Artist profile
About
Cormac is a Northern Ireland-born DJ, producer, curator and label owner whose selections connect hi-NRG, Italo house, techno, new wave and the queer history of dance music. He started collecting records as a teenager near Belfast and built his reputation through patient, long-form mixing rather than a single signature tempo. Early London touchstones included Trade, Nag Nag Nag and Bugged Out!, while his later work centred on Berlin and the wider European circuit. Cormac became a regular at Berghain’s Panorama Bar and Snax, where extended closing sets—sometimes lasting eleven hours—give him space to move from euphoric disco and synth-pop into tougher house and techno without breaking the emotional thread. He has also held residencies at fabric in London, D-Edge in São Paulo and Culture Box in Copenhagen, and his selector’s range has taken him to international rooms including Sónar, Bassiani, Glastonbury and WHOLE. As a producer, he has released through Correspondant, Ostgut Ton and Running Back, and his Polari imprint, launched in 2021, foregrounds music and artwork by LGBTQ+ artists. His solo material includes Heartcore and the later Gone project, where pounding bass, dramatic synths and vocal hooks sit beside a distinctly human warmth. In 2024 he introduced Queerly Beloved, a podcast in which he speaks with LGBTQIA+ artists and allies about memory, identity and the role of music in their lives. That work complements his advocacy for queer health and his interest in preserving queer history. Cormac’s sets are generous, narrative and deliberately open-ended: he treats a room as a living conversation, using rhythm, melody and surprise to keep dancers connected from the first record to the last.