Margaret Dygas
Life as Margaret Dygas has experienced it has had more than it's fair share of unusual twists and turns. With a sound born in New York, ripened in London and refined in Berlin, Margaret Dygas is an artist whose sound possesses a true international resonance. Born and raised in Poland, at age 11 Margaret and her family moved to Germany, before finally relocating to San Jose, California. Surrounded by old school hip-hop as a teenager, her discovery of house music came in the early nineties following a move to New York in order to study fashion at the renowned Fashion Institute of Technology. Before long, her college friends introduced her to the underground club scene with its dressed-up club kids, intimate basement techno nights, jungle gatherings and scores of insane house parties. With Danny Tenaglia (whom she later went on to share a stage with at UK festival Homelands) providing her first-time clubbing experience, Margaret began to work at legendary New York record shop Eukatech – a spot where she increasingly came home with more records than cash in her pocket!
Captivated by the British dance scene, Margaret moved to London in the summer of 1999. Make up artist by day, door girl at Home by night, she began Djing at parties in the city and eventually moved on to play warm up sets in clubs. Becoming a regular fixture on London’s electronic music scene, Margaret went on to play clubs that included fabric, The End and Herbal, holding a residency at AKA for Underline’s label night.
Making the move to Berlin in 2007, her early sets at Panorama Bar (where she currently holds a bi-monthly residency), Watergate, and Club Der Visioneare were exceptionally well received, with Club Der Visionaere developing into a venue where she became famed for her ability to test her own (and the audiences!) limits with 20-hour sets and sleepless nights full of musical inspiration.
It was following her move to Berlin that Margaret started producing and writing her own music. Her debut release, “Day After” (for Jay Haze’s label Contexterrior) demonstrated the influence Berlin had played on her musical creativity. With her broad musical background fuelling her desire for electronic experimentation within her music, her productions incorporate the deep and dub-influenced sound she loves, whilst retaining the driving funk of her musical past. Margaret followed her debut release with the “See You Around EP”, released in 2008 on Non Standard Productions. Subsequent releases have appeared on Perlon in addition to musical contributions to Ellen Allien’s Watergate mix compilation and Lee Jones’ Resident Advisor podcast.
2010 marks the release of Margaret’s first full-length album “How Do You Do”. Released on Japan’s PowerShovelAudio, the album is inspired by the book ‘Peoplewatching’, a guide to body language by British zoologist Desmond Morris. With each track based on a different emotion (each one relating to a chapter or idea from the book), the subject matter of the musical landscapes eventually come together to form one complete story. With each track also accompanied by a quote that illuminates the relationship between the music and the book, the CD features a 36 page booklet of Margaret’s own photographs, taken over the same period as the composition of the album, capturing her own personal moments and memories.