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“F**k knows!” laughs DJ Woody when asked how many hours he has spent practising since he first began learning to scratch. He’s just finished a video shoot for Macho Zapp. A few minutes of freestyle scratching was the request but instead, such is the man, he gives us a whole routine. His hands flash over the mixer's faders and turntable platter - one moment gently pulling the record back and letting it go, the next rapidly jerking the vinyl with his hand and then fingers. It all combines to produce a performance that is at once visually and sonically striking. This is the art of scratching demonstrated by one of its finest exponents - held in such high esteem he is asked to judge world DJ tournaments.

When Woody finishes, the camera crew smile in pleasure and awe at the sheer dexterity combined with musicality. This is the effect of the scratch DJ. Go to any club and you will see the hypnotic spell he casts over the audience. Unlike the regular DJ, whose power is in the tracks he selects and mixes and the triumphant climaxes he creates for the dancefloor, the turntablist’s magnetic attraction often doesn’t demand dancing - too much movement feels like it would disrupt the aesthetic of the performance and break the spell. Even people who know nothing about the artform admit to standing transfixed by a demonstration.

But why is this?

In this feature we seek to understand the fascination of scratching, for the DJ and the audience. In doing so, we examine the precise and almost balletic movement of the hands and throw in some statistical analysis to uncover what exactly is happening during a performance. In short, we peel back the layers of the artform to examine the mechanics and the motivation so that, by the end, you may be surprised at just how deep the layers go.