Past, Present and Future With Halogenix

2012 seemed to be the year things really started taking off for the North London-based Halogenix. As a string of high-profile releases made their way through on imprints like Dispatch, Horizons and Critical Music, all eyes and ears began taking a closer look at the man who was being touted as the next big thing in the drum & bass world.

“The sound, the atmosphere, the spectacle of it—it made me feel alive.”

Having earned his stripes both as a solo artist and in collaborative mode with fellow beat-scientists like Hydro and Sabre & Stray, the 26-year-old producer has made good on the promise shown in his early years and has been charting his way to the top ever since. While his work with Sabre & Stray—under their newly minted Ivy Lab moniker—seemed in danger of overshadowing his solo work, Halogenix quickly put that notion to rest with his jaw-dropping All Blue EP on Metalheadz earlier this year.

Featuring some of his best work to date, the All Blue EP seemed to flow from the same creative space that made Ivy Lab’s Twenty Questions EP such a huge hit only months before. Effortlessly able to blend the melodic side of drum & bass with the genre-bending, half-tempo, leftfield and hip-hop-inspired vibes that Halogenix seems to blend so well, we though it wise to touch down for a glimpse into the past, present and future of the man responsible for helping reinvigorate the genre in the past year.

I know your dad was a musician, so I imagine that’s had a huge influence on your early development as an artist.
Yeah, I was surrounded by music growing up. My dad was a core part of the [London Symphony Orchestra], and I’d often bump off school to go and see him rehearse at various London venues. I remember I’d often have the entire auditorium of the Royal Albert Hall to myself, which was incredible, looking back. Those were definitely pivotal moments that fed in to my desire to be a musician. The sound, the atmosphere, the spectacle of it—it made me feel alive.

“I’ve had experiences in the past where that competition created a rift in the relationship and led ultimately to its demise; but with the boys, it’s somehow managed to end up being great for everyone.”

What kind of music were you listening to growing up?
It was all the usual stuff, really, as I never had much of a desire to stray off the beaten track. I listened to the radio, went to Woolworths, and bought the NOW [compilation series] CD—although it was the PURE collections that really did it for me. I remember absolutely battering PURE Drum & Bass, PURE Garage and PURE Techno when I was about 10 years old. I took my PURE Garage CD to my primary school year-six dance, and it boosted me up the social ranks, which I was pretty pleased about (laughs).

When you were young, was music part of your larger vision for the future? Did you see yourself becoming a musician, or was it dreams of being a banker or a stunt double that captured your attention?
Thankfully, not the latter! I’ve always been very set in my mind that I wanted to pursue music; in my mind, I was always going to be a rock star or a DJ. I was actually in a band with my mate, but we were shit; so as soon as I was old enough, I got a laptop, and we started making beats instead.

When does drum & bass enter the picture?
It was the turn of the millennium that started my forays into D&B. “Bacteria” by Ed Rush & Optical was actually the first tune I ever heard, as it was the first track on the aforementioned Pure DNB CD I had. It was that—and an old Underfire mix CD I bought, called Dangerous Drums—that really got me hooked. Those early tech step cats really knew how to make catchy tunes.

How did that love of drum & bass transform into production, and most importantly, how long did it take until you felt like you had the technical ability to transform what you were hearing in your head into the speakers?
A long fucking time. I must have started making beats when I was about 15, and I can honestly say that it hasn’t been until the last two–three years where I’ve been happy with my output.

Now, it’s not just drum & bass that you’re drawing from—but also ambient and techno, as well. This walking the line between dancefloor and experimental or leftfield has become something of your signature sound in a way, hasn’t it?
I think as an artist, it’s important—if your objective is to progress the genre—to look away for inspiration. Ambient music especially holds a key part to where I draw inspiration from, as I think it shares a lot of the same ethos with orchestral music: long, drawn-out phrases which have crazy, intense dynamics and are filled with emotive melodies. They really get my creative juices flowing.

In many ways, it seems like we’ve entered a new era where the output of guys like you, Sabre, Stray, Fracture, Om Unit, etc. are difficult to define using old genre logic and terminology. Is that something you feel as well?
“Halftime,” which I think you’re referring to, definitely isn’t something new. It’s a rehash of something that’s been happening for years, a cross-pollination of different styles which has seemingly reemerged as “something new” after years of being the backbone of the US beats/hip-hop culture. Us Brits have added our trademark big basslines to it, which seems to have propelled it into new territories and exposed it to new audiences.

Even so, your All Blue EP for Metalheadz feels your least “experimental” but still manages to keep true to your voice, vision and roots. Talk a bit about how this EP came together and if you had a sense of it being a bit different than your usual work going in.
Well, I’ve gotta give props to Lenzman for making this happen, really. I made “Shores” back in 2013 and sent it to Lenz, and he sent it to Goldie, who then got in touch saying he wanted to put it out. The rest of the tunes came off the back of that, really.

I’ll never forget sending Goldie the first iteration of what became “All Blue.” He phoned me in the afternoon, and all I could hear was the tune in the background and him screaming some lyrics over the top of it. I’d only ever spoken to him a handful of times, so imagine my surprise! He then said something about getting Cleveland involved and then hung up. Next thing I know, he said he was in the studio with Cleveland, and they sent me over the vocal stems. But yeah, it’s definitely not my most experimental project to date; I just wanted to make a straight up D&B record, you know?

“Beyond the Bounds” in particular seems to be destined to cross into the stratosphere, as the tension between the elements seems to build so organically and yet with a level of patience that has been sorely missed from the usual crop of chart-topping drum & bass hits.
Yeah, it kind of bores me nowadays that everyone’s attention span is so short—audience and producers alike. People want to switch to the next tune after a minute, and producers put all of the best stuff in the first 32 bars of the tune, leaving nothing for you to really be excited about (myself included, admittedly). With “Beyond the Bounds,” I wanted to create anticipation like you get in techno music. You could be listening to a Trevino track, and still after three minutes, he’ll smack you in the face with some dope new element. Not enough people take advantage of people’s curiosity, in my opinion.

We can’t let you go without giving a shout to your regular collaborators: Sabre, Stray and Hydro. As things are taking off for you as a solo artist, collaborator and as part of Ivy Lab, how are you managing your time between projects and identities? Is there any fear of one swallowing or eclipsing the other?
It’s definitely a juggling act, but one that I think creates somewhat of a thriving environment for us all. We’re constantly pushing each other to better our sound, clashing each other to make the better beat, which is great. I’ve had experiences in the past where that competition created a rift in the relationship and led ultimately to its demise; but with the boys, it’s somehow managed to end up being great for everyone. I’d be lying if I said what I’ve learnt in the studio watching the guys on the buttons hasn’t come back with me to my own setup and been applied to tracks I’m working on as Halogenix. The same goes in reverse: I’ve started things earmarked for Halogenix projects that’ve ended up as Ivy Lab tunes. It’s great being able to have that freedom.

“Mistakes and victories I’ve made along the way have ultimately led me to where I am now.”

I imagine a huge part of your ongoing success has to do with your work habits. Give us a sense of what kind of hours you’re putting in, how long an average studio session lasts, or even what an average day or week looks like, schedule-wise, when you’re deep in project mode.
It really depends on what’s being worked on at the time. When this Metalheadz EP was in the midst, it was the same time as we were finishing up our Twenty Questions EP, so it was a real 80-hour-week vibe back then. Generally speaking, we aim to get around 30 working hours a week in the studio as Ivy Lab. It’s not too dissimilar to your average working day, although we start a little later, ‘cause who wants to wake up at 7am? We’re all north of the river, too, so linking up is easy. Plus, if one of us is on the buttons on a tune, the other can be getting back to emails or organizing some 20/20 business, etc. We’ve got all the bases covered!

If you could go back in time and meet with your pre-“breakthrough” self, what sort of advice would you give? Any words of wisdom or lessons learned the hard way that would have helped you speed things along a bit, or at least made you less anxious about the path you were on?
It’d probably be something simple, like “Trust yourself.” I think that’s probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned in the past few years, and to be honest, it’s probably one of those “easier said than done” kind of things, which you have to learn yourself. Mistakes and victories I’ve made along the way have ultimately led me to where I am now, so “Trust yourself” would also be coupled with “Hang in there; you’ll get there eventually.” I remember being so impatient back in the day, as I was obsessed with releasing a tune on vinyl before I was 18 and was immensely upset when I didn’t. Anyway, the stuff I was making back then was whack (laughs).

If your future self—from, say, 10 years from now—were to stop in tonight, what sort of advice do you imagine he’d have to say about where you are now and where you’re headed?
Get a real job…

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