Lee Purkis aka In Sync was one of the first people to actively support, promote and play house and techno in the UK. He made trips to Chicago and Detroit in the late 1980s to find the records that were otherwise unavailable to British DJs.
In the early 1990s, Purkis was instrumental in setting up FatCat records in Crawley, Sussex, before it moved to London. Long since closed down, Purkis' brainchild still remains one of the UK's most revered record stores, although few people are aware of his integral part in its conception.
Purkis' recording medium of choice was a standard analogue compact cassette, normally recorded to using a 4 track cassette recorder.
Purkis was partly responsible for the
10th Planet label, along with collaborative partners
Chris Hartley &
David Manuel, with whom he released under the
Insync vs. Mysteron mantle.
Aside from those releases correctly credited to known aliases, Purkis and his 10th Planet associates were also involved in music that made it onto releases on
Fragmented Records (FMD LP 001 & FMD CD 001),
Relief Records (RR760),
Basement 282 (PT17),
Target Records (US) (TR-001) and
Peacefrog Records (PFG 058, PFG 059/PFG 059 CD), although they were never given any printed credits for these works.
After a long period away from the scene, January 2006 saw Purkis kick off a new label,
Fortune8.
Lee Purkis is InSync. Lee was one of the founding owners of the legendary and influential shop Fat Cat Records. His releases are highly sought after classics. 'Storm', the first InSync release on Irdial-Discs, is the most requested 12" in our catalogue. Others had been offered the tape of this masterpiece, but refused to consider releasing it because "...the qwalit'ee wuddnt be gud enuf inaaat..." (it was mastered onto cassette). We of course realized that many of the revered and sought after classics of Techno were mastered from 'inferior' sources, and so we released it, cutting directly from the cassette. A classic was unleashed to the public which might otherwise have been lost for no good reason. There were other tracks on that original cassette, which we have been threatening to release for some time. The artwork for the release of this material was finished three years ago.
After the release of 'Storm' there was a long gap. This is because Lee was only interested in releasing what he considered to be the best tracks. This strategy was completly vindicated when the tape of what was to become the second InSync 12" arrived at our offices. We simply could not believe our ears. Thats how good it was.
Lee is one of the greatest Drum Machine programmers that England has ever produced. He is a great DJ and 'a true believer'. 'Storm' is an evocative and extended piece, that could have been the soundtrack to the Gulf War.
By: Irdial