The Mix 032: Introspekt

There’s a certain strut in Introspekt’s music. It’s a strut that moves quicker than your average UK garage tune, finding one more extra way to jerk your body. You’ll be swayed by its excess kicks swiped from Baltimore club, a 2-step hi-hat counterweight and sinful low-end that doesn’t hide a long-standing love for dubstep. There’s a busy friction that threatens to pull it out of flow state, but, as though she’s casting a spell, Introspekt gives a reserved dancefloor no choice but to revoke their hesitations. It erodes the boundaries and timelines of garage and dubstep with an unfuckwithable poise that could only come from the US producer and DJ.

The FWD>> era of dubstep and dark garage has long been thought of as a desolate, reclusive reaction to the death of UK garage’s Moët and Moschino-dripping heyday, but the 26-year-old finds deep movement and sensuality in its misanthropic tone and hollowed-out atmospheres. Burial’s early interviews talked about garage in sexy terms - the mystery of its artists and androgynous vocals - but Introspekt’s approach is much less inscrutable. Tracks like Soul Mass Transit System-collaboration 'Sexy Thing' seduce with lustful vocal samples akin to a mermaid on a rock, or go full ghetto house vulgarity on tunes like 'Lick It'. Her deft hand provides the soundtrack for lipsing and pelvic movement that resembles the yin-yang symbol.

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Introspekt discovered dance music through Skrillex before quickly diving deeper into dubstep with tracks like El-B’s 'Ghostrider', sitting 5,000 miles away from its South London origins. “I always felt like a weirdo for my musical taste, so I always associated that with weirdness,” she explains over Zoom. “In the UK, it’s part of the national culture. For me, no-one was listening to it. I was an outcast and that was my relationship to it.” She got a PlayStation 1 for $10 with a copy of Music 2000 after seeing an interview with Benga using the sequencing program and at 15, got a pair of “absolutely shit” Music Hall turntables to practise on. These low-tech beginnings pushed her to push through the limitations, meaning when she switched to Logic six years ago, she would perfect her garage swing - her strut.

She’s one of new school garage’s most recognisable names and faces, sought for her sorcery by Dekmantel, fabric Orginals, Time Is Now, ec2a, Locked On and T4T LUV NRG. The undeniability and outward queerness of her productions means her dancefloors attract a mix of lesbians, dolls and trades alongside the usual blokes skanking out. “I make music for a specific queer and trans audience, but it’s not restricted to that,” she clarifies. “I’m very intentional about making music that can bring different types of people together, a lot of groups who wouldn’t necessarily find themselves in the same place. I take a lot of pleasure in creating those sorts of atmospheres.”

Once an outsider scouring the archives of Dubstepforum, reading Blackdown’s blog to absorb the scene’s lore and hitting up producers to cut up her own dubplates, Introspekt has now earned a prominent spot in the relaunch night of FWD at FOLD. She’ll be alongside heroes like Joker, Plastician and Horsepower Productions, something that would have been nigh-on inconceivable in the cisgender boys club of the original night. Speaking to her in the lead-up, she was consistently revelatory, discussing her beginnings in LA, her time in the Shuffle 'n' Swing community and her beloved dubstep with the same level of thought as the output that got her here.

What was it like growing up in Leimert Park, Los Angeles?

Growing up, Leimert was community in a way that is really profound. It’s seen as the Black cultural epicentre of LA. There’s a big Pan-Africanist cultural and political sensibility that’s very strong in that park that’s shaped me very strongly. It’s changed a little bit since being gentrified, but there’s still a strong community presence.

You are a huge Rage Against the Machine fan, which I think is almost mandatory for someone from LA. Do you think their political approach to art shaped yours?

Rage Against the Machine definitely influenced my approach to music, because of the political content and the messaging has always struck me as very powerful. It instilled in me this idea of the power of using art for social change and shifting people’s consciousness. That’s something I’ve really been reflecting on with the music I’ve been making in the past six months. I’ve just been thinking of the social implications of the music that we play and create, so Rage Against the Machine has influenced that greatly for me.

When you were cutting dubplates at Turnstyle Records, was it a social activity or a solo activity for you?

A little bit of both. The social aspect from cutting dubplates was soliciting producers for dubplates. I was hitting up so many people 10 years ago that I’ve only just recently met since I’ve started going to the UK. I remember I got 'Pulse J' by Jook cut to dubplate back then, and some stuff from this producer called Plesk Parallel (at the time going by Grove Street), and now I’m friends with her. That side of seeking out music was more personal than digging for records at a record shop, because you’re interacting with the producers directly. At that time, it felt so random. ‘Who is this little teenager from American hitting me up for dubs?’ I find it so funny.

You made a name for yourself as Introspekt after connecting with the Shuffle 'n' Swing Facebook group in 2020. How did that compare to the experience of trawling through the Dubstep Forum archives?

Shuffle 'n' Swing had a wholesome, nerdy vibe. It was nice because you could see everyone’s face, it was on their Facebook profile. When I first joined, I was really into garage from the dark garage side of things, but Shuffle 'n' Swing gave me an education into the suave, 4x4 sound and I got really into the Nice 'N' Ripe stuff through that group. I connected with a lot of great friends who I still keep up with to this day who supported me from those early days. I found Eliza Rose through that group, her mixes and her radio show on Balamii was very formative.

Your trademark kick pattern, where is that taken from?

Baltimore club, for sure. My first time coming into contact with Baltimore club was, besides family because I have a lot of family in Maryland, listening to Joe Nice on Sub FM. He blended DJ Technics’ ‘Dickontrol Break’ with some crazy dubstep track and it blew my mind. That specific moment of hearing Baltimore club in the context of dubstep has really influenced my use of that kick pattern in the context of using these garage-y, dubsteppy beats. There’s also another track, ‘Poison’ by Benny Ill and Hatcha, that also uses that same exact drum pattern.

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You’ve become really fascinated by the FWD>> era of dubstep where it felt like it could go in any direction. Is that what interests you about it?

There was a lot of creativity. I think at that point, those producers were responding to the champagne-popping vibes of garage and going into a recession. Not to speak for them, but I think a lot of them were feeling this type of garage wasn’t speaking to their experiences. There was this intentional push to make things deeper, and that speaks to my musical sensibilities for sure.

The themes that were present in the music as well, I feel like there was a strong Afrofuturistic sensibility to that early dubstep and dark garage sound. Also a lot of influence from a lot of diasporic communities that found themselves in London, like South West Asian communities, you can hear tabla drums. It felt like they were taking garage and making it more global in scope, and for me as someone with a Pan-Africanist cultural background and a very internationalist political perspective, I find it really compelling.

I think there are also parallels with the explosion of garage in recent years, the very different strains and sounds of garage that have proliferated in the last two or three years. There’s a lot of great stuff happening in the rave scene and dance culture currently, I think we’re in a very important and interesting time. The level that it’s at and the art that’s being produced is very inspiring. I think what I would like to see more from that music is deeper, more global focus looking out at the non-European world for musical inspiration.

Your 'Tectonica' EP with INVT is your first extensive collaboration with anyone. How was that process of moulding your respective sounds together?

Working with those boys is so easy - we just had a studio session this week and literally banged out a track in three hours. The way that we think about music is very similar, especially the connections between different diasporic communities, whether those be in Latin America, the Caribbean or across the African diaspora, we just think about the connections. When we first hopped in the studio, we were completely on the same page.

If you were a Yu-Gi-Oh! card, which one would you be and why?

Definitely Dark Magician Girl. She’s so cunt. Also I think of myself as a sorceress, as someone who practises magic in different kinds of ways.

You never really look up when you’re DJing. What are you thinking behind the decks?

I tend to be pretty locked in when I’m DJing. These days I spin with four decks, generally, so I’ll have a kick drum on one CDJ, two tracks that I’m blending on another and I’m looking for my next one on the fourth, so it’s a lot of multitasking. I kind of read the room with my ears. If you notice, I never really mix with my headphones on, I usually keep them on my shoulders and monitor like that so I can always hear what’s going on in the room.

I have this new approach when I’m DJing where I’m thinking about three tracks ahead. I used to spin track-to-track, a lot more linear and sequential in that way. These days, it’s more about getting from one point to the other and sometimes back. This weekend, I played the ‘Dickontrol Break’ about four times on average in each set.

That’s something I picked up from a lot of the T4T LUV NRG DJs. I noticed that Octo Octa would bring in the same vocal several times in a set. When I first heard her doing it, I was like, ‘am I trippin’ or did I hear this vocal before?’ I thought that was so cool. It’s a weird sorcery to fuck with people’s perception of time like that. It stems from my philosophy about time. I think about time in a nonlinear fashion. When I’m mixing, I don’t want to lose track of time - I want it to feel like time is collapsing in on itself.

When you’re reading with your ears, what’s the best sound you can possibly hear?

I love when I don’t really hear much. If I don’t hear much chatter, I’ll look up to see what that means. Either the dancefloor has cleared, or people are making out and are really locked in and grinding on each other.

Before you, was there much dark dubstep being played in queer nights?

No! Not at all! That’s the thing, I was going to queer nights and it was 4x4 techno, and in LA too, hardcore techno was big. I always loved the energy and ethos and spirit of those spaces, but sonically it wasn’t exactly to my music. So I was like, ‘how can I play this music and contextualise it in a way that makes sense for the kinds of audiences and communities I want to be in?’. That’s really what’s motivated my approach to production and selection, is: how do I contextualise this music that I really love for an audience that historically hasn’t been represented in those scenes?

The level of horniness in your music could lead a Mormon to a bathhouse. Where did you first pick up that dance music could be this sensual?

That reference to sensuality is influenced by East Coast club music, Baltimore club, that sort of thing. But also the queer dance music continuum, I would call it. I’ve intentionally been trying to make my bass music sexy, a lot of themes I’m dealing with when I’m producing revolve around expressing my sexuality and injecting a queer sensual sensibility into the music. That’s something I’ve always enjoyed in types of house music and techno that are popular in queer spaces. It provides a space for people to let loose and express themselves in ways which oftentimes we feel so repressed. I don’t want to make bass music for people to throw up gunfingers to. I want to make bass music for people to move their hips and grind on each other to.

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You’ve got such a knack for adding in a sound bite or sound effect, it reminds me of when Menta added that big cat roar to 'Snake Charmer'. How do you choose the sounds you work with?

I think a lot about space and atmosphere with the sounds I choose, especially in the last year. It’s been a big part of my search for samples. I also think a lot about what feelings I want to evoke. When I play 'Snake Charmer', what always struck me about the different sounds in the track, when I first heard the lion’s roar, I thought, ‘woah, this is fierce’. That’s a really good example of a dubstep garage track that’s so deep and sexy in a very specific type of way. There’s this thing with that specific period with early FWD>>, dubstep and garage sort of stuff where there’s a lot of low-passed moans and moan samples that are dubbed out. It’s real spacious and subtle and sensual, you know?

How does it feel to now be a major part of the relaunch of FWD>>?

It’s honestly surreal to be playing that party and find myself where I’m really being supportive by this group that has played such an integral role in the music that’s influenced me. When I was a teenager, I was growing up reading Blackdown’s blog and reading lore about FWD>> at Velvet Rooms and Plastic People. Working with the FWD>> people has been really heart-warming. It feels full circle.

What’s your favourite recorded FWD>> set?

It would have to be a Hatcha or a Joe Nice set. There’s so many archived sets that are so good.

Mine would be Plastician’s set with Skepta on mic. If you could DJ with any MC live, who would it be and why?

One MC I’ve been interested in recently is Sugur Shane [a ballroom MC, not to be confused with Gypsy Rap Records' Sugar Shane]. Ballroom MCing is my favourite style of MCing. I used to be a really big grime head, and a lot of the things I love about grime, I also really love about ballroom. It’s just this raw energy, but grime is often very hyper-masculine, whereas ballroom is often very hyper-feminine. It feels like this inverse world. I would be really interested to play a set with dark, in-your-face bass music with a ballroom MC over it.

You’ve just possibly locked in an album, which is great. What’s next on the horizon?

I’m really excited about it. It’s my first time working on a project of this scale. What’s next for me is integrating all the pieces of me and tying everything together a little bit. For a while, there were two split sonic directions that I was working in: the more house-adjacent, 4x4 garage thing and the darker 2-step stuff. It felt like a dichotomy between the two sounds. What’s next is the convergence of those sounds.

Tell us about this mix.

I’ve done a lot of planning for it. The theme behind the mix is ‘Past, Present, Future’, which is obviously the theme of FWD>>. There’s this idea in my music and a lot of my peer’s music as well where, as opposed to a linear, progressive idea of time, there’s this thread of more recursive or cyclical view of time and temporality. There’s gonna be a lot of deep cuts and classics, but also a lot of new stuff, and new stuff that sounds like old stuff. So that’s the theme of this mix: collapsing past, present and future into one totality.

Introspekt plays FWD>> at FOLD on October 11, get tickets here

Nathan Evans is a freelance music journalist, follow him on Twitter

Tracklist:
Benny Ill & DJ Dinesh - New York [Vehicle]
Benny Ill & Kode9 - Tales From The Bass Side [Tempa]
Pornstarz - Dread [Unique 3]
R4 - A Little Higher [Big Apple]
Introspekt - ??? [dub]
Henry Greenleaf - Cafe Boogaloo [Different Intel]
Bakey - Mind Body Soul [dub]
INVT x Logan OLM - ??? [dub]
N’n’G - I Keep (Cellardore Refix) [self-released]
El-B - Serious (El-B Mix 2) [Locked On]
DJ Technics - Dickontrol Break
Introspekt x INVT - ??? [dub]
Brackles - Glazed [Berkane Sol]
Cotti & Cluekid - The Legacy [-30 Recordings]
Digital Mystikz - Haunted [DMZ]
Benga - Middle Man [Big Apple]
Random Trio - The Gift [GD4YA]
Buckley - Black Gold [dub]
Introspekt - Body Heat 2 [dub]
Benny Ill v DJ Hatcha - Highland Spring [Tempa]
Benga - Amber [Big Apple]
Blaze - Life Remix [Associates]
Introspekt - Afro Bass [dub]
Main Phase & Eloq - Dungeon Level [dub]
DJ ADHD - Precision (Mia Koden’s Resize) [forthcoming]