Part 2

What qualities of sound do you appreciate more now, and how do you bring them to the fore in your work?

I think I’m developing a much more direct understanding of what I want things to sound like. I know how I want my low end to feel and how I want things to move.

My music has been described as mechanical or metallic techno, and I think that makes sense. It tends to be hypnotic and slower-slung, with quite a lot of bass weight, evolving sounds and an understated sense of momentum. I’m much more interested in tension, emotion, space and immersion than constantly building towards an obvious climax or energy. There needs to be some darkness there for me too. Even if I’m making something groovier, I still want that underneath it.

I’ve actually tried consciously to make a more straightforward groovy 4/4 techno tracks before and they just don’t sound like me. It makes me cringe a bit actually and I think that was useful in itself. Sometimes finding your sound is also finding out what it isn’t.

What makes two tracks “matchable” to you and what constitutes a great transition?

For me it’s quite instinctive. Because I used to sing by ear, I can usually hear keys and relationships between sounds without having to think too consciously about them.

I also don’t necessarily hear tracks as complete, fixed objects when I’m DJing. I can hear individual elements within them and react to those, almost treating the tracks themselves as components of something else.

That’s probably why I enjoy making things work that perhaps shouldn’t. There are obviously ways of technically matching records, but I’m much more interested in taking a risk and getting the reward when two things suddenly interact in a way you didn’t expect.

There’s a similar element of the happy accident in DJing for me as there is in production.

How would you describe the experience of DJing, physically and mentally?

I don’t really get nervous before I play in the conventional sense. What makes me nervous is that you never know how it’s going to go. You don’t know whether you’re going to get into the set or whether the entire thing is going to feel like hard work.

Sometimes I can play for hours and would happily just keep going because you find this rhythm and synergy where everything locks. Other times it can be nightmarish and I become incredibly self-critical.

When it really works, my mind completely locks in. It’s almost like entering another dimension and everything becomes instinctive. Afterwards my brain can be completely fogged over. I find it genuinely difficult to talk to people immediately after playing because it takes extra energy to pull myself out of that state and converse normally. I remember those sets afterwards but also don’t. I remember moments and feelings, but the whole thing can have this dreamlike quality.

DJing is very therapeutic for me, and I think I judge a set much more according to whether I reached that place than according to what other people tell me afterwards. Obviously, I’m still respectful of the dancers, the club, the set time and what my role is in that situation, but personally, that’s when I know I’ve had a successful set.

With the possibility for infinite variations in production, how do you decide when something is finished?

I don’t haha. I find it really difficult to know when something is finished. Every time I listen back to a track, I hear something I want to change, something I want to add, or another idea suddenly comes into my head. I know most producers have some version of that problem.

Deadlines are probably the only thing that really stops me. Sometimes I don’t accept that until the absolute last possible moment.

I’m not sure I’ll ever naturally reach a point where I listen to something and think there is categorically nothing else, I could do to it. Finishing it is more about accepting that this is the version that exists now.

With so many ways to improve your technical skills, how do you keep production playful?

A lot of it is just experimenting and changing sounds until something happens that interests me.

I was lucky to have a brilliant friend and tutor who essentially taught me how to make music from the beginning. As I’ve become more independent, that relationship has changed. I make music on my own and then go back to him or other friends for feedback, helping to mix down, or when I know what I want something to do but don’t necessarily know the technical route to get there.

Beyond that, I think I rely a lot on instinct and the knowledge I’ve absorbed from years of being around music. Someone can teach me how something works and then I’ll take that information and run somewhere else with it.

Randomness is quite important. Some of the things I like most in my tracks have come from experimenting without really knowing what the end result was supposed to be.

Production can be a lonely process and feedback isn’t always tangible. What is it about it that gives you satisfaction?

Production is quite personal for me, and that’s probably why I’ve never been in a massive rush with it.

I enjoy releasing music, but while I’m making it, I’m not really thinking about the dancefloor, whether other people are going to like it, play it or whether something is going to take off. The external validation that does mean something to me is when someone whose knowledge and taste I respect recognises something in it, particularly when they recognise it as being distinctly mine.

Originally, I wanted to produce because I wanted to know more. I’d revolved most of my life around music and I wanted to understand why and how to make it sound the way it does and how people actually made it. I’ve always been inherently creative so it was a natural step for me.

Somewhere in the process of learning that, production became cathartic.

How does the experience of DJing change when you subtract the audience?

I guess the audience changes what I feel is appropriate.

I remember playing a peak-time set, which isn’t usually where I feel most at home; I tend to prefer opening or closing and I’d been quite nervous about it. Then the club ended up being pretty empty. Not literally empty, but there weren’t many people there.

I found it incredibly difficult to play a peak-time set without that energy coming back at me. It didn’t feel right to play that way to an almost empty room, but I also knew the setting and set time weren’t appropriate for me to suddenly go completely left-field, slow everything down or start playing loads of broken music. I felt caught between the two.

Radio gives me almost the opposite feeling. Without a dancefloor in front of me, I find it difficult to artificially build towards that same peak-time energy, so instead I use the freedom to experiment. When I had a radio residency, I’d use it to collaborate with people or explore genres I wouldn’t necessarily play in a club, I’ve done everything from a summery minimal/house-oriented show to a dubstep set.

That’s also why a lot of the mixes I’ve uploaded more recently have been live club recordings. If someone wants a direct example of how I DJ in a club, I think those recordings represent that much more truthfully than a radio mix does.

How important is dancing for our wellbeing on a personal and even on a societal level?

I think dancing is incredibly important, particularly within safe club spaces. A dancefloor can give you this temporary quietness from the outside world, where time feels blocked off and you're allowed to let loose, meet people, learn and exist differently. I don't think those spaces are always respected or understood for what they can provide.

[Read our Malin Linnéa interview about new safe-space party concepts]

At its simplest, dancing is a physical response to how music moves through your body. I find it particularly interesting, and frankly infuriating, that so much of the dancing we see online now, follows a format: you learn a movement and replicate it. To me, it looks uncomfortable, and I find it disrespectful to what dance culture is meant to be about - freedom and self-expression.

There’s something completely different about a dancefloor where there is no prescribed way to move and everyone is responding instinctively to what they're hearing. No ego, no copy paste.

And in some places, that freedom has a much wider significance. Georgia is an obvious example for me, where underground club culture and the dancefloor have become closely connected to political and societal resistance. In that context, dancing isn't just escapism. The freedom to gather, express yourself and occupy that space together can become an act of resistance in itself.

I think that's ultimately why dancefloors matter to me. They create a space where, even temporarily, the normal rules and noise of the outside world can fall away.