, Origin Unknown presents The Speed of Sound, in 1996. Another showcase of the Ram stable, Sound In Motion, was released in 1998, with No Reality, another landmark 12, produced by Andy, Ant and Shimon as Ram Trilogy. It was followed by an album, Molten Beats, a year later.

One more stepping stone came for Andy C in 2001 as a track he recorded with Shimon, an insanely catchy instrumental called Bodyrock, crashed into the national charts at 28. The same year, Andy started to capture the energy of his DJ sets through a powerful mix of Ram singles and an EP called Ram Raiders, and some stunning remixes such as Adam F’s Stand Clear (featuring MOP) as Origin Unknown.

Drum and Bass Arena and a Fabric Live Mix CD followed and the concept stepped up with the release of the hugely successful Nightlife mixed compilation in 2003, followed by Nightlife 2 and Drum And Bass Odyssey a year later, which earned the Mixmag LP of the Month accolade.

The 2003 Knowledge Magazine Awards were a consecration of Andy, when he won Best DJ for an unprecedented third time in a row, while Ram was nominated for Best Single and Best Label. That year, he also found time to sign the massive Sub Focus to his label.

Last year saw Andy C reign supreme once more as he was crowned Best DJ by Drum and Bass Arena for the sixth successive year – a record for the industry. He was also the highest drum and bass representative in DJs Top 100 DJs Poll at number 28 and started the year by getting the ultimate accolade from the bible of dance music, Mixmag, which listed him in its top 10 of club land’s Ultimate Power List.

While running his label, signing new talents, producing and travelling across the globe to play some of the biggest clubs, Andy C is a busy man, and one of dance music’s best ambassadors.

When he hits Fusion later this month, he’ll be joined by MC GQ, who has been in the game for more than 15 years. GQ (pictured left) has always been a DJ’s MC, seeing his role as a middleman between the DJ and the crowd rather than constantly demanding centre stage.

His versatility is such that he is able to switch up to double-time and tear down a rave, or keep the crowd bubbling to a liquid set.

Local support will be in the form of Pressure, Killa, 9mm and Datan.