The drum & bass veteran talks about bass music eras, dance culture in America and his new album, Contact.
British artist Nicolaas Douwma, AKA Sub Focus, has been steadily putting out big-room drum & bass since the early 2000s. In more recent years, he's become staggeringly popular, releasing a string of Top 40 UK pop hits that have made him synonymous with a more mainstream sound. His influence looms large across a whole generation of young producers, particularly in the US.
In this Exchange, Douwma sits down with Resident Advisor editor Gabe Szatan at the beautiful Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado. They speak about how he hit number one in the US dance music charts last year, as well as how drum & bass moved from being popular with a "secret clique of people" to becoming what, for lack of a better term, could be called "brostep."
There's a new Sub Focus album dropping on November 21st called Contact, which includes collaborations with Grimes and Katy B. Grab your copy when it comes out. Watch this interview in full on our YouTube channel, or listen to the audio via SoundCloud, Spotify or Apple Music. -Chloe Lula
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The drum & bass veteran talks about bass music eras, dance culture in America and his new album, Contact.
British artist Nicolaas Douwma, AKA Sub Focus, has been steadily putting out big-room drum & bass since the early 2000s. In more recent years, he's become staggeringly popular, releasing a string of Top 40 UK pop hits that have made him synonymous with a more mainstream sound. His influence looms large across a whole generation of young producers, particularly in the US.
In this Exchange, Douwma sits down with Resident Advisor editor Gabe Szatan at the beautiful Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado. They speak about how he hit number one in the US dance music charts last year, as well as how drum & bass moved from being popular with a "secret clique of people" to becoming what, for lack of a better term, could be called "brostep."
There's a new Sub Focus album dropping on November 21st called Contact, which includes collaborations with Grimes and Katy B. Grab your copy when it comes out. Watch this interview in full on our YouTube channel, or listen to the audio via SoundCloud, Spotify or Apple Music. -Chloe Lula
Three hours of incendiary techno, as two veterans go head-to-head.
When Speedy J described his studio dynamic with Chris Liebing back in 2014, he put it bluntly: "I try to piss him off a little." The result? Dance music that's as functional and precise as Liebing demands, with just enough chaos to keep it interesting. That tension has defined the duo's partnership, Collabs 3000, since their first releases, and it's alive and well on their debut RA Mix.
Both artists are techno heavyweights in their own right. Jochem Paap, AKA Speedy J, helped Europe slow down after the breakneck '90s, proving that techno could chug as well as pummel. Liebing, meanwhile, commanded his popular label CLR and went from transforming schranz into the hard techno sound that recently swept up a younger generation of ravers.
As a pair, Collabs 3000 undeniably has its ear trained on the big room. Paap and Liebing are both former Berghain regulars, and the Berlin club's influence is clear across RA.1006: taut, muscular techno, or "effective and structured" in Liebing's words, with Paap injecting the right amount of unpredictability. Their 2005 full-length, Metalism, remains a landmark: polished, uncompromising and dynamite for any large sound system.
With the album now remastered for its 20th anniversary, Collabs 3000's RA Mix brings that same ferocious energy into sharp focus: smouldering textures, peak-time pressure and three unrelenting hours of classic techno.
@chris-liebing
@jochempaap
Read the interview at ra.co/podcast/1025
RA Podcast
The drum & bass veteran talks about bass music eras, dance culture in America and his new album, Contact.
British artist Nicolaas Douwma, AKA Sub Focus, has been steadily putting out big-room drum & bass since the early 2000s. In more recent years, he's become staggeringly popular, releasing a string of Top 40 UK pop hits that have made him synonymous with a more mainstream sound. His influence looms large across a whole generation of young producers, particularly in the US.
In this Exchange, Douwma sits down with Resident Advisor editor Gabe Szatan at the beautiful Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado. They speak about how he hit number one in the US dance music charts last year, as well as how drum & bass moved from being popular with a "secret clique of people" to becoming what, for lack of a better term, could be called "brostep."
There's a new Sub Focus album dropping on November 21st called Contact, which includes collaborations with Grimes and Katy B. Grab your copy when it comes out. Watch this interview in full on our YouTube channel, or listen to the audio via SoundCloud, Spotify or Apple Music. -Chloe Lula
