Guru Josh obituary

The DJ Guru Josh, who has died aged 51, having apparently taken his own life, made an enduring mark with his electronic rave anthem Infinity. The song was an enormous hit on its first release in 1989, becoming a celebrated part of the soundtrack to the dance culture sweeping Europe at that time. In 2008 the track was reissued by the Guru Josh Project as Infinity 2008, and enjoyed a spectacular second life, reaching No 1 in several European charts.

Josh was born Paul Walden in Jersey. His father, Harold, was a dentist, and Paul initially studied dentistry, while also taking the first steps towards a musical career by performing at the Sands nightclub, Jersey, first as Syndrone and, later, as Animal and his Crazy Organs. In 1983 he left for the US to pursue his musical interests, but ended up working for a chauffeur company at night and as a decorator by day. The driving and painting was lucrative, but as he was not making much progress on the musical front, he decided to return to London. “I took a grand and left to seek fame in the city lights of London town,” he wrote.

He formed a rock band called Joshua Cry’s Wolf, and with his saxophone player, Mad Mick, also set up the A-Z music agency in Tooting, south London, booking jobs for bands and DJs. They enjoyed some success on the live circuit, but Josh realised their rock sound was being eclipsed by the electronic dance music of the so-called second summer of love. He liked to tell the story of how an audience member at a pub gig gave him an ecstasy tablet, and “from then on I started playing house music”. For a time he played keyboards with Seal and Adamski, then set about building a solo career as Guru Josh.

The single Infinity came about when a friend of Josh’s, with whom he promoted a warehouse party called Infinity, asked him to create a dance track. He built the piece from a phrase in one of his old rock songs, and brought in Mad Mick to play the distinctive saxophone intro. He pressed up 500 copies and distributed them among prominent DJs. While most of them ignored the song, it was picked up by Mike Pickering at the Hacienda club, Manchester. “I was now fashionable and cool, my record was duly retrieved from all bins, and it became the anthem of 89,” Josh wrote.

He then signed a deal with BMG Records, and in 1990 Infinity reached No 5 in the British pop charts, also becoming a big hit across Europe. The eccentrically dressed Josh became a familiar figure, plugging the record at raves and on television. “He looked like a chap who didn’t go to bed very often, dragged himself through hedges backwards, and nibbled rare species of fungi not usually sold in Sainsbury’s,” wrote the music journalist Max Bell.

Josh’s follow-up single, Whose Law (Is It Anyway)?, was far less successful, just managing to drag itself into the UK top 30; he may have damaged its chances by expressing support for Margaret Thatcher’s unpopular poll tax, which he described as “basically a good idea”.

Josh then invested heavily in digital video and computer equipment, and in 1992 released the single Cyberdream under the name Dr Devious. This was distinguished by its groundbreaking psychedelic video, which became a big hit on MTV’s dance music programme Party Zone. His series of Dance In Cyberspace music videos became benchmarks in the use of video and computer graphics.

After travelling around Europe DJing at dance parties, Josh moved to Ibiza in Spain and also bought an apartment in Barcelona. In 2007 he formed the Guru Josh Project with Anders Nyman and Darren Bailie, under which umbrella Infinity 2008 was released the following year. By then permanently based in Ibiza, Josh appeared to want to move on from music, saying that “now I get more excitement out of setting up new businesses”.

After his death, associates said Josh had been suffering from drug and alcohol addictions, as well as depression following a break-up with his girlfriend.

• Guru Josh (Paul Walden), DJ, born 6 June 1964; died 28 December 2015