One of the most respected (and idiosyncratic) techno DJs and producers in the '90s, Dave Clarke began his music career as a hip-hop DJ in the mid-'80s, shifting to acid house and later rave near the end of the decade. He began recording for Stress (as Pig City) in the early '90s and appeared on R&S, XL, and his own Magnetic North Records. By the mid-'90s, he had gradually shifted away from rave to a brand of straight-ahead techno with the ferocity of hardcore yet the sublime feelings of classic Detroit techno.