Restless as a DJ and adventurous in his productions, Illum Sphere (real name Ryan Hunn) is both a key player in the Manchester music scene and a unique presence on the global stage. Deliberately oblique in his approach, he’s had a vital impact on electronic music, and it’s about to get bigger.

Hoya:Hoya, the club night he founded in 2008 along with Jonny Dub, has steadily expanded its reputation in and outside Manchester: they now boast Eclair Fifi, Jon K, Lone, and Krystal Klear as resident DJs, as well as mic skills from Chunky, Fox and visuals by EMN.

That’s a hotbed of talent from which radio stations, festivals and record labels outside Manchester draw. Hoya:Hoya also brings names like Four Tet, Dabrye, Ikonika and Kuedo to the city, helping to build its reputation as a nightclub singular in style, and simply as one of the best parties in the country. It’s well known that you can’t fully predict what music you’ll get on a Hoya:Hoya night, let alone from one of Illum Sphere’s own DJ sets. He’ll skip effortlessly between hip-hop, psych, techno, boogie and myriad more styles, before you even know what’s happened.

It’s partly through this reach that Illum Sphere has attracted international attention. He’s played parties everywhere from Low End Theory in LA to Sydney, Australia. XL Recordings asked him to remix Radiohead, who then invited Illum to appear on the seminal King of Limbs remixed edition of Boiler Room, alongside Caribou, Jamie XX and Lone, as well as to DJ at the afterparty of Radiohead’s 02 concert.