Basic Soul Unit  

 Born in Hong Kong and raised in Canada, Stuart Li ‘s interest in club music started as a teenager in the late 80's listening to Toronto's independent college radio stations (House, Hip Hop, Electro, RnB, Freestyle and even Reggae and Soca could usually be heard even on the same show). By the early 90’s he was hanging out in the multicultural city's thriving after hours scene where DJs would be playing a cross section of house music from New York, Chicago, Detroit and Europe. Stuart grew up on labels such as Trax, DJ International, KMS, Nervous, Strictly Rhythm, & Nu Groove. Working at the Cosmos Records store during the late 90's led Stuart to dig further into Disco, Jazz, soul, funk, Latin, Brazilian. With this wide spectrum of interest in music, Stuart's strength as a DJ is his versatility. Depending on the night and the crowd, he can throw down Detroit influenced Techno, Jacking Chicago style sounds, soulful and deep NYC House, minimal European tracks, disco, broken beat and sometimes even a combination of these.



As with his Djing style, Stuart's music can swing from lush and soulful Detroit inspired numbers to jacking beats or smokey deep house (with hints of above aforementioned influences). He has released music on respected labels such as Philpot, Mathematics, Mule Electronic, Versatile, Ostgut Ton, New Kanada, Iwanai and Left Of The Dial. Stuart’s recent remix of Arnold Jarvis’ classic house song “Take Some Time Out” (Crème Organization) has an making some noise in the house and techno communities as well. Basic Soul Unit has been getting played and charted across a spectrum of music enthusiasts from deep house heads and techno aficionados to the nujazz and broken beat crowd.



Besides his own work, Stuart has been working along side good friend and sometime DJ partner Jason Ulrich doing A/R for Toronto label Left Of The Dial. Thus far, they have released music from a broad range of local and international artists such as K Alexi, Alton Miller, Tony Lionni, Adam Marshall, Stephane Vera, and of course BSU himself. Tony Lionni’s Golden track will be featured in a live mix from Sven Vath on a forthcoming Cocoon CD/DVD package. Future LOTD releases are in the works from German up and comer Jacob Korn (Running Back) and more BSU material.



Upcoming releases include remixes for Spanish label Hivern and Steffi’s (from Panorama Bar and Klakson) new label Dolly. Stuart is currently working on new original material as well.