Andrew Weatherall, one of the UK’s most respected DJs and record producers, has died aged 56. The musician rose to fame during the acid house era, and worked with the likes of New Order and Happy Mondays.
His production and remix work on Primal Scream’s Screamadelica turned it into an era-defining album, and earned the band the first Mercury Prize in 1992. He was a frequent visitor to Glasgow in the years since, with memorable DJ sets at The Arches and Sub Club.
Weatherall died in hospital on Monday morning, his spokesman confirmed. The cause of death was a pulmonary embolism.
A statement said:
“We are deeply sorry to announce that Andrew Weatherall, the noted DJ and musician passed away in the early hours of this morning, Monday 17th February 2020, at Whipps Cross Hospital, London. The cause of death was a pulmonary embolism.
“He was being treated in hospital but unfortunately the blood clot reached his heart. His death was swift and peaceful. “His family and friends are profoundly saddened by his death and are taking time to gather their thoughts.”
As a result of his work with the emerging acid house scene, he was sought out by Primal Scream, who asked him to remix their single I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have.
After an initial attempt on which he “basically put a kick drum under the original“, Weatherall decided to try a much more radical approach.
The result was Loaded, which retained about seven seconds of Primal Scream’s song – the bass line and a slide guitar.
Weatherall added vocal samples from the US soul group The Emotions, a drum loop from an Italian bootleg of Edie Brickell’s song What I Am, alongside snatches of other Primal Scream songs, and frontman Bobby Gillespie singing a line from Robert Johnson’s Terraplane Blues.
It propelled the rock band onto the dance floor, and kick-started their career.
“I think it’s time to stop saying ‘this is a dance record’ and ‘this is a rock record,'” said Gillespie at the time. “If you can play music, you can do whatever you want. Just use your imagination.”
The success of Loaded led to Weatherall being recruited for the whole of Screamadelica, establishing him as one of the UK’s most in-demand producers.
He went on to remix acts like St Etienne, Beth Orton and My Bloody Valentine. He also had a DJ slot on London’s Kiss FM and ran two club nights in London.
Speaking to the NME in 2011, he said of Screamadelica: “Looking back, my arrogance makes me wince, but I would never have had the confidence to do it if I didn’t have that kind of attitude. In a few months I’d gone from basically bumming around to all of a sudden being part of a proper scene. I was at the centre of the cyclone and loving it.”
The author Irvine Welsh was among those paying tribute, writing: “Genius is an overworked term but I’m struggling to think of anything else that defines him.”