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.
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.
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
- Nicolette by Octave One Spliffed by Dan Curtin
- City Slicker by Aril Brikha
- Aqua Worm Hole by Drexcia
- Fragments of Yesteryear by Stephen Lopkin
- Quetzal by Los Hermanos
- A Time And A Location by Justin Zerbst
- Stardancer by The Martian
- Java by Purpose Maker
- Velocity Funk by E-Dancer
- And pretty much everything on the Deepest Shade comp.
- Underground Resistance "World 2 World: Amazon" [Underground Resistance]
- Underground Resistance "CodeBreaker" [Underground Resistance]
- Underground Resistance "The Theory (Melanic mix)" [Reflective]
- The Martian "Tobacco Ties" [Red Planet]
- Model 500: "Night Drive [Time, Space, Transmat]" [Metroplex]
- 69 (Carl Craig) "Desire" [R&S]
- Carl Craig: "At Les" [Planet E]
- Robert Hood "Detroit (One Circle)" [Metroplex]
- Reese "Just Want Another Chance" [KMS]
- 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...
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.
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.
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:
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.
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".
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...
- As a producer with a blank canvas you have to make choices from infinite options
- Producers before you have already made those choices: these express themselves as styles, genres etc.
- 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.
- As we progress, producers build habits around clusters of given musical choices: some of those work best for you and/or an audience
- 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".
- 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
