DJ Mag's artists to watch in 2020

FOR FANS OF: MALA, KODE9, L U C Y

After meeting at the back of a lecture hall at university, surrounded by classmates whose music taste leant towards mainstream chart and indie music, Ndeko and Imbratura found common ground in a love for low-end. The duo, who DJ together as Sicaria Sound, first realised how closely their tastes aligned one night at pre-drinks. “I don’t know how you’ll feel about this one actually,” Ndeko said, over the murky opening bars of Coki’s ‘Goblin’. It’s a banging 2009 cut which, in Imbratura’s words, is “an acquired taste”, and proved a landmark moment for the pair. “From that moment,” Imbratura says, “we knew we were in it for the long haul.”

2019 has been a wild ride for Sicaria Sound. Despite only having been DJing together for a few years, this year saw them invited to play festival shows at Boomtown, Boiler Room Festival, Outlook and Glastonbury (their Sunday night set in Silver Hayes alongside L U C Y, Sherelle and Jossy Mitsu went down an absolute storm), as well as DJing in clubs across Europe. “We’ve been travelling to lots of new places to play the music we love,” the pair say. “Without sprawling into an Oscar speech, we’re extremely humbled by the support that has come our way this year, it’s felt like we’re living in a dream world.”

And on the subject of living out your wildest dreams, in late December, Sicaria Sound will set off on their first US tour. It’s a feat that, for both of them, seems “beyond mad”.

Ndeko and Imbratura describe their sound as “spicy, low-end heavy sounds that emulate the energy we share as sisters”. Sisters by nature if not by blood, it turns out best friends DJing together makes for a wicked synergy. Though they fell in love with dubstep independently, at uni the pair learned that they’d dived into the classic dubstep discography via the same route: through rock, metal and drum & bass. From humble beginnings cutting their teeth at home, messing around on a pair of old Technics 1210s and a Numark mixer, the duo soon progressed to hours and hours honing their craft on the industry standard set-up at the radio station they both worked for at the time.

Sicaria Sound are based in London, but their heritage (Moroccan and South Sudanese) plays a key role in how they shape their sets. Whether DJing out, delivering mixes for the likes of NTS, Radio 1Xtra, Hyponik, Fabric, or presenting on their own Rinse FM show, the Arab and African musical influence of their childhood comes into play as they consider soundscaping and their track selections. “We’ve also been playing around with the theme of heritage on some productions we’ve been working on lately,” the duo say. “We want to respect our heritage wherever possible in what we do.”

As Sicaria Sound look forward to a 2020 that promises to be even busier than 2019, we wonder what advice the duo will take with them into the new year. “Take breaks!” they both say without hesitation, “we’re guilty workaholics.” Time is of the utmost importance for Ndeko and Imbratura; that means taking time off and not rushing into things. “Patience is key,” they say, emphasising the importance of choosing the opportunities that feel right for them. “We’ve found that by waiting, we often end up winning.” KATIE THOMAS

FOR FANS OF: SLOWTHAI, MEZ, DEVLIN

THREE TUNES: 'REDDIT', 'EFFED', 'MIGHTY MOE'

FOR FANS OF: GALCHER LUSTWERK, BALTRA, YAEJI

THREE TUNES: 'CLOSE EYES', 'CALL ME', 'I DONT CARE'

박혜진 Park Hye Jin is fated to be compared to Yaeji, another Seoul-born artist pairing silky, half-spoken vocals with hip-hop-flavoured house. Along with Peggy Gou, a well-established Korean export, they’ve all been filed under the non-genre of “K-house”. Peel back another layer and you can locate their shared influence in the dreamy, dazy wanderings of New York’s Galcher Lustwerk. But 박혜진 Park Hye Jin’s music contains something altogether darker: her take on bleary bedroom house contains a grittiness, some unavoidable melancholy, that feels far stranger and spookier.

Park laid out her interests on 2018’s ‘IF U WANT IT’ EP, duetting with herself in Korean and English over lo-fi drums and blurry chords, sometimes in pounding house formations, sometimes as stoned-out boom-bap. She’s employed coy, breathy vocals (“A, I love you / B, I want you / C, I miss you,” from ‘ABC’), but is vague about the meaning behind her lyrics. On ‘I Don’t Care’, the half-sung title feels like a rejection of any attempt to decode her intentions. The lyrics “are just my story,” she deflects, responding via email. “My life, my love, everything I think and feel.” 

Park seems drawn to darker moods in general: the heavy throb of ‘Close Eyes’ is the EP’s standout, recalling Lustwerk’s labelmate DJ Richard in its windswept grandeur. On ‘Call Me’, she leans into the melancholy effect of trap, a genre that dominates Korean pop culture. Park’s own tastes were shaped through listening to homegrown underground hip-hop, as well as US imports. “And since I was a kid, I’ve listened and danced to Beyoncé and Rihanna,” she adds. But it’s that creeping sense of loneliness and alienation that defines Park’s music, placing it in a great lineage of misery-stompers by the likes of Traumprinz, Francis Harris or Burial. Loneliness is an all-too-common affliction, she believes. “There are more lonely people in the world than we know. Humans have a variety of emotions, and we’re living in a society where it’s even harder to trust each other.” 

Park moved to London in 2019, seeking out new opportunities and — confusingly — better weather. “I love the many days of rainy weather, it makes the clear days feel more precious,” she says. “I love the people in London, they look cold but they have warmth inside.”
Not that it’s been an easy transition. “I hate the loneliness and emptiness of being new in a big city.”
She had previously honed her craft as a resident DJ at Seoul’s Pistil Dance Club, a basement haven for deep house, darkwave and disco. In 2018, she dropped her first self-titled mixtape, framing her vocals over an eclectic tracklist (from Axel Boman to Azealia Banks), and revealing her natural affiliation with rap. Next came ‘IF U WANT IT’, released on Melbourne’s clipp.art during her brief stint in the city, which proved to be an irresistible calling card as the bookings rolled in.

The past 12 months have been a change of pace for Park, with highlights including her debut at Panorama Bar (where one fan praised her for not “sticking to the script”) and her Boiler Room performance. This summer she also teamed up with NYC producer Michael Baltra for a dreamy breaks track on his album ‘Ted’. As she evolves as a DJ and producer, that “K-house” description is looking increasingly useless. Unsurprisingly, though, she doesn’t care about the tag. “If I keep doing my music, their perception will change,” she says. In 2020, “I’m going to fly higher and farther.” CHAL RAVENS

FOR FANS OF: DEAD MAN’S CHEST, PHOTEK, BURIAL

THREE TUNES: ‘A CLUSTER OF ANGRY REPEATING THOUGHTS’, ‘JESUS H FUCKING H CHRIST’, ‘PRAXIDIKE THE PUNISHER’

“Since I got my new laptop three years ago, I’ve made like 2,000-and-something songs,” Thugwidow tells DJ Mag, on the phone from North Wales. It’s a staggering amount of music, especially for someone who still works a day job, but what’s even more mind-boggling is how much he’s actually released. At our count, he’s at 12 albums since 2017 (including two collaborative albums), along with a bunch of singles and EPs. “It’s been 17 years since I started making music, when I was at college,” he continues. “I used to make a tune a day back then, and [my work ethic] probably hasn’t changed massively since. I dread to think how much music I’ve actually made. I’ve got whole harddrives that I’ve just filled with stuff... there’s a big pile of them that my wife tells me to get rid of periodically,” he adds with a laugh.

Thugwidow’s impressive output begins to make more sense when you find out about his process. “The songs are only separated because I render them out in chunks – they never really stop or start. If you played them all by date, by time, they would sound flowy, each similar to the one previous,” he explains. He recalls a recent incident where he made an album in a week. Afterwards, he realised that two of the tracks were finished just eight minutes apart.

“I use quite a minimal setup; I don’t have tonnes of hardware, got quite a lot of software, and then I use this gaming PC to make everything as fast as possible. It’s a very ‘from my brain to my hands’ kind of thing. I need there to not be too many things in the way when I’m making tracks.” The result is a sound that’s part jungle, part ambient: intricate and militant, yet delicate and cerebral. Thugwidow’s drums skitter in and out, heaped in delay and reverb, all pitch-bent, time-stretched and mangled by various methods. 

His pads and atmospheric elements are grainy and enveloping; as cinematic as they come (Alex is a film fanatic and sometimes produces scores), conjuring up images of cavernous halls and devastated wastes, where each percussive clank, snap and thud feels vital. They have epic and emotive titles, like ‘Kore (The Ship Collides With Jupiter)’, ‘A Cluster of Angry Repeating Thoughts’ and ‘What Ever Happened to the Pouring Soul Liger’; often movie or book references, or reflections of his state of mind at the time, they imply mysterious and cosmic moods.

It hasn’t always been like this, though. In 2010, he wasn’t in the best place. “I used to DJ all around Bristol, playing terrible house music in terrible clubs, and I got really disheartened with it because I didn’t really get on with anyone in the places. When I was younger, all I’d done was go to drum & bass clubs and metal gigs.”

He’d produce garage tracks influenced by ambient and drone-centric film scores, which didn’t go down well on the club circuit, with people often telling him to play something “a bit more exciting” — “I’d be like, ‘Oh, I thought this was pretty exciting.” He switched back to jungle a few years later, learning more about sampling (he’d previously tried to synthesise all his own sounds) and building what has since become his signature sound. 

Alex saw that artists like Special Request and Bristol-based Dead Man’s Chest were on a similar tip, which he found encouraging. The latter in particular has since become a crucial figure in the Thugwidow story. The pair collaborated on a track for renowned jungle party Rupture’s in-house label, and DMC released Thugwidow’s stunning ‘Hard Rave Aesthetic’ EP on his Western Lore label in 2019, which Alex says have been a “launchpad”, drumming up interest from more labels.

Thugwidow hopes to return to Western Lore later this year, and has confirmed releases on Warehouse Raves and Two Hungry Ghosts. But he also anticipates a slowing down of his output. “I’m going to take a different tact with it [in 2020] and try and make stuff I’m super happy with, take time over it, but then people always seem to prefer the stuff I make in, like, half an hour, than the stuff I spent all day doing,” he says. “It’s just weird, ambient, long songs that have these rattly drums in them, and everyone just seems to love it,” he laughs. “You never know where things are going to go.” BEN HINDLE

FOR FANS OF: ENZO SIRAGUSA, CHRIS STUSSY, EAST END DUBS

KEY TUNES: ‘DUB INVENTIONS: A1’, ‘RYDM’, ‘DEVIATE’

It’s been a whirlwind year for Rossi., the London producer and DJ who has taken the city’s new, fast-growing minimal tech house scene by storm. With residencies at RINSE FM and fabric’s F0RMS party series, his groove-laden productions have turned the heads of Apollonia, Jamie Jones, Rossko and wAFF. His 2018 debut EP ‘Dub Inventions’, released on Lowerhand Records, charted at #1 in less than 24 hours on the Beatport Minimal Releases Chart, and he cites artists like Matpri, Alexis Cabrera, Traumer and Chris Stussy as his inspirations.

“My life has changed dramatically in such a fun way,” Rossi. says, reflecting on the past year. “I’ve just had so many wicked moments on what has been an amazing first year as, what I would say, an ‘actual artist’, or feeling like I’m finally a DJ.” 

In 2019, the upstart played his first international gigs - one of which led to an impromptu B2B with Fuse favourite, Rich NXT. “[Rich NXT] has always been a massive inspiration for me, right from when I first started producing on my banged up MacBook. Now that I know Rich personally, it’s so special for me to look back at that moment and still pinch myself about it all.” He also played gigs in São Paulo and Parma, as well as his hometown, at London’s Studio 338 and 93 Feet East. 

Moving into a new decade, Rossi. has his sights set further afield, planning to take on the worldwide scene. “I’m doing my first global tour, visiting Australia, South East Asia and South America,” he says. “It's always been a dream of mine, but in the next 18 months I’d love to play at DC-10. More hard work can make that happen.” 

He’s also working on his own label concept, which he says will come to fruition in 2020, alongside releases on some of his “dream labels – but I have to keep those close to my chest for now.” With his dedication, drive and confidence, the only way is up for Rossi.. AMY FIELDING

FOR FANS OF: VTSS, SCHACKE

Hyperaktivist has played an important role in shaping the clubbing landscape on the northern coast of South America. It began with illegal parties in her native Venezuela – throwing raves in abandoned buildings in the city she grew up in – and culminated in co-running a club called Solo for four years with friends. They went from a DIY party to established club, inviting artists from Colombia, Brazil and eventually Europe to play alongside local acts. 

Between 2007 and 2008, when the Venezuelan government brought in laws to control the currency exchange rates, Hyperaktivist and her crew were part of a thriving local scene. But the political situation soon jeopardised the future of the club, and so she made the decision to move on. “I studied journalism and I saw that I didn’t have a future as a journalist in Venezuela, or as a musician or DJ, so I knew I had to go.” At 23 years old, she applied for a Masters degree course in a city that she felt drawn to – Berlin. 

“When I saw Berlin, and I saw the reality of the club scene, culture and industry here – I don’t think I ever believed something like this could exist,” she explains, “where music and club culture was beyond a hobby, it was a lifestyle, something that people had decided to dedicate their lives to.” Developing her own party played an important part of her grounding in Berlin. After a few trials as a DJ at various venues, her own party MESS – Mindful Electronic Sound Selections – has become one of the few residents parties at OHM. 

“One of the biggest inspirations [for] MESS was realising that Berlin is such a masculine city in so many ways, the music industry included. I felt that I have met some of the most amazing and strong women in Berlin” she says. “When I decided to do MESS, it was kind of freaky because there’s been a lot of talk about how we need more female, queer and trans representation. At one point, I felt like this topic had become a bit of a promotional weapon: it wasn’t being done for the right reasons and had lost its honesty and origins. When I started MESS, I decided I won’t talk about this I won’t promote the party as a women or femme only party. I prefer to organise the night and let people see for themselves.”

MESS is now in its second year at OHM, and Hyperaktivist is excited for what 2020 might bring. The party also has a residency in Munich, and hosts nights Bogota, New York and Boston. In mid 2018, she started another event in Berlin, Mala Junta, alongside DJ Tool of Copenhagen techno collective Fastforward; focused on faster tempos, funky ’90s-influenced techno and trance, the party was quickly embraced by the local community. 

“The main objective of the party is the music. It’s very unpretentious. We really wanted to give this space to the community, celebrate diversity and get together again for the music. We try to take you to... a time and place where people come together, face the same social challenges, and dance as an act of rebellion.” 

Hyperaktivist’s DJ sets follow a similar philosophy: rooted in fast-paced BPMs, unearthing old techno records that evoke Latin percussion, digging into forgotten labels from the ’90s and early ’00s. As her parties have grown, so have her international bookings. She regularly plays parties of a similar ethos, like Cxema in Kiev. “Every time I go to Kiev I love it. You can feel that what’s happening there is really raw and honest. It’s crews like Fastforward in Copenhagen, Cxema in Kiev and Mina in Portugal that I love to work with. I always try to bring them to Berlin.” 

2020 will see Hyperaktivist continue to tour internationally: taking Mala Juna to the US and Canada, and MESS to South America. ANNA WALL

FOR FANS OF: SNOWY, JAMMER, D DOUBLE E

THREE TRACKS: 'LOOK NOW', 'CANT HAVE THAT', 'COME OUT MY WAY'

Despite not having blown out enough candles yet, you’d be forgiven for mistaking Tommy B for a grime scene veteran. His skills and sound bely his tender age. “I think that comes from the way I came through,” explains Tommy, with a serious tone. “By the time I got to spitting on Radar Radio I’d already spent two years on the radio circuit building myself up, so when the opportunity presented itself for me to get my name out there to a wider audience, I could grab it with both hands.”

During grime’s formative years, Tommy B’s route to respect within the scene was a common one. But as the genre evolves from the sound of contemporary UK street culture to a bona fide mainstream entity, it’s a path that not too many of his generation of MCs have been as keen to walk down. The hyper-competitive nature of the past might seem a daunting prospect now. Yet Tommy isn’t just unfazed by the challenge. He’s genuinely excited by it.

“I think the first wave of MCs who came through all had a point to prove,” he roars, “and I have that same hunger to prove myself. When I show up to a radio set, I’m super competitive. I’m there to be the best MC on that set. I don’t give a fuck who else is also there. I want to always perform at the highest level and rep myself the best I can. That’s my mindset.”

With such an attitude, it should come as little surprise that he was one of the first to put themselves forward for the latest edition of Jammer’s Lord of the Mics, going up against his opponent in one of 2019’s most memorable clashes. It was his collaboration with personal hero Devlin that arguably defined his year, though: ‘Come Out My Way’ announced his rise up the grime league table, with an accomplished performance that saw him go verse-for-verse with the legendary Dagenham spitter and more than hold his own.

“I just feel so blessed to have been given the chance to work with an artist like Devlin,” he says with a smile. “I went to see him live on his Bud, Sweat and Beers tour as a kid and, having such great memories of seeing him perform and listening to his music growing up, it’s surreal to me that I now have a tune with him.”

With Tommy B’s answers coming at the same breakneck speed and forceful delivery that characterise his bars, talk turns to his future plans. “For 2020 I’m focussed on creating bodies of work,” he asserts. “I want to release work that really represents me - both my struggles and my successes. I want to open up a bit more and showcase my storytelling ability. It’s easy to make bangers without worrying about substance but I want to give people more of an insight into who I am as a human as at the end of the day that is what my career as an artist will be judged upon.”

He says that he’s sitting on an EP at the moment, made in collaboration with a big producer, but he can’t quite drop that bomb yet. “Know this, though,” he says, “I’m not afraid to break out of boxes and say ‘Fuck it, I’m doing things differently,’ so my versatility will be on full display this year. There are no rules I feel I need to stick by.” Sounds good to us! REISS DE BRUIN