Tokyo. Shinjuku district. A rooftop, surrounded by towering office blocks and skyscrapers giving off intense, bright light. On the rooftop, there is a table on top of which are decks and a mixer. Behind it is DJ Krush. He’s warming up, blending futuristic loops with whiny synths, slowly moving from one deck to another with little adjustments of the crossfader. The bleeps and bloops build up, slowly, slowly, edging toward a climax – and pause.

And then Krush…explodes.

We’re sure there are DJs in the world who can sequence better, who can put together a more banging set. But trust us when we say that there is no one – repeat, no one - who can move their hands as fast as Krush can. The rooftop blazes with lightspeed-fast percussion that makes drum and bass look asthmatic. Krush’s hands are a blur; he hits several buttons and faders in a second, scratching and looping one record even as he’s fading the other in mid-beat. It is awesome, mind-boggling; one of the most impressive pieces of DJing we’ve ever seen.

The scene is the opener on Krush’s Ko-No-Michi DVD, released this year. The track is ‘Kemuri’.

“That DJ set I did on the rooftop was something I put together especially for that DVD,” says the Tokyo-born DJ. “It’s an especially memorable one for me. But I also like all the other footage from my past recording session, the tours and everything else.”

Here’s what we said about Krush when he came to London in January for a gig at Koko: “On stage in front of a packed Koko, Krush was beat-perfect every step of the way. He is not the most showy of DJs, but he doesn’t need to be. His music, when thrown into a live environment, is just exquisite, and proof that technical virtuosity can beat hype men anytime.”

This reporter stands by that. Others may disagree, but there is no question that DJ Krush provides one of the finest nights out that can be experienced by a human being. It’s a little weird how such vicious, choppy, moody breakbeat can blend so seamlessly into a trancelike dance set, but Krush manages it. Somehow.

That said, it’s not for everyone. Despite this trancelike nature, he demands focused, almost devoted listening. He’s noncommittal when asked how he manages to win over a difficult crowd with his admittedly difficult music.
“I don’t know, I just do what I do,” he says. “And I do my best to show a hundred percent of what I have at the time. That’s what all my live sets have been since I started. I’ve never changed, and I guess I can’t do it any other way.”

His music, born of long studio sessions, endless practice and a lot of tours and collaborations, distinguishes itself by being more than just electronic music. There are elements in both his live set and his production (he produces both hip-hop and other, more experimental music such as trip-hop) of jazz. You’ll hear the same improvisational techniques and dynamics that you would in a set by Sean Jones or Herbie Hancock. The notoriously taciturn, softly spoken and serious Krush agrees with the comparison. “I feel that, technically and attitude-wise, jazz is an important part of my music, and it’s great to hear it described in the same way.”
It’s a defined style, too. You can hear it on his hip-hop production in particular: a fragile, almost melancholy sound, with an intensity that matches its maker.

Japanese hip-hop, often seen as the rank outsider to more mainstream music despite being a well-developed and serious creative industry, has a lot to thank Krush for. Born in 1962, Hideaki Ishi was a school dropout and later Yakuza gang member. There are conflicting and apocryphal reports that he left the crime organisation after finding the severed finger of his best friend on his desk, but in any case his life was to be shaped by more than this. In the early 1980s, he saw Charlie Ahearn’s hip-hop film Wild Style, and everything changed.

“That film was got me into this world of sounds. It was a shocking encounter,” he says, though he does point out that he’s been: “inspired by tons of stuff after Wild Style. Everything around me is an inspiration that influences me and my music. What you hear on my album or releases or even my live DJ set is a reflection of myself at the time.”

That was the 80s. In the 00s, Krush is eleven albums deep. That, plus multiple singles, remixes, compilations, one-off vinyl pressings and some crazy hip-hop collabos (including the brilliant ‘Only the Strong Survive’ with CL Smooth). We’ll stay away from the claim that he ‘invented’ trip-hop – a dubious statement at best – but he has certainly managed to carve out a place for himself in music history as one of those DJs who you just cannot touch.

And you want to know the craziest thing? The final question in our interview is what he does when he’s away from the decks. After all, for someone who has given so much of his life to perfecting the art of making music, he must need to relax some of the time. The answer is yes, but it’s not the one we expected. “Lately,” says Krush, “I like to go out to the little neighbouring park to play with my grandchild, and if I get the time I go fishing too.” The fact that he’s a grandfather is just as surprising as the fact that he enjoys chilling on a riverbank, rod in hand.

In his mind, he’s a regular guy. Who just happens to be the best DJ in the world. He plays a once-off gig at Koko this August, and if you have any qualms about going, kill them now.