‘One sec, we need to get some chips in him before his set’ Sisu maingal and Loose Lips affiliate Malissa told me, as she pulled my new, joyfully drunk Northern friend away from the bus stop. A couple of hours later I was the drunk one, bouncing up and down in Five Miles’ packed sideroom as Kortzer - now fully functional - dropped Boy Harsher’s Westerners and Charlie’s Spacer Woman, a brief 80s section of a set that slid around genres with reckless abandon, providing the crowd with a perfect alternative to the main room’s thundering techno. Aside from demonstrating a gorgeously varied record crate, this also showed off the wiley knowhow Kortzer has developed in his years on the scene.

A lesser - or more pretentious - DJ would have stuck to their own 4x4 guns, particularly if they had spent as many hours as Kortzer has gathering rough’n’ready techno in record stores such as Manchester’s Eastern Bloc, or perfecting its sound with a furrowed brow (having studied music production at the city’s ‘School of Electronic Music’). Not this bloke; ever since the DJ (real name Dave Clarke) was gifted a set of disused decks and a mixer by a friend of a friend, he has been a team player, warming up mates’ houses before before graduating to play his first residency aged 18, developing a style that slides away from his beloved techno into EBM, Jungle, Hardcore and more whenever the mood calls for it.

As the years and experiences roll on, his collaborative spirit has been particularly demonstrated in his roles outside the DJ booth. As a core member of Manchester’s premiere underground station Limbo Radio, he keeps it running day-to-day, booking sonic and visual artists, producing shows and carrying out the boring admin shit that someone has to do. As the head of the Loose Lips’ Manchester branch, his roles are as varied as the collective's world is, co-running the label, organising and DJing at their northern events and hosting the Loose Lips radio show on Reform radio. Perhaps the best demonstration of his attitude is the regular Kortzer’s Sunday Jams feature he writers for Loose Lips’ blog, consistently sharing music with the same enthusiasm and warmth he brings across the board.