Alex Culross

Dundee, and a three-year wait for a label

Culross is based in Dundee and works in house and tech house. The paper trail behind him is a run of records rather than a long residency CV, and the clearest marker of how he got from making tracks to being played by the people he grew up listening to is a piece of admin: he emailed Chris Lake's Black Book Records in 2021, and nothing came of it for three years.

He put it plainly in a September 2024 interview: "Being a part of Black Book IDs means a lot to me. It's been one of my goal labels from the very beginning of my music career. I first got in touch with Chris Lake back in 2021, but it wasn't to be until now — three years later — so being able to say 'I did it' is a very satisfying achievement for me." That gap is the shape of the career. The recognition arrived a long way behind the work.

In the meantime he built a catalogue that charted without breaking through: his booking agency's copy lists a string of Beatport Top 100 entries alongside "3AM" and the "Call You Back" EP.

"The Light" and the first chart

The first record to do real numbers was "The Light", which his agency credits with a Beatport number one over Christmas 2021. It landed in the same year he first wrote to Black Book, which sets up the odd position he occupied for the next three years: a producer with a chart-topper who still could not get the release he actually wanted.

What followed was a working run rather than a breakout — repeated Beatport Top 100 placings and a name that circulated among tech-house DJs without much press attached to it. That pattern, records ahead of coverage, has held ever since.

"Drum Tool", and the summer it worked

"Drum Tool" came out on Black Book Records in 2024 as part of the label's Black Book IDs: Chapter 8 compilation, and it is the record that changed the scale of things. It is a driving, high-energy instrumental — no topline, almost no arrangement furniture — and Culross was candid about the risk of that: "This is my first time releasing a track consisting of basically only an instrumental, so for it to be received this well is amazing to see."

The support list is the point. Jamie Jones, John Summit, Marco Carola, Michael Bibi, Skream and Seth Troxler all played it, and the track carried across major European venues and festivals through the summer of 2024, including Ibiza clubs and Creamfields. A producer whose records travel in other people's bags gets booked on the strength of the record, which is roughly what happened next.

Skream, Carl Cox, and the collaborator years

The follow-up was "Bass Tool", made with Skream and released on IFEEL in 2025 — currently his most-played track on NTS, where his music first turned up through Bradley Zero Presents: Rhythm Section on 14 May 2025. The naming is not accidental: "Drum Tool", "Bass Tool", records built as DJ equipment rather than as songs.

On 7 May 2026 came the largest credit of his career so far. "Burn Tonight", released on We Are The Brave, pairs him with Carl Cox and Alan Fitzpatrick. The two older DJs had shared stages for years, most recently at Ultra Miami's Resistance stage, and had talked about a studio record for a long time; Culross was brought in to finish the idea. The result is built for peak time — commanding vocal hooks, punchy drums, rolling low-end pressure — and the fact that a producer four years past his first chart entry is the third name on a Carl Cox record says more about his standing than any bio line.

The trade press summary of him at that point was "the favourite DJ/producer of your favourite DJ/producers", with ongoing support from Josh Baker, Mau P, Marco Carola and Michael Bibi. It is an accurate description of a specific kind of career: heavy circulation among working DJs, comparatively little mainstream profile.

"Rhythm Of The House" and the Manchester route

The most recent release is "Rhythm Of The House", made with EJECA and put out on 19 June 2026 by You&Me Records, the Manchester party and label built around Josh Baker. It is a single six-minute track, sold on Bandcamp from £1.99, with no remix package attached.

Before it came out it had already been tested in rooms — the label's own notes cite plays from Prospa, Chris Stussy, Kettama and Baker himself at Coachella, DC10 and Amnesia. That is now the standard route for a Culross record: months of circulation as an unreleased file in other DJs' sets, then a release that arrives already familiar to anyone who was in those rooms.

Where things stand, September 2026

He is signed to NGE Booking for live representation, and the agency's own framing places him "as one of the most exciting voices in house and tech-house today" — promotional language, but consistent with the credits. Two dates are currently on sale.

The honest gap in the record is the live side. The discography is dated and easy to verify; published reviews of his own DJ sets are thin, and the best-documented evidence of his music in a room is still other DJs playing it. He is a DJ act rather than a live-hardware or band act, so a booking means recorded music mixed live across a club or festival slot rather than a staged production with a set running order.