Lee Pennington
About Lee
Lee Pennington is the founder of 12 year old underground house and techno movement *riffraff based on Teesside United Kingdom.
Launched initially as a one-off party to celebrate his first ever vinyl release on Source Of Gravity Records under his Section 75 disguise, the event quickly developed into a monthly occasion that catered for people who appreciate forward thinking underground electronic music and has now not only been on tour around European clubs but also set up a second home in Malta as well as throw random party’s in quarry’s, boats, aircraft hangers, under motorways and abandoned cellars.
Evolving from an old progressive sound, Lee created his raw and diverse style of percussive house and techno that has his productions played on dancefloors worldwide by A list artists from Sasha & Digweed to Rui Da Silva, Xpress 2, Patric Topping, Terry Francis, Danny Rampling, Tale of Us, Joseph Carpriati and many more.
Lee's productions can be found on numerous independent labels both under his own name and from his Section 75 alias, riffraff pseudonyms as well as his partnerships with other artists under the simple name of Pennington and of course his newest Live Project of Groove Syndicate to which he also runs a record label under the same name alongside rising star Lee Walker. Lee’s vinyl release on Channel Zoo recordings featuring a Spencer Parker remix sold out and Lee will be working on a follow up for that label next year. The Groove Syndicate releases have been played on John Digweeds Transitions show and on the Skream Radio one show not to mention by the likes of Darius Syrossian and No artificial colours spinning those tracks.
October 2009 saw Lee beat off stiff competition to take the top spot in the worldwide Space Ibiza 2020Vision remix competition with his mix of 2020 Sound system's “sliding away”. His track was featured on the Space remix Compilation 2009 and was chosen from the many thousand entries as the winner by Ralph Lawson. But more recently following a performance at Bullet Dodge filmed and streamed via “Be at TV”, Lee found himself to be the most trending artist in the world for the month of March 2015 and this was soon followed up by his “My House EP” on Bulletdodge reaching number 6 in the releases chart on Beatport. This release was soon beaten by his collaboration remix with Ibizan Legend DJ Alfredo that found its way to number one on traxsource in November 2015 and remained there until the last week of December and then in 2016 his "At the Movies EP" made its way into the top ten across five different genres on Beatport homing in on number one in the Progressive House chart.
Lee can regularly be found spinning his beats at some of the best underground events and has played done so at Watergate (Berlin), Fabric, Back to Basics, Sankeys, Jaunt, Shindig, the Mint, the Egg, Junk, Ministry of Sound, Ellui (South Korea), Atlantis (Dubai) to name just a few over the years but it is his residencies at riffraff and Zoo Project where he has really carved his name as a DJ with some infamous back to back sets with the likes of Craig Richards, Matt Tolfrey, Dave Beer, Evan Baggs, Funk E, Denney, Hector, Rui Da Silva, Karm from Tale of Us, Federico Grazzini and Giles Smith.
Away from the nightclubs Lee is also lecturing students on musical technology, as well as mastering and engineering for artists and labels and of course running his own record label alongside Lee Walker.
It has been all of the above achievements and hard work that led Lee to becoming a firm established resident at the Zoo Project parties in Ibiza playing to crowds of up to 4000 each week as well as touring with this outfit around the world playing in clubs as far as Dubai’s Atlantis, South Korea’s Ellui as well as Berlin super club Watergate and playing main room at the world’s largest nightclub Privilege for Saturday night Project each week.
With *riffraff becoming stronger each month and being at full capacity as well as punters travelling from all over the UK to see Lee and his residents play alongside very special A list guests, and his weekly residency at the Zoo Project in Ibiza and releases lined up on Rui Da Silvas Kismet as well as techno label BulletDodge plus his own label Groove Syndicate Recordings in 2015 he vows to keep up with his work ethic to play sounds that he feels should be heard, produce records he wants and put on parties that he likes for all those people whom share the same love of music.