In photos: Make A Dance party at Phonica Records

On March 23, dance duo Ben Lewis and Josh Ludlow, aka Make A Dance launched the third edition of their M.A.D. EDITS series featuring Rakim Under, Pascal Moscheni, Lex Wolf and Hard Drive Library with a party at Phonica Records. 

We caught up with Make A Dance to learn a bit more about M.A.D Edits and the guiding ethos behind M.A.D Records.

Tell me about Make A Dance’s story so far.

We met around 2018 in an unfamiliar place and quickly bonded over the love of familiar and similar music. During the lockdown, we were living five minutes from one another and decided to make some music to break the monotony. All within regulations mind!

With time to kill and a dream to fill, Ben suggested pressing some of our tracks to vinyl and with that, M.A.D Records was born. We had no idea what we were doing, but both of us were unified in the ethos of Make A Dance: no-frills dance music to make people happy and hopefully shake a leg.

Before we even started making tracks, we put together a small manifesto:

“Does it make you feel good?
Does it make you smile?
Does it make you wanna DANCE?

All Music we make needs to come from a place of joy and passion.

This project is for the love of the dance and therefore should always have the dance in mind.”

How do you select the artists involved with MAD edits?

Both of us have spent our whole life immersed in music and the joy of that is the path we’ve led has organically brought these beautiful people into our lives. They have all become friends, and we need to work with people we have a connection with. Generally, we follow our manifesto, and that seems to work. 

What is the aim of the release?

To let these hammers out into the wild, make people feel good, make people smile and, most importantly, make people dance.

How would you describe the ethos of MAD Records?

Ecstatic dance with a dash of emotional climax. Putting out music we love with no compromise, from people we admire.

What are your plans for the rest of the year?

We have just finished building a new studio with two of the guys who run a record shop in West London called ‘Next Door Records’ which is very exciting and gives the whole outfit an HQ. We have all the releases for 2023 wrapped up and ready to roll out, so keep your eyes and ears peeled.

Continuing to build the M.A.D family and DJs as much as possible is important to us. We’re excited to get the festival season underway, and our next M.A.D Records takeover is at fabric on April 29 with Meg Paine B2B Asa Tate, Rakim Under and, of course, yours truly.

Check out the photos from the launch party below.