06/12/2025
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve shared anything about the Hexadecimal story. There are a few reasons for that, which I won’t bore you with. But the main one is that the next part of my music past I wanted to talk about is something I still struggle to process, and haven’t really begun to deal with. Maybe writing this will help.
It’s time to talk about Matt Tolfrey
Matt died suddenly in October after an accident at home. It was a huge shock to the electronic music community around the world, and it’s "leftroom" in me too. It's like a big part of my journey doesn’t quite make sense anymore.
By the time Matt released his first tune on Damian Lazarus’ Crosstown Rebels, he was already on his way to becoming a superstar. Like me, he was a resident at The Bomb and Stealth in Nottingham, then he moved to London, toured the world, founded Leftroom Records, played Fabric regularly, and released his own Fabric compilation.
Matt and I met as students at Nottingham Trent around 2000 or 2001. He’d already won a Gatecrasher? DJ comp, but like me was still unknown in the UK scene. We both ended up on Fly FM, the uni’s student radio station. I really must dig out those recordings.
My first proper memory of him wasn’t the first time we met. It was when I entered the NTU DJ comp. I played an all-vinyl set in the student union (Glow Bar maybe? Anyone remember?) and I recall being pretty chuffed with how it went. Matt came up to the booth afterwards and I stupidly said something like “beat that mate.” Two things happened next: I won the competition… and I found out Matt was actually a judge, not another contestant.
We started our careers together, and along with Sound Alliance set up a DJ agency called Deep Freaks, with Will Harold running things as our agent. (Yes, that’s where the name of our tune “Deep Frequency” came from.) Will helped get Matt and Hexadecimal bookings. It was also around then that I met Pete Jordan while he was flyering one afternoon. He ran the multi-award winning "Spectrum" nights, which became some of the best parties in the UK for breaks and beyond. There’s loads more to say about Pete and Spectrum, absolute legend, but he’ll get his time soon.
When I think about the most memorable times with Matt, they’re probably when Deep Freaks took over The Bomb on Saturday nights, or the long weekend we spent running things at The Social. One summer the rest of our Nottingham crew went to Ibiza without me. I have no idea why I stayed behind, I was probably skint. They took a new DJ mix of mine with them, and apparently had nothing else to play at the villa, so it ended up being rinsed all week. Matt once gave me one of the nicest compliments when he said I was the best breaks DJ he knew. He also tried to help me outside of music, like when my mental health really dipped in my final year.
We had some great times. Those first three years at uni were some of the best of my life, unforgettable. Even the Daily Mail ran a piece on his death. I do wonder what he would have made of that.
Matt leaves behind his ex-partner Hayley and his two daughters, Aria and Beau. There’s been a collection running to support them, and there will be a memorial service for Matt in London on Wednesday 14 January, followed by a celebration of his life in music at Fabric that evening, which will be a public ticketed event. fans
R.I.P Matt xo
