March 18th, 1995. Eindhoven. The Effenaar, Eindhoven's prized music venue, is rammed. Ravers have turned up in droves for the fifth birthday party of Holland's most celebrated underground dance music label, Djax-Up-Beats. Life-sized comic book characters designed by the Detroit artist Alan Oldham adorn the walls. The DJ booth is a giant rocket ship. Hired dancers flex and contort on stage. MTV are on hand filming the whole thing.

The music is hard, fast and broiling with acid basslines. The lineup is a family affair featuring Djax-Up-Beats' inner-circle: Chicago's Mike Dearborn and DJ Skull are on the decks; Dutch duos Random XS and Acid Junkies are performing live, as always. All four acts have produced key Djax hits, adding to a lofty catalogue that's passed 120 records in just five years. A huge swathe are from Chicago.

Fast forward to July 11th, 1998. Now in Berlin. It's the tenth edition of Love Parade, the annual techno free-for-all that began in the summer before the fall of the Berlin Wall. More than one million revellers have turned out to celebrate "Friede, Freude und Eierkuchen." They're amassing the Victory Column in Tiergarten Park for the parade's grand finale. Earlier in the day, a 17-metre red-and-white chequered rocket ship––fortified with 20,000 watts of sound––kicked off the parade at the other end of Strasse Des 17 Juni. After four consecutive years at Love Parade, the Djax truck begins in pole position. A Dutch flag ripples proudly from the bow.

It's dusk by the time Djax's commander-in-chief Saskia Slegers, AKA Miss Djax, ascends the podium for her Victory Column set. Slegers' popularity in Germany has been steadily growing since being named Frontpage magazine's DJ of the year seven years ago. Dressed in a silver chequered racing jacket, her long blond hair falling freely over her face, she drops "Smack My Bitch Up" by The Prodigy. As darkness descends, her selections mirror the mood. There's the rushing hard trance track "Amphetamine" by Thomas P. Heckman (in Drax guise) and Plastikman's jacking remix of "Alpha Wave" by System7. She ends on "My House Acapella (Jack Had a Groove)" by Fingers Inc, a nod to the Chicago house lineage that informs Slegers and the Djax-Up-Beats label.

Love Parade '98 and Djax's fifth birthday are two of Slegers' highlights in a career that began playing disco and funk in a small club in Eindhoven, aged 16. "Back then you got 40 guilders for playing all night and then you had to clean up at the end," she says. "But for me, I didn't care because it was my dream to work in music." In the 40 years since she's become a world-touring DJ and an advocate for acid and harder edged techno. She is one of the pioneers of Dutch underground dance music and her label, Djax-Up-Beats, stands next to Tresor, Peacefrog and R&S as one of the first European platforms for techno.

Djax-Up-Beats was crucial in ferrying the sound of Chicago (and Detroit) to Europe. "Saskia gave hope to the Chicago sound," says DJ Rush, another Djax stalwart, in the 2009 Djax documentary Underground Nation. In the '90s Djax gave hope to Holland's outliers, too. During the height of the Dutch gabber craze, when most attention was drawn to the exploding dance scenes in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, Djax shed light on the more experimental dance music brewing in cities like Eindhoven and Utrecht, projecting it onto a world stage. "It put Holland on the map for techno," says Frank De Groodt from Random XS.

The hard-edged dance sound Miss Djax repped with her DJ sets and label initially found an audience outside of Holland in the early '90s rave scenes in the UK, Germany and France. "Djax was really in the middle, between house and techno," says the French rave journalist and author Jean-Yves Leloup. "I think it fit perfectly with the first rave parties in Paris when the tribes were quite united." Slegers' other musical passion, hip-hop, had its own division within Djax, and experienced huge success in Holland as the initial champion of Dutch-language hip hop, or Nederhop. The combination made Djax and its founder into stars.

Even though Djax has been winding down since the mid-'00s, Miss Djax hasn't. She's still an in-demand DJ with an unwavering devotion to the uncompromising '90s sound. "I just play old records. I don't buy any new records. I don't think I need it, I like what I have," she says. Miss Djax's classic sound has earned her a new audience at events like Unpolished in Amsterdam and Bangface Weekender in the UK. And despite considering herself "more a DJ than a producer, and a label owner," over the last 10 years Djax-Up-Beats has turned into an outlet primarily for Slegers' own productions, which to date includes three albums and several 12-inches.

2019 has seen a revived interest in Djax's back catalogue. At the start of the year Dekmantel released part one of its Djax-Re-Up compilation series featuring classics from Djax-Up-Beats mainstays Random XS and Terrace alongside Chicago cuts from Glenn Underground, K-Alexi and Felix Da Housecat. There are also tracks from St Germain, Bjørn Torske and 2000 & One under alter-egos, a nod to the label's legacy as a playground for artists in the early stages of their careers.

Delsin has also reissued Random XS this year. The outfit's burbling acid debut "Give Your Body" has been remastered for the first time with its characteristic drop out removed. "I said it was too long, there's a gap in between, it's not perfect," recalls Sander Friedeman about sending the original demo to Slegers. "She said, 'I don't care, let's put it out and we'll see what happens.'"

These imperfections are an essential part of Djax, and a testament to Slegers' commitment to her artists and their music. "This is how I received the demo, this is how I am going to release it," says Slegers, who never mastered anything. "You are not going to say to a painter: there must be more red and more green there," she remarked in a 1996 interview. "This is how the artist made it, this is how I want it."

"It's not always easy to spin a Djax record," Slegers admits, but that's part and parcel of Djax. If there's a "Djax sound" it's the raw, unpolished, underground quality that defines the vast range of music Slegers has released over the years, from the various strains of dance music on Djax-Up-Beats to rap, metal and hip-hop on Djax Records. She's even backed breakbeat, trip-hop and breakcore via the shorter lived Djax-X-Beats and Djax-Break-Beatz sub-labels.

To someone in the habit of compartmentalising music, understanding the relationship between Djax Records and Djax-Up-Beats––two seemingly very different labels––might seem difficult. Not to Slegers. "I don't think in boxes. Djax Records is the mother label and Djax-Up-Beats is a subdivision that I started for the faster beats. I like all sorts of music. That's me, I am very eclectic. Djax is Djax and what I like I release on my label."

To mark the 30th anniversary of Djax, we asked Miss Djax to select some of her key Djax tracks to accompany this primer to one of Holland's most influential record labels.

Djax and Dutch hip-hop

Internationally, Djax is best known for its contributions to house and techno. In Holland, it's for hip-hop, more specifically the Dutch-language hip-hop, Nederhop, that Djax Records became renowned for after signing Amsterdam group The Osdorp Posse in 1991. Their debut album, Osdorp Stijl, set a precedent for Dutch rap and hip-hop and the Nederhop scene become hugely popular.

"The Dutch press were more interested in the Djax (hip-hop) label, because there were only a few journalists writing about dance music at the time," says Gert van Veen, one of the journalists who covered music and pop culture for de Volkskrant throughout the '90s. "Osdorp Posse were very popular, not just in Holland but also with the press. They had a lot to say." The group's third album for Djax, Afslag Osdorp, released in 1995, marked a peak time for Nederhop. The record sold 40,000 copies––"the best-selling Nederhop album ever," says Slegers––eventually earning the band and the label a Gold Record in 2009.

In 2004 Slegers closed down the hip-hop division of Djax Records to concentrate on Djax-Up-Beats. "The [Dutch hip-hop] scene was not exciting for me anymore. It was very commercial, totally different from what I was doing," she says. In the 15 years it was active, Djax released many Nederhop acts and crossover bands working within rap, metal and hip-hop.

Miss Djax's three key Djax Records albums

24K - No Enemies (1989)

I met these guys in 1989 in the Bullit record shop where I was working. They gave me a tape, I played it in the store and it blew me away. Amazing sound and Iyrics. I could not understand why these talented guys were not signed yet so I decided that I had to do it. And so it started.

The Osdorp Posse – Osdorp Stijl (1991)

I was looking for something new and different, something more typically Dutch as most rap acts were, with all respect, copying American rap acts. A friend of mine gave me a tape of Osdorp Posse, a band from Amsterdam who were rapping in Dutch. Radio stations didn't wanna play it because the lyrics were too explicit, they said. But me and the band didn't care since we were not looking for commercial success anyway.

De Sprooksprekers ‎– Eindhalte Fantoomstad (1997)

This was an experimental and groundbreaking project. A rare combination of poetry, techno and hip-hop with Dutch poet Serge van Duijnhoven, rapper Def P from Osdorp Posse, DJ Dano, The Prophet and others.

Djax and Dutch dance

In the early years of Djax-Up-Beats, the label was mostly a platform for Dutch artists recording tracks falling between house, techno and acid. Inspired by Detroit and Chicago, artists like Stefan Robbers (Terrace, R.E.C., Acid Junkies) and Sander Friedeman (Zero Zone, Random XS) helped define the early sound of Djax-Up-Beats. The music was rough, screwy and trippy, quite distinct from the house (or "mellow") sound typically heard in Amsterdam and Rotterdam's reigning early-'90s clubs.

Djax-Up-Beats was hard, and got harder still as the '90s progressed, but it sat strictly apart from the Dutch gabber scene that was gathering momentum at the time thanks to Thunderdome. Unlike gabber, which was hugely popular in the Netherlands, the techno scene was small and underground until the 2000s. "The Dutch house scene consisted of gabber parties and [housier] club stuff. Except for some small parties, there was nothing in between," commented Slegers to Gert van Veen in a piece for ID&T Magazine in 2004. "Djax showed the world that there is more than club and gabber music from Holland," says Sander Friedeman.

Miss Djax's three key Djax-Up-Beats records from Holland

Terrace – 916 Buena Avenue (1990)

The first release on Djax-Up-Beats and the first release by Stefan Robbers. This beautiful EP sounds as if it was recorded in Detroit.

Edge Of Motion – Set Up 707 (1992)

With "Set Up 707" Dylan Hermelijn and Gert-Jan Schonewille Jan set a new standard. This track is famous for its hard 303 lines while its distorted basskick has inspired many other artists.

Random XS – Give Your Body (1992)

Saskia Slegers: Djax-Up-Beats in its purest form, Sander Friedeman produced this 13-minute long deep and dark hypnotising acid trip. This track sounds as fresh today as it did in 1992.

Sander Friedeman: It was one of the first tracks I ever recorded and it was made with a borrowed 808 and 303 for a weekend. I didn't have a manual so I had to figure out how they worked by myself. I didn't have space in my bedroom studio, so I put them on the floor. I didn't have a mixer, so it was all really very basic. I was very much influenced by Phuture's Acid Tracks—I tried to make something similar on a Sunday afternoon. I knew I only had a few hours left before I had to return the machines. I just recorded something. I wasn't really satisfied, it was not as good as I wanted it to be. It ended up on the B-side of the cassette I sent to Saskia––just to fill up the empty space that was left on the cassette.

Djax and Chicago

Djax-Up-Beats was one of the first European platforms for Chicago house music, and it's this Djax-Chicago axis that the label is perhaps best known for. Mike Dearborn's 1992 EP, Unbalanced Frequency, was the first of many Chicago signings to grace the label between 1992 and the mid-'00s. "Djax actually put Chicago on the map," says DJ Rush in the 2009 Djax documentary Underground Nation.

In October of 1992, Slegers made a two-week trip to Chicago and Detroit to meet the artists and labels she'd been collecting since the '80s. Underground Nation documents some of that journey, following Slegers as she hangs out with Carl Craig, Alan Oldham and Kenny Larkin in Detroit. She visits Transmat, KMS, 430 West Records, Plus 8 and Underground Resistance before boarding a Greyhound to Chicago where she goes record shopping with Mike Dearborn and visits The Warehouse to see Armando DJ. She's shown around the chaos of boxes and precariously stacked vinyl at the Trax pressing plant, and in DJ International Records we zero in on a conspicuous yellow smiley grinning crookedly from the export rack––the Acid Junkies logo.

DJ Rush, Miss Djax, Claude Young

"I met so many people. Producers came to my hotel to give me demos," reflects Slegers. Phuture's Earl Smith Jr., Paul Johnson, Gene Hunt, Felix Da Housecat, Boo Williams, Glenn Underground and K-Alexi are among the long list of Chicago contributors to release records on Djax. There's also the six Warehouse Remix EPs that came out on Djax-Up-Beats between '92 and '93, where Warehouse and Muzique classics like Steve Poindexter's "Work That Mutha Fucker", ‎"151" by Armando ‎and Mike Dunn's "Magic Feet" were given "a Djax makeover," says Slegers.

Signing to Djax proved especially significant for Mike Dearborn, in his twenties at the time and studying communications at university. "Djax was pretty much my introduction to the world outside of Chicago," he says. In 1993 Dearborn performed his first major gig in Paris, a Djax showcase at a Mayday event organised by Frederic Djaaleb, a key promoter during the founding years of the Parisian party scene. "That was the first rave I'd ever been to and there was probably 5,000 people," Dearborn recalls. "I was extra nervous because I had never played for that many people. My hand was shaking so bad I could barely put the needle on the record."

The Djax-Chicago axis worked both ways. Not only did it give first and second generation Chicago acts a European outlet for their music, it also brought Djax's European contingent to Chicago. Djax-Up-Beats became a melting pot of global and regional sounds. Crucially, Slegers encouraged individual styles to flourish on her label, as opposed to forcing artists to conform to a definitive Djax blueprint. "That would be the thing that connected us," says Dearborn when asked to define the sound of Djax. "We all had our sound and it was all still Chicago."

For Dearborn, the Djax-Up-Beats catalogue is vital for memorialising the harder sound of Chicago, captured in later records by Dearborn, Skull and Rush. These records serve as a reminder to what Dearborn fears is becoming a "lost" part of the city's musical heritage. These harder Chicago records are also some of Slegers' favourites.

Miss Djax's four key Djax-Up-Beats records from Chicago

Robert Armani – Circus Bells (Hardfloor Remix) (1993)

To this day the Hardfloor remix of Circus Bells remains the most-played Djax-Up-Beats track. Despite the fact there were no samples available of any of the tracks from Warehouse/Muzique, all artists that I asked to make a remix did an amazing job.

Mike Dearborn - Birds On E (1995)

Saskia Slegers: I was very happy to get a demo from Mike in 1992 because I really liked the record he had released on Muzique (in 1991). In my opinion "Birds On E" is one of the best hard acid bangers ever made. Produced with analogue gear, like all releases on my label, this track hammers the dance floor with a fat 909 kick, loud crazy snare rolls and psycho 303 sounds.

Mike Dearborn: At that point I was just experimenting. I wasn't thinking this particular track would have more notoriety than the others. I like my Unpredictable EP [from 1994], partly because one of the keyboards I used was really cheap––but you can make good music with anything. Also Chaotic State [1993]. In Chicago we had the house tracks, but I started to get darker and harder than what was happening here, so I felt like I was expanding on that.

DJ Skull – The Graveyard Orchestra (1995)

Saskia Slegers: Ron is another big talent from Chicago. He is known for his long acid trip tracks on my label but he can also produce more melodic groovy stuff like this. "The Graveyard Orchestra" was first released in 1995 on the double EP Hard Drive. In 1997 I re-released the track together with remixes by Claude Young, Random XS and Marko Laine.

Mike Dearborn: For me, DJ Skull is top notch. I feel like he doesn't get the recognition he deserves. He's got crazy skills. He makes tracks that make you go, 'Damn I wish I made that.'

DJ Rush – Stomp (1999)

Rush is a unique artist. His appearance, eccentric dress codes, dark vocals and off-beat drum programming make him into a one of a kind. "Stomp" got released as a limited edition 12-inch that came together with the Djax tenth anniversary book, The Power Of The Underground. This track is the best example of the craziness of Rush's offbeat drum/snare programming, with a crazy snare roll break.

Djax International

As an extension of Slegers' personal tastes and experiences, Djax-Up-Beats was an international label from the start. Slegers had been playing and collecting US music since the '70s, starting with disco and funk and progressing naturally to Chicago house and Detroit proto-techno in the '80s via labels like Trax, Warehouse and Transmat. The first two Djax-Up-Beats records by Terrace (916 Buena Avenue and In-Motion) were globally distributed, which is how artists like Alan Oldham in Detroit and Mike Dearborn in Chicago first encountered Djax.

Oldham's Detroit Is Burning EP as Signal To Noise Ratio was Djax's first US signing. This would be Oldham's first and last EP for Djax, although he'd continue working with Slegers as an illustrator. Oldham's signature hand-drawn sleeve art spawned a Djax spin-off comic book series. Starting with a CD inlay for the 1993 compilation Welcome To The Future, the comics feature Miss Djax as a rebel heroine in a dystopian future where underground music has been outlawed. "I would stitch together a little storyline, and use the various artist and track names in the text," Oldham explains.

As a DJ, Slegers first broke out in Paris and Berlin, and when she launched the Djax It Up party series, she found Djax's most receptive club audience in neighbouring countries Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Belgium. Djax received regular coverage in '90s rave magazines like Frontpage in Germany and Coda in France. "Djax was one of the main labels for us," says French journalist Jean-Yves Leloup, former editor of Coda. "It's a historical label, very important in the whole Paris underground rave scene."

Djax-Up-Beats was also lauded in the British dance music press. As reported by Dutch journalist Gert van Veen in de Volkskrant in 2000, Dave Clarke, then working as a music journalist and writing for Mixmag, was an early supporter of Djax.

Djax-Up-Beats' global reach was reflected in its releases, which were cherry-picked from demos sent from all over Europe and the US. Most curious, perhaps, are the records made by artists using pseudonyms adopted early on in their careers, like Alan Oldham, but also Luke Slater, Bjørn Torske and St Germain.

Miss Djax's five key Djax alter-egos

Alan Oldham as Signal To Noise Ratio

In 1991 Alan sent me a demo with his tracks. I recognised his name as the illustrator of the artwork for Transmat and asked him if he would be interested in making illustrations for Djax. This was the beginning of a long cooperation which lasts till today. When I visited Detroit in 1992 Alan was one of the people to take me around town.

St Germain as Hexagone

I got in contact with Ludovic Navarre through Laurent Garnier. Hexagone produces Djax acid style in its purest form. Hypnotic, deep and sexy, the way only the French can produce it.

Luke Slater as Clementine

To keep the releases on my label a bit exclusive I asked artists to choose a different artist name for their releases on Djax. Clementine is the alias of Luke Slater that he used for the hard, pounding techno tracks that he released on Djax.

Bjørn Torske and Ole J Mjøs as Ismistik

When I played the demo of Ismistik for the first time it gave me goosebumps all over. Such a beautiful Detroit sound. The releases of Ismistik are truly among the most underrated of all time.

Thomas P. Heckmann as Purple Plejade

Thomas is truly a synth wizard. He owns and knows how to play and programme any analogue vintage synth. In the '90s I visited his house and it was stacked with rare synths—he even had an original Mellotron. And in the middle of this was a cage with a loud screaming parrot. So now you know why one of his aliases is Parrot Torture.

Miss Djax

Saskia Slegers is the beating heart of Djax, an empire that she's managed almost single handedly for 30 years. "From '95 to '99 I had an assistant," she says, "but I'm a loner. I like to do things by myself, following my own path." Her fierce independence defines both the Djax Records and Djax-Up-Beats labels, as well as her own DJ career.

She claims to have inherited her liberal thinking and deep-seated need for freedom from her father, a painter, and her determination and strength from her mother, a judge. Both encouraged her to follow her musical passion. "At the age of 12 I knew I wanted to be a DJ," commented Slegers in a 1999 interview with Penthouse Holland. "Those days I was already mad about music. Being as young as I was, I wanted to create my own little world and I disliked any restriction whatsoever. All night long I was listening to pirate transmitters. My mother often came to my room in the middle of the night to tell me to finally go to sleep."

She'd listen to the Sunday night show Spleen on VPRO radio and record cassette tapes to sell to bars in Eindhoven for 15 guilders each, shrewd business sense already intact. At the age of 16 she moved out and was DJing every weekend at local club Vox. By 18 she was working in record stores. In her twenties she was the bass player in a new wave band and honed her wide-ranging taste at the record shop Bullit, all the while heading up the store's new dance music division.

In the early '90s Slegers also worked as an export manager at Dutch distributors IMC. Slegers had the expertise and infrastructure but also the nerve to follow her intuition. "I devote myself to the things I believe in," she said in her interview with Penthouse Holland. "I go through fire and water for my artists. Whether I can make money with it does not matter to me. Trends are relatively unimportant to me. If I think an act has quality, I'll sign it. Period."

Several acts founded their careers on Djax, from Dutch rap group Osdorp Posse to Mike Dearborn. For others, Djax served as an important stepping stone, either directly or indirectly. Stefan Robbers and Dylan Hermelijn, for example, both set up their own labels (Eevo Lute Muzique and 100% Pure) after releasing on Djax-Up-Beats. Osdorp Posse inspired a whole generation of Dutch-language rappers.

As for Slegers' own career, she never aspired to be a star, only "the chain" between the new music she was discovering and its audience. Djax, then, was mostly a label for other artists, even though Miss Djax was producing and occasionally releasing music herself.

Miss Djax's five key Miss Djax tracks

Hardliner (1995)

Hardliner was released on the X-Factor 12-inch, which is my first Miss Djax release on Djax-Up-Beats. I recorded the tracks live in my little home studio. In those days most tracks were recorded live. [I was] jamming with the machines while recording and then afterwards taking the best part to be released. I had a gig in Detroit and wanted to play my new unreleased tracks. So I took the master of X-Factor with me to Detroit and went to National Sound Corporation to cut a lacquer of it (I still have this lacquer). Later, when the record was pressed I did send a few records to some DJs. Mad Mike responded to me that he did not have to worry about me staying underground. I took that as a great compliment.

Phuture - The Next Generation (Times Fade Miss Djax Space Remix) (1996)

There were no samples available of this track, only the vocals but they were on a cassette tape. I recorded my remix live in my home studio but I had no sampler or computer, so I had to mix the vocals afterwards over the finished track. Same with the space effect sounds which I took from an '80s sounds/effects album.

Sick Of U (2005)

In the early '80s I played the track "Los Ninos del Parque" by Liaisons Dangereuses many times in my sets. I still like the main riff of that track. So I decided to use a bit of this riff for my track "Sick Of U." The track also contains some great vocals by DJ Rush. Only "The Major" can do these kind of vocals: sexy, weird, dark and hot.

Ghost Train (2013)

One of my hard techno tracks. To me, techno—especially harder techno—is like an unstoppable train. In "Ghost Train" I used over-the-top heavy filtering and delays and included original train samples. The video matches the track too but it's not for the faint-hearted, so be warned.

Hypnotised (2014)

A track from my 12-inch From Within which I also produced with hardware only. This release brings me back to the acid sound of the '90s and it's pressed on beautiful yellow vinyl.