Mixtapes. It always starts with a mixtape somewhere. And in a small town in West Virginia, a 14 year-old AC Slater started rummaging through his dad's music collection and laying down his own sweet mixtapes on a TDK D-C60. AC (real name Aaron Clevenger) upped the ante and threw in some big hip-hop and rap beats to his mixes, mastered the art of DJing and BOOM - he became the king of the decks at high-school block parties for miles around.

Now AC commands the party crowds from underground dens in New York, the grimy warehouse raves of east London to the throbbing super-clubs in Tokyo with his high-octane mix of twisted electro and dance-driven beats. Can we call him a musical hijacker? We'd like to think so, as his relentless tour schedule sees him in a world-wide whirlwind, touching down in the heart of the party scenes across the globe. Here, he cherry-picks the tracks from the centre of the hardest, fastest and freshest clubland vistas and remixes and reloads them to fire back out at his ever-growing audience.

With a background in hip-hop and rap, it took an "eye-opening" Chemical Brothers gig that sent AC charging into the dance world at the age of 16. "It became this big discovery process for me," he says. "I was already into hip-hop, rock and punk, but the Chemicals was the first ever rave I went to. After that, I just went to my local record store and bought up every electronic dance record I could find."

While AC plays driving dance-floor beats, it's his ability to fuse the underground with the overground that sets him apart from his contemporaries. He says: "I'm all about getting my music out to a wide audience, but making sure it has that fresh, underground edge." So while his tracks like Jack Got Jacked blew up the blogosphere by harnessing the (then) underground electro sound in 2008, AC wants people to see the funny side too. No wonder, from the guy who once wanted to be a comedy writer - check out the lyrics to his dubstep, big-beef tune with Udachi, Calm Down (sample: "Yo why you take my sandwich on my birthday?/You know I'm on a diet/I need that multi-grain"). "Fans quote it to me. It was just a joke but people really enjoyed it. Sometimes people get too serious. Music needs to have a humorous edge."

And behind every great man, well, there may be a woman, but there's also a crew. Falling in with the turn-it-up-to-11, bass-hungry party-starters Trouble & Bass, in New York City 2008 caused AC to not only up his game in writing, producing and performing, but also gave him a bona fide urban family too. "It was funny - I'd been to some of the parties they were putting on in Brooklyn, and one day I was Djing and I looked up and the three of them were just standing there at the back of the room, like real menacing looking," he says. Thankfully, they weren't there to tell him to get off their patch, but instead welcomed him with open arms and made it official with the infamous T&B pendant. "It just works," AC adds. "We're all really close. I consider them my best friends."

It was through the T&B crew that AC started working with Drop The Lime, a long-time collaboration which has resulted in tracks like Creepin' (2010) and numerous back-to-back sets at "if-you-can-remember-it-you-weren't-really-there" parties. Then there's his other musical partner-in-crime, rapper Dell Harris. Their hip-hop odyssey into the underbelly of NYC's nightlife, album Right Now (2011), already causing a stir.

AC's also been setting the clubs alight and making a name for himself as one of the hottest remixers around, with a back catalogue reading like a How To Dance manual. Boys Noize (Yeah), Crookers (Cooler Couleur), Moby (Stars) and Steve Angello and Laidback Luke (Show Me Love) are just some tracks in a long list of dance-floor bangers sparking out from his deft hand. In fact, Moby was so blown away he labeled AC's remix as 'a perfect song' and one of his top ten songs of the decade, yep, there's your night's playlist sorted right now.

Then there's AC's record label, Party Like Us, set up in 2009 and named after his eponymous bass -romper track. The label's become the go-to name for the most cutting-edge musicians scouted by AC on his travels and currently includes a roster of bright young things Kry Wolf, Udachi and B Rich.

And the mixtapes - they're still going strong. Bigger, better and hyped by the likes of Toddla T, Annie Nightingale (BBC Radio 1), KISS FM and a million and one muso-blogs. The mixes have catapulted AC a long way from a West-Virginian bedroom, but the ride's created one hell of a soundtrack.

You know the scene well - you're on the dancefloor, enjoying the music, having a pretty good time...and then the DJ drops a new track. Suddenly, your chest is rattling, the frequencies leave an aftershock. Before you know it, mind and body feel like they've been strapped to a spaceship manned by interstellar party aliens hitting every button on the console as you rip through a multi-dimensional warp - and you're loving every second of it.

This is the ultimate strength of a DJ like Udachi (AKA Greg Pesochin) - what may sound familiar at first draws you in with an undeniable raw, slightly psychedelic edge, unpredictable and addictive. Inspiring listeners for years, Udachi's music is a gateway to his mind. And it's a pretty exhilarating place to be.

Born in Ukraine in 1981, Greg Pesochin moved to America in 1990 and was raised in Staten Island, NY. During his youth, Greg took a job at a roller rink dressing up as a dinosaur and teaching kids how to hokey pokey and cha-cha slide (no joke!) but soon transitioned from dino to DJ, regularly spinning freestyle and disco to revelers during nights there. Greg began to attend parties at NYC's Tunnel in the early 2000's, and sustained himself on a steady diet of harder edged NYC rave music, branching out to eventually remix The Panacea (Position Chrome), and DJ Luna-C (Knite Force).

In College, Greg spent 4 years spinning and hosting a weekly dance-oriented radio show, interviewing and hosting guests like Reid Speed, Hybrid, and Omar Santana. In 2005, Greg linked up with fellow producer and DJ AC Slater, who introduced him to a melting pot of electronic sounds from every genre, including old school piano rave, house, breaks, and drum and bass, further expanding his musical knowledge and diversity of influences - most notable of which include music like Hellfish, Boxcutter, Penta, and The Panacea to current sounds by folks like Drop the Lime, Crookers, and BassNectar & Benga.

In 2007, Greg officially took on the name Udachi, beginning to produce and push his unique sound and style - the culmination of all the years of radio, raving and head banging, always in pursuit of that perfect moment in music that makes the listener lose their mind. If you've heard even one Udachi track - you can vouch for the fact that those moments of ultimate, mind-bending insanity are not hard to come by.

Udachi has remained busy ever since - with releases including "Jelly Roll" on Trouble and Bass and a remix of Audio Bullys' "Dope Fiend" alongside the legendary Tommie Sunshine, which DMC Magazine proclaimed "could be the killer remix of 2009." "Dope Fiend" also made rounds on Kissy Sell Outs radio show on BBC, as well as in the Jack Beats Fabric Live mix, and Udachi's premiere remix of AC Slater's "Jack got Jacked" was licensed on the compilation "Relax It Won't Hurt" mixed by Tommie Sunshine on Ultra Records. In addition to a these releases, Udachi has played a slew of DJ sets with artists such as Mightyfools, Bart B More, Drop The Lime, AC Slater, Tittsworth, B. Rich, Deathface, Paserock, Foamo, and Starkey, just to name a few.

In early 2010, Udachi released the uprock smash single "P-Funk Skank" with remixes by the likes of Nadastrom, B. Rich, Costello, Dave Nada and Ricorb, and his current material includes an EP in the works for Palms Out Sound, a heavy bass remix of Rico Tubb's "It Gets No Better", a remix of "We Own The Sky" by M83 (a repeat #1 on Hype Machine's Daily Most Popular Tracks), and a single alongside Jess Jubilee ("Paypur/Smoke Rings") for the Nighshifters label, complete with a trippy music video, made in collaboration with No Name Brand Film and QuizBowl productions. The video for "Smoke Rings" is a truly epic production made on a tinfoil budget, and entails Udachi and Jubilee on a quest to recover some weed stolen by sneaky aliens, culminating in a major interplanetary dance party. If you haven't checked this one out yet - you owe it to yourself to get on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-a0YirtI-M) right now and scope it out.

B. Rich (aka Barrett Richards) of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is one of America's welcome purveyors of bass-heavy club music. After growing up with a love of hip hop he got into producing and DJ at a young age while being influenced by early 90s rave and dance artists such as Moby, Altern-8 and The Prodigy. Now with over 15 years of experience he is performing regularly throughout North America with one European tour under his belt and an Australian tour later this year.

With an a strong ability to read a crowd his sets are known to fly all over the map. They can go between house, bassline, funky, garage and dubstep all with a unifying element: huge low end frequencies. When behind the tables he shows the signs of an artist and performer who truly loves their work.

He has become a much sought after remixer for various styles, ranging from big dubstep club bangers to percussive and bass heavy 4/4 dance floor hits. His crisp production style has been shared with labels such as Ultra Records, Ministry of Sound, Scion A/V and Palms Out Sounds. Whether it's at the club or on BBC Radio 1, you can hear his tracks being played and supported by some of the heaviest selectors and tastemakers across the world.