Artist Profile: Rex the Dog

For all its whimsy, Rex the Dog (the artist project of Jake Williams) has been shape-shifting and outmaneuvering the algorithms of dance music history. Somewhere between retro-futurist club alchemy and an electronic fever dream of ‘80s synth-pop and Kompakt minimalism, it barks, glitches, and wags its tail at the homogenization of modern electronic music. With a self-built modular synthesizer and a knack for the absurd, he has spent the past two decades shocking dancefloors back to life with melodic mischief. On Friday, February 21, come see what this techno legend holds in store when he touches Control Club ground.

Before Rex the Dog wagged its modular tail, there was JX, the alias under which Williams became a rave demigod in the ‘90s. Tracks like the Hooj Choons-released Son of a Gun (1994) and There’s Nothing I Won’t Do (1996) shot up the UK charts, plastering Williams’ across every foam party and neon-lit trance festival from London to Ibiza. JX was built for mass appeal and engineered for peak-time explosions. The era’s success was intoxicating but also restrictive, and, for Williams, something about it began to feel too rigid and predictable.

Somewhere in the early 2000s, Williams swapped main room euphoria for the shadows of London’s sweatiest clubs—places like Nag Nag Nag and 333. Here, he recalibrated and absorbed the imperfection of primal electronics. It was this gnarly, hissing world of modular synthesis where he would dive deeper and deeper, uncovering a place where glamour and sleaze collided under the light of malfunctioning strobes. And just like that, Rex the Dog was born.

Williams' first transmission as Rex the Dog—Prototype (2004)—landed on Kompakt. It was playful, weird, and deliberately askew, like an ‘80s arcade machine hacked by a synth-loving alchemist. His 2008 album The Rex The Dog Show featured punchy tracks like Maximize and Circulate, earning support from Jennifer Cardini, Roman Flügel, Tale of Us, and The Blessed Madonna. From Kompakt to Kitsuné and Unknown to the Unknown, the tracks kept coming—Sicko (2019), Teufelsberg (2020), Vortex (2022), Laika (2024). Beyond his original productions, Williams has been sought after for his remix work, leading to reinterpretations of Depeche Mode, Moby, and Fever Ray.

At the same time, Rex was more than just a name. It was a character, a cartoon, and a universe. Every Rex the Dog release came wrapped in hand-drawn artwork sketched out by Williams himself. Rex even became the first animated dog interviewed on BBC Radio 1, answering Annie Mac’s questions in barks and growls(!)

For Williams, the studio and the stage are different animals, and the only way to perform Rex the Dog live is to let the machines run free. At Berlin’s Panorama Bar, Barcelona’s Nitsa, Brooklyn’s Good Room, and beyond, he battles voltage fluctuations, rewires sequences on the fly, and manipulates an ever-morphing synth organism in front of audiences who never hear the same set twice.

In 2023, another evolution occurred. Change This Pain for Ecstasy merged Rex’s modular madness with the bombast of Williams’ JX past. Born from experiments during his pandemic-era Twitch livestream ‘Synth Club,' it was a vocal-driven, neon-drenched track that featured the biggest hook ever to appear on a Rex record. The track became one of Pete Tong’s Essential New Tunes and detonated dancefloors worldwide.

So, where does that leave Rex the Dog? He is still barking at the linear history of electronic music. He reminds us that the best club music doesn’t just move your body. It sparks something weird, wonderful, and totally unexpected.