Grace Sands

It may now be herstory but Grace has definitely been around the musical block of life, with her USP being 'any nightclub or party you expect me to have been at, I have, and then some...!'

A veteran of the U.K.'s first deep house sound system — DiY Soundsystem — set up in Nottingham in the late 80's, peaking during the free party heyday of the 90's at the infamous Castlemorton free festival. She began DJing as one half of the partnership Digs and Woosh, with the duo starting out playing their shared love of hip hop, funk, post punk, disco & jazz — diverging into the world of ambient with the infamous Serve Chilled show on Nottingham pirate Rave FM.

By '91 they were helping define the deep house sound for which the collective became famous, the same year the collective made friends with Jose Padilla in Ibiza successfully playing Amnesia, Pacha, Space Terrace & Eden — Digs & Woosh were two of 'only a few people who could actually play the Cafe Del Mar sunset' (Jose).

With Castlemorton a globally recognised phenomenon, Digs & Woosh travelled the world with connections established on the free party scene, playing in San Francisco, Atlanta, throughout the US, Tokyo, Australia and New Zealand, around Europe and were regulars at The Rex and Queen in Paris and the legendary Respect parties.

Described by Factory Records Tony Wilson as 'Culturally the most dangerous people in the UK' at the time, the collective were political, inclusive and purveyors of quality music.

Digs & Woosh wrote and produced, and co ran the DiY Discs and eclectic Diversions record labels, launching Midlands artists Atjazz, Nail and Schmoov! Their 'Undisputed Truth' sampling 'Rumpfunk' was a hit, with a mix CD for French label Distance to follow.

Grace moved to London for fresh pastures in 2003 and continued to develop her own DJ career, playing solo and with Woosh — who sadly passed in 2020.

She put on DiY nights and her own ventures in London, visiting Miami's WMC in 08/09/10 and became a mainstay of Glastonbury's iconic queer venue NYC Downlow — she is according to Luke Howard of Horse Meat Disco 'A child of the Downlow' and met Shay Malt of London's queer night Adonis when playing there in 2016 'She was the best DJ I heard all weekend'.

As a result of this she became an Adonis resident, giving her the opportunity to wow the kweens, kings, thems, trans & all inbetween with her ability to read a crowd and blend influences old and new. As the 'uber grande dame of the free party deep house massive' (Matt Smith, Exist to Resist), she has appeared online for Boiler Room, Mixmag Lab Ldn and CRACK Magazine.

She kept active on LockdownFM.live in the quiet times, curating a HOMOBLOC takeover for the station, alongside writing and producing and running her label Sands of Time, and launching a party of the same name at East London venue The Lion & Lamb, in association with DestroyEverything promotions.

She regularly guests on radio shows for NTS, Rinse, FoundationFM and Netil, and is a joint host of the ADONIS NTS show.