Mirror touch <> Blackdown

Mirror Touch has the next release on Keysound and the title track is the first ever to go full Detroit techno, so it made sense to have a conversation, go deep.

It began as a classic artist Q&A, but evolved into more of a back & forth dialog, in part because - as you'll see - Mirror Touch has had many quiet influences on my productions with Dusk over recent years they needed recognising. Enjoy…

B: Hello Mirror Touch and welcome formally to the Keysound family. While you and I have known each other for a long time your productions will likely be new to followers of the label, can you introduce yourself and your music to folks who might not know you yet? What have you been up to musically in the past?

MT: Hello Keysound, this feels like destiny! I’ve been making Mirror Touch tracks for about 6 years now, but the sound has its roots in my teenage years when I was completely infected by the Detroit techno bug. 

I’ve been a compulsive music maker since I was 13, and have dipped into a few styles along the way.

Mirror Touch came about after a long period of self-reflection in 2019, and deciding to make the music I really wanted to hear, rather than what was fashionable.

In 2020 I got an email from Dan Curtin who’s records I first bought when I was 16, saying he wanted to release some of my tracks on Metamorphic, which was a very special moment. 

B: I think it's fair to say our musical overlap is greatest around Detroit techno, something I was deeply in love with before I discovered UK garage in the late '90s. I know you like a lot of musical styles but given "Twin Moon" can you talk a bit about the sound from this era and how it influences you?

MT: So Detroit techno has become a reference point / musical description in recent years... But in the 90’s it was a sprawling sound.

Within a couple of years, I got my hands on Drexciya’s Journey Home - all naive melodies and steely electro, then "Stardancer," which is a high speed motoric banger, and then Carl Craig’s early releases as 69 which were super experimental, UK hardcore-ish "Uptempo" by Tronik House on a XL compilation, Dan Curtin’s "3rd Rock" compilation… and on it goes.

The pace of evolution was rapid. Retrospectively, one record that really landed for me was the "Deepest Shade of Techno" compilation by Marc & Dego [4Hero].

It gathered tracks that balanced out the steelier side of Detroit, with a warmer feel. It captured a very fleeting moment, but it’s probably the record I think most about. But the sound more broadly is important to me, it pairs this sense of optimism and possibility but is deeply rooted in a far-from-perfect-today.

B: Here's a tough one. In no particular order, can you name your 10 favourite Detroit techno records? As this is a very mean question, I'm going to try to do it too…

MT: Oof. I feel exposed answering this because I was never a collector/completist, and there’s still so much I haven’t really spent time with. As of right now… 

Mirror Touch's Detroit 10

1. Nicolette by Octave One Spliffed by Dan Curtin 
2. City Slicker by Aril Brikha 
3. Aqua Worm Hole by Drexcia 
4. Fragments of Yesteryear by Stephen Lopkin 
5. Quetzal by Los Hermanos 
6. A Time And A Location by Justin Zerbst 
7. Stardancer by The Martian
8.  Java by Purpose Maker 
9. Velocity Funk by E-Dancer 
10. And pretty much everything on the Deepest Shade comp. 

Blackdown's Detroit 10 

1. Underground Resistance "World 2 World: Amazon" [Underground Resistance] 
2. Underground Resistance "CodeBreaker" [Underground Resistance] 
3. Underground Resistance "The Theory (Melanic mix)" [Reflective] 
4. The Martian ‎"Tobacco Ties" [Red Planet] 
5. Model 500: "Night Drive [Time, Space, Transmat]" [Metroplex] 
6. 69 (Carl Craig) "Desire" [R&S] 
7. Carl Craig: "At Les" [Planet E] 
8. Robert Hood "Detroit (One Circle)" [Metroplex] 
9. Reese "Just Want Another Chance" [KMS] 
10. Robert Hood "All Day Long - B2" [M-Plant]

B: All of these tracks are are in a playlists I've made. One I started for Damu many years ago but I updated it and added two new ones recently for Amen Ra, to share my enthusiasm for these records... 

1. Detroit Techno Classics
2. Deeper Detroit techno 
3. Minimal/dub techno

B: From behind the scenes you've been quietly quite influential on Dusk + my production. You gave us a pack of rave samples which we've used in loads of tunes.

You intro'd us to Tal-u-NoX and the DX7 emulator. And though some of these date back 7+ years, all of those people will be able to hear in our 2025 release "RollageLive vol2: Sunrise". Were you aware of this cumulative influence?

MT: I remember how excited I was when I found that pack of rave samples, and I also remember thinking, “who else would this really push buttons for?”, I have no idea where it came from, hundreds of rave stabs and hoovers, all painstakingly repitched. A thing of beauty.

With the TAL and Dexed plugins, that was an important evolution. In the late 2010’s, I was finding it impossible to get the tones I wanted out of soft synths, and hardware was great, but had limits. I remember stumbling on TAL and Dexed, and for the first time finding plug-ins with real presence. 

I feel like the Dusk + Blackdown sound was dialled in well before I offered those up, but I’m glad it all helped!

B: I think your productions, particularly your engineering, is of really high standards, especially for someone who - just like me - does not have a big global fan base. Can you share a bit about how you shape your sound through engineering?

MT: That’s very kind of you, I feel like I’m still dabbling. A good tune is a good tune, and a lot of my favourites are rough around the edges. But a good mix can really elevate. I remember hearing Carl Craig play his remix of "People Must Work" at Plastic People and it was a very special moment.

The craft in that mix, the rock solid framework, and the agility of the parts moving through it, it was a special experience. In my own work, I’m trying to make tracks that connect emotionally but that sound great at high volumes.

And sometimes it works.

B: By contrast, from the process we went through with "Twin Moon", I sense the writing and arrangement part of making a track is a bit of an, erm, journey.

For folks that don't know, I think there were at least 12 iterations of "Twin Moon", over half of which I heard and all of which had quite meaningful tweaks. 

In my experience of A&Ring 500+ Keysound tracks is this is… unusual. Can you tell me about this journey?

MT: Yeah, Twin Moon was a mission, and I honestly can’t explain why.

With the chord progression I was trying to find something that balanced out sci-fi optimism with some real world melancholy. And once that chord progression was written, I never touched it again. But everything else in the track changed a lot, tempos, rhythms, structures.

Thankfully you A&R’d me back to a good early version, otherwise I might never have made it out of the whirlpool.

B: To complete the picture of the journey to "Twin Moon" being released, I'm gonna share the unusual technique I tried so we could settle the track… so you lot can maybe laugh at me.

I remember loving a "Twin Moon" version summer of '23. By Feb '25 when things seemed lost in the weeds of versions and arrangement changes.

So I took all the versions you'd set, maybe 5 of them, laid them out in end to end Cubase, plugged in a mic and waited until I felt a certain way about a section. I'd record some thoughts in audio about it next to those bars, in the moment. I bounced the whole thing and sent it to you.

Why I hoped this real time A&R improvisation could work is because making our best music is in part about spotting which ideas amongst all of them are the strongest ones. Which feel strongest.

And why this is a non-trivial problem is:

• what moves you may not move others (and vice versa) 
• the actual process of making music, that involves hearing an idea over and over maybe hundreds of times, numbs the emotional effect.

You can't always easily hear the best ones and the more you try, the harder it may be - at least temporarily. I talked about this in my recent RA Kevin Saunderson interview.

Rick Rubin mentions it in his book "The Creative Act:"

"To avoid demo-itis… avoid listening to it… work as far forward as you can while crafting then step away, without repetitively consuming the unfinished work. By not accepting the work-in-progress as the standard version, we leave room for growth, change and development to continue."

Dusk and my shorthand for this when we're working on a track but stuck is "let's stop & listen to this track with fresh ears."

But to move away from the issues of repetition I want to follow through on this point about emotion and "Twin Moon."

The label is likely best known for the grime/dubstep/bass/rollage axis but I was a Detroit fan before dubstep existed and I discovered UK garage, Keysound has had moments of Detroit techno influences from the very start.

I've never done this before, but if you tug at the thread of Detroit influence in our releases on Keysound… 

• LDN001 "Submerged" by Dusk + myself especially the strings 
• LDN005 "Focus" by Dusk LDN013 Kowton EP - though this release ultimately felt closer to Berlin's Basic Channel 
• LDN025 "Fraction" by Dusk 
• LDN070: "Rollage vol3: C-Troit" ie Croydon-Detroit 
• LDN080 “This Journey” by Blackdown 
• LDN083 "This Journey VIP" by Blackdown & Heatmap "Arklight (Blackdown remix)" from the EP w/Burial 
• LDN085: "UKD" by Blackdown, where "UKD = UKG + Detroit" 
• LDN089 "Rollage vol5: eM-PLT" where "eM-PLT" is a nod to Robert Hood's M-Plant label and to Mill’s Axis on “Offset Axis” 
• LDN097 (unreleased) "RollageLive vol 2: Sunrise" Dusk + I's next big project is due in September, an 20 track album/mix based on that feeling. 
•  (Unreleased) "LDN (Once Circle)" by Blackdown - a naming nod to Hood's "Detroit (One Circle)" and sonically to Juan Atkins's Metroplex, amongst other references

Even the way I enjoy catalog numbers is a happy habit built from Detroit fandom in the 90s, I gotta admit!

So, "Twin Moon" is an important piece of the Keysound story because while it fits into a feeling that has run through the label over the years from LDN001 to LDN97, it is novel for the imprint in the form. Not super novel within music broadly, but definitely amongst the tracks I've curated for Keysound.

But to this point we've never had an out-and-out Detroit techno track: as I say, we've had the feeling but not the form. I'd like to explore both with you, starting with the feeling.

As much as I love bass music with drops that cause that flight-fight response on a good system, over the years I noticed I kept coming back more to tracks that generated warm emotion especially within tracks from genres outside of bass heavy music, especially in wider life contexts beyond club/Rinse sets.

To take a simple example: I listen to my warmer Underground Resistance and Red Planet 12"s a lot to this day but don't get my more grey, minimal Jeff Mills Axis Records vinyl out nor the tougher X-101 type UR stuff, maybe ever. I wondered: "why is that?"

Over decades, I noticed that pattern in me - that warm emotion, if that is the right word - was more long lasting and pulled me back more often than the adrenalin flight-fight drops, though I will always love them.

This was especially true during Covid. As I said on the "UKD" release notes: 

"When the first lockdown hit in March '20 and we were flooded with feelings of dread, I found myself wanting to write something with some warmth - and maybe even some joy or optimism. I guess I was thinking about the time when we could all dance and be together again"

But why? A lightbulb moment for me was when Mad Mike finally did a modern interview, for Red Bull Music Academy I think. He mentioned he'd been a session musician before UR. It was like "maaaan, it was there all along and it's just so simple… it's the chords isn't it?" 

But: all types of music have chords. That isn't sufficient to explain it.

So let me frame this into a distinct question for you: what is it about the emotion of Detroit techno records that still engages you as a listener and a producer and why? Because that's the heart of the feeling, rather than the form of "Twin Moon."

MT: As a listener, it’s that raw, warm energy. Never saccharine, but always facing forward.

Without going too far, it’s how I like my people as well as my music!

As a producer, it’s the music that just feels like home. I’ve made lots of different styles over the years, but often rooted in sounds that were hot at the time. Mirror Touch feels more like making music for me.

 

B: For those who don't know them, can you describe the backstory and vibe of the Deepest Shade of Techno compilations, which you and I reference a lot in your work?

Personally I think it's a happy accident that they were curated by London's 4Hero, best known for their jungle & broken beat, but it's a brilliant extra LDN <> Detroit resonance.

MT: When I first bought it, I didn’t know Marc and Dego’s music (and didn’t until Jacob’s Optical Stairway). Detroit records were in the shops.

But Warp Records had been putting out their Artificial Intelligence series at the time with Aphex Twin, Autechre and Black Dog, but also Kenny Larkin and Richie Hawtin’s F.U.S.E. And then "Deepest Shade…" emerged and it all seemed to make sense.

Looking at all the Detroit tracks around that time, it’s just a really clever piece of curation, cherry-picking a set of tracks that felt like they belonged together, but lead you into a dozen different directions, from UR to John Beltran…

 

B: Can you tell me about the feeling of the "Deepest Shade of Techno" compilations and how that differs from the full unrestrained UR/Red Planet emotion? What draws you to that "Deepest Shade…"?

MT: I was all over the darker faster sounds at the same time, and I’d started to go out occasionally to straight up techno nights in Manchester - memorably Jeff Mills thrashing records (and the soundsystem) at Sankeys Soap.

But the more melodic tracks carry a bit more emotional weight, and seem to work as well on headphones as on a system, so I’ve certainly listened to them more over the years.

B: Now I'd like to go back to the form rather than the feeling, and specifically breaking rules around form and how you inadvertently influenced me & Keysound over several moments in my life.

It probably wasn't that notable a conversation to you but around 2016 I remember you trying to persuade me about the creative possibilities in and around the 4x4 beat pattern which of course "Twin Moon" - amongst many other tracks - uses. I was resistant to this - out of principle.

Yes, I had written or co–written a very small number of tracks using straight 4x4 before this: "Wicked Vibez" and "Dasaflex" with Dusk, both on 2012 (LDN033).

But these UK funky-inspired productions were the exception to our beat patterns over the years. The broader trend was Dusk and I avoided 4x4 it because it is often stiff and our music feeling funky is a very core value to us.

In addition, I had just released "Those Moments" (2017, LDN072) which was a weightless album - it did not contain beats and hence broke that core "funky" value.

I'd written that album after attending Mumdance & Logos' remarkable summer of sessions in 2015 at The Victoria, a pub with a secret Function One soundsystem back room. Mumdance dragged me onto the dancefloor during a weightless set. As he was passionately raving about it there was a lightbulb moment for me.

The revelation was about breaking my own self imposed rule around form, in this case that music I made had to be rooted in percussion. I'd said to myself "If I imposed a rule on myself of 'no drumz' - then what would happen?"

I've just finished Rick Rubin's incredible book on creativity, it overlaps with what "This is your brain on music" has to say about "rules". 

Combining them...

1. As a producer with a blank canvas you have to make choices from infinite options 
2. Producers before you have already made those choices: these express themselves as styles, genres etc. 
3.  As listeners our brains use memory to look for patterns to interpret and enjoy music, though sometimes what's enjoyable is the interesting breaking + resolving of musical rules e.g. blue notes or tritones. 
4. As we progress, producers build habits around clusters of given musical choices: some of those work best for you and/or an audience 
5. As producers figure out what choices work well in their music, they often codify them into rules - though we may call them "values" or "our style". 
6. But to progress as a producer, sometimes you need to explicitly go against the "rules" we see in others' work or impose in our own

To bring this all together. In spring last year (2024) through a very good mutual friend of both yours and mine, Dusk and I got asked something absolutely hilarious: to play a 4h deep house set at Ministry of Sound supporting Basement Jaxx (!!!).

We rehearsed for a month and - of course - played "Twin Moon" on the night. But there was an unintended lasting effect of that set on me that closed out our 2016 discussion about the form 4x4 from 2016. I realised there really is a subset of deep house records I deeply love and all of them are funky, despite using four to the floor or close variants.

This meant: I realised maybe you were right in 2016 about the rule around the form ("4x4") that I'd largely self imposed and that so I should break it, both in my own productions but also curating Keysound.

Put simply, exactly because I'd imposed this creative rule - with good reason - is in itself, at the right moment, the reason to break it.

This might sound like an extremely obvious point from the outside but if anyone's ever been on the musical journey of finding their style, their feel and form, it's not. If anything you should be opinionated as possible: know who you are and aren't and double down on those choices, rather than trying to be some kind of mush of all things to all styles for all people.

I wrote this all out in part to say "thank you" for being part of this multi-year musical nudge, through conversion and "Twin Moon."

But I wanted to ask you: how do you feel about common forms in your music? Where have you imposed creative constraints and what's happened? What are your common patterns and why do they work for you?

MT: Part of going back to making this sort of music in 2019 was because I wanted to get back to basics. Simplify to a tiny set of options, work very quickly to get ideas down, and try not to over-complicate things.

The explosion in plug-ins and sample libraries and everything else was completely overwhelming. I got my hands on the best quality set of 909 and 808 samples I could, a single analog bass synth, and some plug-ins that had real presence and that I could learn back to front and I started from there.

But it’s not so easy to constrain the music itself. Detroit techno is a very broad church, from industrial to ambient, huge tempo ranges, song structures that are super-linear to nearly pop song verse/chorus. There are a lot of decisions to be made…

B: Do you think time has been kind to the "Deepest Shade" comps?

MT: My affection for that compilation, and a lot of the music we’ve mentioned so far, has only grown over time.

I’m still not sure what it is that makes some music age so well, and other music fade away. For "Deepest Shade…" and a lot of the other titles we’ve mentioned, the emotional message is still really clear.

Years ago I heard someone suggest that music which carried a balance of emotions was a lot more interesting than music which was singularly dark or upbeat.

"Deepest Shade…" melodies and harmonies always land something optimistic, but grounded in melancholy. And then you’ve got the more obvious balance between warm, harmonic synths and the steely, sometimes militant drum patterns.

B: Pushing more into form, the EP also has a track called "Converge". One of things I love about it is it starts with the sub bass. Just bam: straight in.

You'd be surprised what an anti-pattern that is in terms of arrangements. Even just getting the bass in that early is rare… the only track that springs to mind is Mala "Forgive", which is a personal one.

Can you tell me a bit about the thinking on how you arranged "Converge"?

MT: I love music that has long, structured intros gradually revealing the secrets of the track. But I also appreciate tracks that get straight down to business ("Stardancer", we’re looking at you!).



"Converge" as a rhythm has been around for a while, and I’ve shared a few arrangements with you over the years. But for the release, it was effectively a live edit, with the drifting synth part shaped by hand and arrangement created around it. So while it starts with intent, the rest feels quite organic.

B: Talking of adapting form I get the sense from our conversations that the EP's third track "Give Me Time" pushes further what you consider your main types of form.

Put simply, it has more of a grimey electro feel, with flickers of filtered breaks in the fills, rather than the most prevalent "4x4 kicks + offbeat 8th hats" structure of house & techno. What should we know about the final form of "Give Me Time" and your journey in making it?

MT: I was helping a friend figure out a track he was working on, and when he left I had the vocal snippet and the break loaded up. Later that day, I added the more traditional electro elements, very off the cuff and quickly.

Normally I put tracks aside for a few weeks, and when I listen back there’s an element or two that works. But "Give Me Time" is its own little world, so it’s pretty much the same as the day it was written. And it’s the perfect bridge between Mirror Touch and the Keysound feel.

B When I interviewed Kevin Saunderson…. bwhaha that still makes me laugh being able to say that actually happened, absolutely absurd it even happened... anyway, when I interviewed Kevin Saunderson, in preparations I asked a few friends what they'd ask him, including you.

A question from a mutual friend of ours, Mark Smith made the interview, right at the end, with a question about UK hardcore. Detroit’s influence on hardcore is complicated. Is it an influence? Or did it copy? What's your take on this messy reality?

MT: I remember being completely confused by it at the time.

One of the first Kevin Saunderson records I would have heard was Tronik Uptempo, on an XL Recordings hardcore compilation, I’m sure it took me a minute to figure out he was from the US.

I also remember a Dan Curtin anecdote. He’s from Cleveland, a friend of his went to the UK and recorded a bunch of Kiss FM shows - Colin Favour/Colin Dale - and it took Dan a while to figure out all the producers on the shows were from up the road in Detroit, not the UK! He ended up getting signed to Carl Craig’s Retroactive.

So I think a lot of US producers were booked for big UK raves very early on, which maybe explains the crossover. Also, you’ve got to remember the late 90s, information was very scarce, hand scrawled centre labels, no discogs, etc.

B: thanks for going deep there Mirror Touch. The Deepest Shade! A real pleasure to finally have you on Keysound Recordings.

"Twin Moon" is out on Keysound in August 2025

Introspekt

Blackdown: Hey Introspekt, welcome to my blog like it was 2004 all over again!  I'm super excited about your album "Moving the Center" and to hear how it came about. 

To set the scene let's start at the beginning: can you help me understand where you grew up especially in terms of the culture?

Introspekt: I think one of the important things about where I'm from in terms of how it shaped my music is I think the cultural heritage of the neighborhood I grew up in. 

I grew up in Leimert Park in South Central LA. It's seen as the black cultural center of Los Angeles. 

It's got a lot of black people from across the African diaspora and a lot of Caribbean folks. It also just has a political history of pan-Africanist political orientation that's really just very culturally embedded in just how we are.

B: Do you remember the times when awareness of that emerged for you? 

Because as a kid, you've probably just been like, "I'm a kid!" and then, suddenly as you grow, maybe you're like, "actually, I think I might be in the middle of something quite culturally important."

I: I moved there when I was in my early teens, and I think when I moved there I already understood the significance of the area. We would have drum circles in the park every Sunday, and it was just like that kind of community, and also that musical cultural heritage, I think. 

I was very aware of how it was shaping how I thought about the world, politics, but then also music. I think I was pretty aware of it early on. Definitely, the drum circles every week, I consider that to be my musical upbringing, for sure.

B: Just for clarity, were you playing in them, were you watching them, both?

I: Watching, yes. I was watching. I would just go and just sit down and watch and dance a little bit.

B: I saw Sampha do a drum circle on stage last summer and it strikes me as something probably you need a decent level of skill rather than just go, "can I have a go?" because it's like five, six, seven people in sync.

I: That's why I was like 'I'll just let the drummers do their thing' because I haven't trained but I do want to learn. I do want to learn how to play drums, and that sorts of thing. That would be nice, haha.

B: I think I'm seeing a root value there of: community, rhythm and an awareness of the political position as well or all that together. 

B: Can you think of any other examples of things you were part of at that time that your work draws on, people or styles?

I: Oftentimes with the drum circles, there were parking lots around the park where Rastas would set up their sound systems and just be playing dub music. 

That was my introduction to sound system culture as well, which I think, obviously, has shaped so much of my work. I wasn't super involved in a direct participatory sense, but more just in terms of just existing in those spaces and soaking in those influences. I think that's where it all starts. 

Then, I'm trying to think, maybe around 2014, 2013. I started getting involved with the local dubstep scene. I started frequenting a record shop that a friend of mine owned called Touch Vinyl. They would have an open deck night. That's where I learned how to spin records and how to DJ. 

From there I just really got a taste for a lot of the UK dubstep records, a lot of the Digital Mystikz, and D1 and just a lot of that end of the dubstep spectrum. Also, I really got into grime as well around that time. 

I was spinning a lot of that stuff and started playing in clubs around the time I was 16 or so. My first gig was opening for Joe Nice. I got kicked out of the club immediately after my set for being underage.

B: Joe Nice was one of the very first people that played my music.

I: Oh, wow.

B: I think Joe Nice was the first person to cut a dubplate of our music; he was really foundationally supportive, so that's a beautiful connection. 

For completeness I think N:Type was the first to play a track of mine at FWD>>, Kode9 the first on Rinse and Joe was the first to cut one to dubplate. I'll always be grateful for that.

I: Same for me. He was definitely the first person to cut a dubplate of mine. My first track that saw a vinyl release was on his label. This was 10 years ago. He was definitely very foundationally supportive. I tell people I went to the Joe Nice School of dubstep and bass.

I: That's definitely a big formative influence for me.

B: Was that as Introspect, that track on Joe Nice's label?

I: Yes.

B: Very cool. I also think it's interesting that you discovered more the Mystikz, D1 type side of things because by 2014… I mean my experience of LA dubstep was very noisy. 

Dusk and I played there in 2010. We met 12th Planet. He was kinda laughing at us for referencing garage as an influence. We were like, "Yeah so... this LA dubstep stuff is going a whole different way."

I: Very, very different. Very different. 

I was always an outlier in that scene a little bit because I was playing a lot of the more, I guess, stripped back stuff, but then also a lot of grime as well, and a bit of dark garage in my sets. 

I always felt slightly out of place in the LA dubstep scene, but still very formative for sure, just in terms of having a community of people and getting opportunities to play at these gigs on these sound systems. 

The sound at the time was very, very different than what I was more interested in. Everyone was doing, at least the crew that I was a part of, was doing, what they were calling, dungeon dubstep at the time. It was more minimal, but definitely there was a certain kind of sound to it that was pretty different than what I was interested in, but I did like the minimalism a bit. It definitely was influential. haha

B: My memory of the dungeon stuff was probably that's the Youngsta's style stripped back & dubby, which is great. It just is very, very focused around one particular vibe, almost iterating on the same sound.

I: For sure. I definitely agree with that. It was a time for that music haha. There was a lot of the Innamind stuff and what else was happening around the time. I think Innamind was probably the most popular label in that sphere. A lot of the System and Deep Medi stuff was also very popular in the circles that I was in.

B: What's interesting is your musical career & choices, your art has somewhat taken references from that, but now diverges to its own kind of space. 

You're playing to different crowds, eg in queer clubs. Can you talk about how that happened and how you feel that's going?

I: Part of it, I think, has to do with, again, just a lot of the music that I would hear growing up and just the subconscious influences that I really started to explore until maybe a couple of years ago. 

I took a long break from music after about 2016, 2017. I took a break from it for about five years. I wasn't really going to clubs. I wasn't really putting out any music. I was making music just for fun, but I didn't get back into it in a more professional capacity until I think four years ago, after the pandemic, around 2021-22. 

Around that time I was more going to raves and parties in the queer scene. I think the first rave I went to after pandemic times, or lockdown times, was Eris Drew, Octo Octa, and the Bored Lord. 

That was a pretty influential one for me. This was where I met them and started working with them. It was actually the first time I had heard UK garage played at a club in LA by someone, not myself, haha.

 

B: I'm curious about the musical context here. I'm a little familiar with some of the stuff that Eris Drew plays but I don't know there's a huge overlap with bassy music and certainly with what mainstream US dubstep is. 

Can you describe to me what you were hearing in those initial sets?

I: Yes. I think the connection between that crowd and the way that they've influenced my music was not quite as much sonically. 

For a while, I was definitely doing the more house-adjacent garage thing but I've definitely moved a little bit closer to my dubstep-based roots in recent years. I think the real influence from Eris Drew, Octo Octa, and the Bored Lord was really philosophically. 

There's this idea of spirituality in their music and I found that really powerful. This idea of, for lack of a better term, I guess, a sort of divine feminine presence shining throughout the music. 

Eris Drew talks a lot about the Motherbeat, and that sort of thing. That's definitely really shaped my music in terms of trying to put that energy at the forefront of it as opposed to what I feel is some masculinist approach to the big baselines and that sort of thing. 

Even though my music can be quite energetic and, I guess, hard in some senses, I always try to keep it a bit sensual and connected to that feminine spiritual energy.

B: Yes, totally. The most obvious musical element is just groove, right?

I: Definitely.

B: A lot of dubstep lost its real groove in a trade-off against impact.

I: Yes, for sure.

B: Dusk and I went through an existential crisis in about 2004 when halfstep came into FWD>>. We're like, "do we even want to be here?" after the snare started moving to the half-step thing. It felt quite rock & stiff initially. 

When you're thinking about that influence from Eris Drew and you say the Motherbeat, and so on, what are the practical ways you feel are coming through? Is it the selection? Is it the sounds in the tracks that you're playing, as well as making? Is it track references? Is it artwork? How does that express yourself?

I: Definitely, track references and samples and stuff. I remember Eris, she did a mixed tape called, I think it was "Raving Disco Breaks". 

The way she talked about it and the idea behind it was using fragments to create something that's stylistically new. That's a huge approach, especially in my recent productions with just sampling a lot of this old early dubstep, dark garage stuff that kind of recontextualizing it or putting it in an altogether new context. 

That's a big part of my approach that I definitely think was influenced by Eris and Octo Octa and Bored Lord. I also got really into the queer soulful side of dance music with the music that was coming out of the Paradise Garage in the '90s out of the ballroom scenes, and that sort of thing. 

There's a lot of reference to that and my music with the samples. I sample a lot of Masters at Work, and that kind of stuff. I think that's the main connection there. Obviously, very sonically different in a lot of ways, but, I think, rooted in very similar philosophies with respect to that and with respect to queer identity.

B: I think as well, when you're keeping that groove from the early, like the 134bpm type more swung stuff, you can easily go into what you describe as Ballroom or Jersey. I know you do that. 

As an artist, I'm just thinking about this in very practical term as a DJ: If you were in that pocket of lower 130 bpms, you can more easily mix these styles in, whether it's Ballroom or other queer genres, and so on, rather than being stuck being further up there above 140bpm.

I: Exactly. That's what I really like about the 2-step stuff. I feel like it mixes really well with a lot of the Baltimore Club, Baltimore breaks DJ Technics type stuff, as well as the garage, house, New York, New Jersey vibe as well.

B: How active are those scenes at the moment? 

Are those things that you're playing records, particularly Baltimore stuff, is it that you are picking classic records and bringing into your sets now or is it current producers that you are interested in?

I: A little bit of both. I tend to lean a little bit heavier on the classic stuff. I've been playing a lot of old DJ Technics, and Booman, and Diamond K, that kind of stuff. 

I haven't been playing as much Vogue Beats & Ballroom, kind of stuff, just because I feel like that's a very specific insular community and I'm not quite as directly involved with it. 

I've been moving away from that, especially as my music has gotten more attention because I just don't want to blow up the spot so to speak with that.

B: And you don't feel that about Jersey for example?

I: Not quite as much. I think those scenes…. well, Jersey, I don't know, I'm not quite as familiar with the Jersey scene, to be honest.

But with Baltimore, I know historically there was an interesting cross Atlantic dialogue between the Baltimore breaks stuff and the breakbeat hardcore stuff that was happening in the UK. 

I've seen that cross-pollination as well even into the 2-step stuff. A lot of Chris Mac stuff, I feel like references rhythmically, this sort of Baltimore Club bounce, some of Steve Gurley's stuff as well. 

I think there's some similarities there. I'm mostly interested in that era, but I've definitely been really getting into current Baltimore producers like JiaLing and Kade Young, those artists. I think they're making really interesting stuff right now.

B: Then it feels to me like you're blending a bunch of different styles and then taking it into clubs that maybe historically, or more recently, haven't been covering it. Is that fair? 

Are there other people doing that bassy side of things, but taking into queer clubs that have been an inspiration?

I: Definitely. Definitely. I feel like it's a really interesting time right now for this interest in the bassier side of things and queer scenes. 

There's a lot of folks who are pushing that stuff, like Sister Zo and this girl Trussie, I know from LA, and who else is doing that stuff. There's a bunch of girls in like Philly Yes, I feel like it's a pretty interesting time for that right now.

B: Sister Zo has always had just unreal drums, I've just been a fan for ages of the percussion. I was like just drawn to it. We played a bunch of them on Rinse, I was just like 'this!' I mean, talk about 'drum circles' haha…

I: Yes. ... totally, she's got it. She's got the sauce for sure. Also, Bored Lord. She's always dipped into the more bassy stuff, but more from a breakbeat hardcore perspective. 

ADAB I think they're in Philly. I know they play a lot of stuff like that. And Kiernan Laveaux, CCL. I feel like it's a really interesting time for that kind of, yes, just that kind of recontextualizing of that sort of music.

B: Yes! I've been listening to lots of CCL sets recently. So good.

So what are the different ways we can see recontextualizing happening? Is it playing music to different crowds? Is it like different communities embracing it?

I: Yes, when I think of recontextualizing, I'm thinking like: playing these tracks to different crowds who wouldn't have necessarily encountered it when it was newer, or whatever. 

I think also in terms of the newer productions that are being put out, I think a lot of the intention behind it is a little bit different, like in terms of the intended impact, the intended sort of effect that we want it to have on the dancers on the dance floor is pretty different. 

I think oftentimes with dubstep, historically, I feel like the goal often was to get the gun fingers and to get the wheel up; at least in the more popular strands of dubstep. 

I feel like oftentimes now with some of the newer cohort of people making stuff inspired by that history, I think there's more of an influence or, I guess… more of an intention around, like a psychedelic journey around it, or like the sensuality of it, the physicality of the bass and how that makes you feel. 

At least that's how I think about it. I really think about just that physicality and the materiality of that bass weight as sort of a sensual kind of force.

B: Yes, a lot of bass weight in a lot of the early tipping point dubstep scenes... I know you're not using these words, but also I wonder if you're thinking also about quite a lot about "groove" rather than like "gun fingers", which is an awful lot about stopping and building towards this overwhelming moment where then you stop, right?

I: Yes.

B: Which is the classic rewind of course, comes from black culture.

I: Yes. I definitely love a wheel up. I love a wheel up moment but, no, I think also a part of it is a lot of us… the mixing style I think is a little bit different. 

A lot of the current people that I've been, a lot of my peers and for me for sure, I think I tend to mix in a way that's more similar to how house music DJs mix or like, at times club music DJs as well. 

More of an emphasis on this sort of continual movement, as opposed to these moments of stopping. I think it's a balance also because… yes, it's a balance but I definitely think there's more of, like you said, that influence or the intention behind keeping that groove, for sure.

B: Yes, it's a blend, longer blend and, yes, keeping it going. I also think, just from a distance, just a lot of the ways you're presenting things is much more sexual.

I: Yes, evidently, haha.

B: Wonderfully, unapologetically, sexual! I don't think that was really a big part of dubstep early on, which was pretty straight and pretty masculine.

I: Definitely.

B: And it got more macho or brosteppy to the point where it was fucking obnoxious. You can debate whether that was sexual or not haha but I think you take it a different angle. 

How do you think about how you're presenting your work? 

It looks really fun and really positive, the way you're describing it, presenting it sometimes, but - and I don't mean this as criticism of the early years - it's objectively stylistically different from where the dubstep boys started out haha...

I: Yes. I think, definitely, I would challenge that a little bit because I think there is a sexual kind of politics to that early dubstep stuff. It's just that it was a different kind of sexuality that was being presented with the music. 

Maybe it's definitely not as explicitly sexual. I think my music is a lot more explicit in that sort of as what I feel like is a corrective to a more masculine, libidinal, sexual politics with the music. 

I think of like the big drop kind of dubstep as mirroring a sexual approach that is really focused on climaxes, as opposed to the sensuality that I'm trying to push with my music. 

A lot of my music is about like anticipation and the push and pull of that. Yes, like building tension, as opposed to these big moments.

B: Yes. I agree. As you say, sometimes you do it and sometimes there's wheel ups, but generally it's like that. Yes. An amazing groove, building it. I agree. 

Then that makes a lot of sense when you're talking about Baltimore, you're talking about the Paradise Garage or like, DJing a little bit like a house DJ where you're trying to pull people through something rather than up, down, up, down, up, down... I think that makes a lot of sense. And, I like the idea of it being corrective, haha.

I: Yes. Yes. I think it's not fully corrective because I do think I pull a lot of influence from the early, early dubstep garage stuff, a lot of Benny Ill stuff, like the samples and a lot of feminine vocals. 

I think a lot about that track "Poison" from the Benny Ill & Hatcha EP. That track, it's basically like, it's got a Baltimore club sort of pattern to it, but the dubbiness and then it's got the moaning samples. 

I think that track is definitely one of the blueprints for my current sound, I think, haha.

B: Yes. Anyone who finds that track foundational, I will connect with them on some level. "Gorgon Sound" was the one that changed my life, but only because I think I found it first. Then I went digging to the first Tempa 12" and the Turn U On releases. Yes, that stuff's just unreal.

I: Yes, it's so good, haha.

B: I don't have the right vocabulary for a lot of this, but I think what I'm relating to what you're saying is around drop v groove is, when stuff is swung and groove-led and funky, it's about body movement, and it is about, like you say, a form of sensuality, and also maybe just collective community, moving together, rather than, "losing it" as an individual?

I: Yes, for sure. For sure. I think the community aspect is a big part of it, definitely. It is also a little bit personal. 

My artist name, Introspekt, it's very interior. I think that's a really good point. That's a really good point. I think there is something about it that's very community-driven and oriented.

B: What brought you back after those years when you weren't either releasing or putting stuff out? What was the sort of switch of, "hey, I actually want to either release or be more public or lean into this more? What were the emotional drivers for that?

I: I think a big factor was the resurgence of this sort of dark 2-step sound at the time. 

I think the label Time Is Now had just started, and people like Soul Mass Transit System, Interplanetary Criminal, Holloway, and Sully were making this really darker, more stripped back sort of 2-step sound. That was really inspiring for me. 

That's what made me start sending my stuff to those labels and ended up releasing with them. I think that scene has moved in a direction that's definitely diverged a bit. At the time, around that time period of 2019 to 2021, that was a big influencing factor that got me back into directly participating in this sort of dance music stuff. 

It felt like there was an interest in the sound that I had been interested in, but felt like wasn't really connecting with people. Because there was this resurgence, I felt able to connect with other people over it.

B: One of the real roots, very obviously of dubstep is the Paradise Garage, right? Being a gay club. That strand got lost as it got over into the UK, and the UK garage stuff was the London black community and Sunday Scene, but it wasn't explicitly a gay club or a gay sound. I love the idea that what you're doing is going back and finding a new audience, now.

I: Yes. I definitely think, also, I think the other important aspect of it has less to do with the queerness of it, which I think is important for sure. The Paradise Garage was a gay club, but also it was very much a black and brown gay club. 

The sorts of rhythms that were really popular in the music there were taken a lot from Afro-Latin musical heritage, like the tribal house stuff that was happening. I think there's also a connection there with this sort of diasporic blackness in terms of the rhythms, the rhythmic ideas that are being injected into that sort of music.

B: Yes, 100%. Though oddly, a lot of that house world, they can be very snobby towards quite bassy music, even if it's a little bit bassy. 

They're like, "if it's bassy, it's not sophisticated enough." I'm like, "so what you're telling me is this amazing black music is not sophisticated?" It never sits well with me. 

They're like, "oh, we're doing our house thing. It's all beautiful. And what you're doing over there is not." I'm like, "I don't know... I think it's pretty amazing."

I: Yes, I know. Totally. That's always how I felt. I've always felt like there was definitely a connection between the sort of dubstep that I was interested in and the sort of house and techno sort of stuff that I'm also interested in. 

I think that connection has a lot to do with what the Afrofuturists talk about.

 

B: Can you tell me what Afrofuturism means to you?

I: At a most basic level, it's the idea of imagining black futures through art.

Musically, I think this plays out in the way of, for me, taking these rhythms that really go back to traditional African music and using those rhythms in a new sonic context. Similar to what Drexciya and that sort of Detroit techno was doing with that. 

Just imagining a future where blackness and our life worlds have a presence, as opposed to a future where that doesn't exist. I think that's a big part of it, a big theme. 

In my music also, I think a lot about alternative timelines. 

A lot of it is about reimagining the past and also creating a different trajectory or future. That's a big part of my approach and the way that I interpret Afrofuturism into my music.

B: One of the things I think is tricky, as an artist who specializes in audio, is the practical ways that you tell these stories. 

I've noticed over the years that one of the things many ways electronic musicians have struggled, is I often think they have way more broad ideas than is immediately obvious from their music. 

Not that all art should be immediately obvious, but I know for a fact a lot of music stories go untold. I'll give you a practical example. 

Mala said to me a long, long time ago, maybe twenty ish years ago, that the track name "B" had a very specific meaning. From memory, it was inspired by a situation around him and he was guiding someone to: "just be." 

I think he was making a layered point about the fact that someone around him was not really being who they truly are. He was urging them to center on who they actually are. 

Now, to my knowledge, he's never been asked about it and so said this in public. There's a little fragment of something that's actually a pretty, pretty cool story or an artistic message that goes with it, that would widen how people think about that track. 

So this is a rambling way of saying, what are the practical ways that you can express Afrofuturism narratives in your work so that folks can understand it?

I: I think it's tough because I think of my music… there's an abstract quality to it in the sense that I don't think I approach Afrofuturism in a more semiotic or symbolic way, or a way that's more symbolically obvious. 

I think a big part of it has to do with what Kode9 talks about a little bit in his books of somatic rewiring by ways of these certain rhythms and the ways that these rhythms affect us on a physiological level. 

That's been a big thing I've been thinking about is: 'what do these rhythms do to us on a level that's not fully conscious?' I don't know, maybe that's just inconsequential to anything, but that's how I think about it is almost like a sub-political statement, as opposed to something that's more explicitly political.

B: Yes, totally. In very simple terms, I feel like a lot of very swung rhythms that have come out of the different strands of black music are so great for making people dance and hence together.

I: Yes, totally.

B: It's a spectacularly simple thing to be saying: when we're together and moving together, we're... together, rather than divided.

I: Also, I think that part of togetherness is important. 

Also, I think there's something about the polyrhythmic nature of it. The ways that we can all be dancing together, but oftentimes, we're dancing to different rhythms in the same song, which is interesting, too, because there's just this narrative about the nature of how we experience reality. 

It's like we experience it together, but we also experience it in these very unique ways. I think that's an important thought that I've been having with regards to my music and how I want people to experience it.

B: How are you looking at your album as a body of work?

I: With the album, the main idea behind it, the title is Moving the Centre, which is a reference to a collection of speeches and essays from the Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. 

His book, Moving the Centre: the Search for Cultural Freedoms, is a reference to that. 

It's all about this idea of presenting an alternate perspective, as opposed to that which is more dominant in dance music and in dubstep and bass music. 

Also, what I'm trying to do is present a narrative of this music that is rather than locating things in terms of a central origin point, trying to think about the more polycentric nature of where all these influences are pulling from, because obviously, dubstep… South London, that's the point of its genesis. 

There's a lot of focus on that. What I've also been thinking through while making the album is what are the specific demographics that were present in South London and in that context, and the different demographic shifts that have taken place in the UK and across different countries from the Caribbean and West Africa? Out of those, the movement of people across space, how did that influence the sound?

B: There is a paradox you are making me think of: as you're referencing early Croydon and South London, Croydon, Norwood etc and these places but actually, they were pulling in sounds from all over the planet.

I: Exactly.

B: Horsepower's debut album "In Fine Style", to me, is almost like an atlas.

I: Yes. That's exactly it. I think, yes, really trying to center that polycentric, global orientation of the music. 

For me, specifically, focusing on the influence of the African diaspora to the Caribbean and also with continental Africans. That's a huge touching point for what the album is all about, I think.

B: I think it's very timely. It's a different musical angle but with amapiano and afro house bubbling in London, it feels like there's a very powerful voice from Africa in the dialogue at the moment. 

And not to say there wasn't always African music being played, but in the London stuff being made, from my outsider viewpoint, felt like Jamaica and America maybe played the loudest voice, right?

I: Yes, for sure.

 

B: You could see those cultural debates going on. Actually, right now it feels like there's a super loud and creative African voice and filtering through. Then London's doing its thing of, "Oh, if you're doing that... now what do we do?"

How did you come across that body of work?

I: That book I was first introduced to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's work when I spent a semester at Howard University in Washington, DC, which is a historically black college. 

At the time, I was studying Africana Studies, and a lot of my professors used Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o to frame a lot of their work in terms of thinking about taking literature outside of a Western literature context and returning to a tradition of African storytelling and the epistemologies that are present in those cultures. 

This might be a little bit tangential, but the other idea that I think was working through in the creation of the album, and definitely, I don't think this was as conscious while I was creating the album, but I've come to realize that now… in those early sorts of years of dubstep, I feel like you can hear dubstep escaping from UK garage in a sense of, I think it was a reaction to just some of the class politics of the more 'champagne bottle service' kind of UK garage stuff.

B: It really was.

I: That's also a big part of my album is it's a big sonic shift from a lot of the stuff I was doing before and a lot of the scenes that I think I was more adjacent to with the UK garage stuff. 

I feel like the direction the UK garage scene has gone in the past two years is very different than what I'm trying to do with my music. I think you can hear that also in the album of escaping that prism or that UK garage framework.

B: While I love and will always love UK garage and I'm happy a new generation have embraced it, I'm a little skeptical about the current new garage stuff, culturally, and musically very skeptical. 

I watched the end of garage happen. I went to Twice as Nice a bit at the end. Culturally, it's not the same people. It doesn't look very black to me.

I: No, not at all.

B: It doesn't seem to be rooted in the black community, and garage is black music.

I: Exactly.

B: But yet when I bike around London there are still billboards for the OG garage brands - which seems to be an entirely different scene. 

With afrohouse/tribal/amapiano nights like HouSupa and Awoken and when Dusk or Emma Warren and I go, we wallflower, we are guests. It is a black scene, there's mad creativity going on but trust me they're not playing UK garage.

I: No, exactly. That's what I've come to feel about the garage scene right now. 

When I go to the UK and I play these garage parties, it's just all these white faces. A bunch of lads, lots of university student kind of… It's like university student music a little bit, and that's not at all what I'm trying to do. 

When I just look out at these crowds and I just don't see anyone who looks like me, or even when I do see people in the dance floor who look like me, I see a discomfort on their face sometimes. 

It's sad that, for a while, I felt like I was playing in these shows, or these venues, or these nights, where it was just if a black woman or a black trans woman like me were in the space as a dancer, she probably wouldn't feel safe or comfortable. 

That made me realize the need for a big shift in terms of what I'm aligning with in terms of the scene, in terms of other artists, and what kinds of audiences I'm trying to connect with.

B: I think you nailed what I find a little bit unexciting about the current new wave garage. And look: obviously I'm white, middle-class, and university-educated, so it's culturally me, but it doesn't excite me or bring me joy, as I can't see how the form is evolving or being contributed to, though I'm happy they're having fun.

I: Exactly. I've been holding my tongue on it, too, because I have a lot of friends in that scene. I don't want to seem like I'm poo-pooing what they're doing. There's just those aspects of it where I feel like it doesn't exactly align with my values or my goals as an artist. 

There's a parallel there with the direction my music is going and the direction the early dubstep scene was taking away from the garage stuff.

B: Yes, which I'd rather listen to garage than terrible rock or even just the brostep side of things. On the other hand, it doesn't seem to involve any of the black originators or current very many members of the black community who actually make garage. Nor much fundamental evolution of the musical form.

I: Exactly.

B: Do better.

I: Right.

B: Are there other themes in your album you want to pull out, areas you want to convey?

I: I think my album is also a narrative about time, about temporality. I think oftentimes we think about time and history as a linear progressive current. 

Whereas in my music and taking from a lot of West African cosmological ideas about time, I think there's this idea of time as a spiral and as open-ended. 

I think that's behind the impulses towards the ways that I use samples and things like that. 

I want my music to sound as though you can't exactly locate it in a certain time period necessarily. It doesn't really sound like much of the music that people are making right now. 

It vaguely sounds like the stuff that was being made around 2002-2004, but not exactly. It sounds a bit futurist, but also, it has that nostalgic element to it. 

I think there's definitely this nonlinear temporality that's present in the music as well, which is definitely a reference to indigenous African and also indigenous North American ideas of time and the rhythm of the universe, kind of…I don't know how to fully talk about that without sounding too abstract.

B: Something you're making me think about, I don't know if it's in your work, but as stuff gets really swung, if you think of a bar, the stuff I love sometimes is like the little hits at the end of the bar can loop to the beginning. 

Then the last note of one bar can actually be rhythmically part of the next one. As that stuff gets really swung but you're not really saying it's super stiff if everything lines up, it's more like the little hits here bounce you there into a spiral. 

Then that's also why it works really well with body movement because you're properly moving in the way that our bodies aren't perfectly symmetrical and the ups and downs aren't perfectly distanced.

I: That's a really good point. Definitely, it's very present in those rhythms. It's not quantized perfectly. It's very nonlinear.

B: You need the imperfections a little bit of, the timing is slightly off. It's some swung this way or swung that way or pitched up or pitched down.

Okay, great. I really enjoyed this. Thank you. There's lots of music that I feel as if we've lived through together, particularly musically. There's loads of stuff that you're thinking about that's totally new to me. I'm just like, "it's absolutely amazing hearing about it."

I: Thank you so much for making the time. I've always appreciated your words. I remember being in high school, reading your blog. I feel like it's really fitting that you're writing the biography for the album.

B: I loved this conversation. And, yes, I really want to help. 

Apart from all the other reasons, just the fact that you love this early "roots of…" sound that, frankly, is what I originally fell in love with and are doing so much to bring it to new audiences is just like, "yes! go for it! Just kill it, please." If I can help in any small way, that's great.

I: Perfect. Sounds good.

B: Cool. Have a good Sunday.

I: All right, you too.

• Enjoyed this read? Listen "Moving the Center" 
• Listen to Introspekt b2b Dusk + Blackdown b2b Kellen303 on the Lot Radio May '25  
• More of Blackdown's recent writing? Check Kevin Saunderson and Sully interviews over at RA.
• Hear more? 20 years of Keysound this year: check the label's Bandcamp for releases.