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Sub Focus - Evolve [EMI]

Authors

Welcome to my sixteenth album write-up! I apologize in advance for the wall of text that is about to follow. Scroll down for a TL;DR on the LP.

Background

Sound the Alarm, activate the Siren, get ready to cause some Trouble! Just a couple weeks before we cross over to Juno, we are coming together in this place now, to celebrate the third solo album of none other than Nicolaas "Nick" Douwma, better known as Sub Focus! As one of my all-time favourite artists, his music has become the Air I Breathe, the invigorating Rays Of Sun I soak up on rainy days, the soundtrack to my Special Place, a steady source of Endorphins to the point one could say I have become a real Subby Druggy. He is not just able to produce tunes that make me want to bust out my finest Flamenco moves in my living room (only after having Turned The Lights Off), he has of course also made an impossible to overstate Splash on the scene at large, Rocking It to its very core and causing a Tidal Wave of new artists inspired to pursue DnB too.

Of course, we never had to endure too long without new Sub Focus goodness, with steady releases and all sorts of club and festival appearances he smoothly avoided the fans' World becoming one Of Hurt, but it's still safe to say that we have been Waiting for this third long player to arrive for quite some time now. First teased in 2016, but then endlessly delayed or overruled by other projects like the admittedly gorgeous collaborative album with Wilkinson, it almost felt like the plans for it were put on ice. Frozen Solid, as it were. Far Out Of Reach, floating about in the Deep Space outside our Solar System, Nobody Knowing any better for a good seven years. One Fine Day, however, something changed. His almost completely cleared social media presence already gave the fans a hunch that something is Coming Closer, confirmed by the quickly following ominous teaser, simply captioned III. It's Time, for the coveted third solo album!

Around a year and a string of incredibly successful singles later, it is now finally released. So let's Turn Back Time and Turn Up The Bass, let us take a step back and Illuminate Nick's path to becoming one of the most successful electronic artists of today. Let The (Back-)Story Begin!

From Metalnicka To Electronick Music (1982 - 2002)

Nicolaas "Nicky D" Douwma, half-Dutch and half-English if you were wondering, started out his expansive musical journey at the ripe old age of 11. Having grown up in London and having attended Westminster, basically the crown jewels of the capital's repository of expensive public schools, you might think he would have a proper posh music taste (whatever that would be), but what really gave him that spark of excitement was the rough-around-the-edges in-your-face energy of Rock. Nirvana, Metallica, Guns N' Roses, the works. His classmates and him were so enamored with the sound and so motivated to create their own stuff, they quickly decided to form a band of their own, letting nothing, not even their inability to play any actual instrument, get in their way. Nick chose the Bass as his weapon of choice, already completing one half of the equation early on. However, either due to becoming disillusioned with the band or because he wanted to create some extra cool sounds for it (the archives are not clear on this), he then became interested in music production.

After having acquired a "crummy" computer from Acorn, the now-defunct British answer to Apple back in the day, he would create fun little tunes in a rather odd piece of software called Notate, in which you had to use actual classical notation to form melodies. While unconvential from today's and, to be honest, even back then's perspective, he was hooked. When Nick was 13, somebody in his class played part of the legendary 1994 Jungle Mania 2 mixtape out loud, with one particular tune especially peaking his interest: General Levy's and M-Beat's Incredible. Not only was this wild Breakbeat-heavy storm of a tune radiating a whole new kind of energy he had never experienced before, Levy's, well, incredibly unique way of performing fascinated him to no end. From there on out the train towards becoming an electronic music fan became unstoppable, with Nick delving deeper into the discography of the likes of The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy and LTJ Bukem, starting to record tapes off London-based pirate radio station Kool FM and getting into some of the early RAM Records releases.

Inspired by the first LTJ Bukem CD he ever bought, he then made the Logical Progression to DJing at 15, on the best belt drive decks £50 quid could buy. After starting off practicing the art of bedroom DJing, he properly cut his teeth at small nights that his mate, Freddie Dixon aka FD, was throwing at Surrey University. When Nick wasn't performing his own shows, you could also see him at the infamous Metalheadz Sunday Sessions "as soon as he could fake an ID". Yes, the Sunday Sessions!

Subfrequently Focussed (2002 - 2005)

Driven by the at the time very cheeky, but in hindsight not quite unfounded hubris of thinking he could do way better than the producers he was hearing on the radio and with his parents supporting him every step of the way, he also never lost sight of the other side of the musical career coin, production, even submitting a DnB tune for his GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) in music. Around the turn of the millenium, he started "taking it a little more seriously", treating himself to a proper production set up, moving near Shoreditch (i.e. still London) to study Sound Engineering at the London Metropolitan University, later resulting in some actual, properly finished up, ready-to-send-out tunes. One fateful night, one of said mates, Jack, went to a good ol' Andy C rave and decided to stay until the end to give him a CD filled with tunes Nick shared with him, with Nick's contact details written on it. A couple days later, Nick received a call from an unknown number - with Andy on the other line. Another couple days later, Nick found himself signed to the sister label of one of the imprints he was looking up most to, Andy's and Red One's platform for up-and-coming producers, Frequency. Sub Focus was officially born!

Why the name, you ask? Apparently it was basically just a random combination of words that were meant to not carry any particular meaning, so people could make up their own mind. And make up their mind they did! Not about his name though, more so about his first few smashing releases: After calibrating his baseline Frequency with his debut Down The Drain / Hot Line, he built up a whole streak of double singles on the label, including classics like Acid Test and Soundguy, but also worked together with Danny Wheeler on J Majik's label and with Strobe even finally joined Andy's main label, as part of the RAM Raiders Vol. 6. If you thought that was a crazy first year, you better fasten your seatbelts, because it's about to get absolute bonkers.

X-Raising The Bar (2005 - 2008)

In early 2005, during a time when Nick was still sometimes playing for only 25 people in a club in Plymouth, a tune was making the rounds, whose catchy melody and sheer danceability had every DnB DJ clamouring for a copy of it. I'm of course talking about X-Ray! Another couple of months of hype later, it, with Scarecrow on the flipside, actually became his first solo record on the main RAM! Not only did it then go on to become the Single of the Week on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 show at the time, it also reached the top spot on the official UK Dance charts, even breaking through to #60 on the overall charts! This early success probably opened up another massive door for him: Being asked by The Prodigy to remix their classic Smack My Bitch Up and then actually being chosen as the "winning" remix out of around a dozen commissioned ones. Some producers might freeze up in the face of the insurmountable expectations that come with this kind of stuff, but not our boy Nick.

The next few years saw him continue to put out absolute classic singles like Airplane, Flamenco and Druggy, all while putting his own twists on tunes by the likes of Dr. Octagon, Baron and another huge early inspiration, DJ Fresh. Most of these early bangers were dreamt up in his own humble domicile, but around 2008/2009 he was finally able to trade his bedroom with a proper studio space, next door to the likes of Shy FX, Nero, Breakage, Caspa and Chase & Status, who, fun fact, were also on that aforementioned 2005 Plymouth lineup. Now surrounded by all sorts of talented mates who could quickly lend an ear if he was stuck, he could finally break through the perfectionist circle he had been stuck in for a couple of years. While he was able to put together double singles in a reasonable amount of time, there was something bigger that the label had been asking for straight away and that Nick wanted to do for a long time as well: an album!

Eponickmous (2008 - 2009)

The first offering of his debut longplayer would be the one and only Timewarp, for which he was thoroughly inspired by the minimal Techno he soaked up on visits to legendary Ibizan clubs Cocoon and DC10, with Join The Dots on the B-Side. After some serious Radio 1 support, this instant classic was then followed up by the deconstruction of Daft Punk's Robot Rock and one of my very first introductions to DnB, Rock It, packaged up with unofficial TC collaboration Follow the Light. Not only was Rock It one of the first uploads ever to the then-new UKF Drum & Bass channel, it also reached #38 on the UK charts, smashing through his previous personal record. In September 2009, it was finally time to unleash the rest of his self-titled debut album, Sub Focus, (in hindsight) cRAMmed with an insane amount of instant classics.

Of course, we've got all sorts of DnB anthems on here, from World Of Hurt to Last Jungle, but Nick didn't just want to create an album full of wall-to-wall DnB slappers, there needed to be some sort of dynamic to it, which he eventually found in the form of other genres like Dubstep, Electro, House and Breakbeat, mirroring his musical mission statement: "Create multiple different styles of dance music at a super high standard". It doesn't come as much of a surprise then, that he would cite the likes of Vangelis and Giorgio Moroder as big influences for this package, with Vangelis' Spiral even being sampled in album opener. With features like Takura and Culture Shock, whomst he first met at a house party back in 2006, the simple yet iconic circular rainbow artwork that would set the tone for all Sub Focus cover arts from then on, follow-up single releases for Could This Be Real, with a remix by Dubstep legend Joker, and a new vocal version of Splash with Coco from I Blame Coco, and it reaching #51 on the UK album charts, it's safe to say it was a resounding success on all fronts.

The Art Of Re-nick-sing (2009 - 2011)

So much success, in fact, that it's hard to even mention, let alone elaborate on it all! For example, during the year of his debut album's release, he also put out remixes for Empire Of The Sun, deadmau5, The Prodigy again, Basement Jaxx and Dizzee Rascal. What a list! The following years he pumped the breaks a little bit, "only" putting out legendary remixes for Rusko and I Blame Coco, collaborating with Chase & Status for their album No More Idols and producing Example's chart-smashing hit Kickstarts, which peaked at #3 on the charts. Even outside of that, he was ticking off one milestone after the other, like supporting Pendulum on their Immersion tour in 2010 and receiving the honour of a 10-page feature and a frontpage cover in Mixmag in 2012. Probably the coolest new development in this "in-between albums" phase has got to be his live show though.

Unlike similar endeavours by his contemporaries at the time, the Sub Focus Live Show was decidedly not going to include a band, as Nick didn't want to lose out on "those fat quantised beats", instead opting for something more akin to what the likes of Daft Punk and Jean-Michel Jarre were doing. A one-man show! Not only could he control each sound individually with his two iPads running the custom-developed Liine Lemur app, his team and him also developed a motion-tracked glove with which he could apply filters and sounds just by moving his hands, like a digital Theremin. He loved doing this live show so much that just a year later he would spend "a cool 200k quid" to overhaul it from the ground up for his big show at Electric Brixton. Big, bespoke machines, hiring Giani Fabricio to design an even more intricate on-stage circular stage build consisting of a cool 25k LEDs and even working with "Minority Report"-like motion sensors. It was madness!

Today's Toruscope: Sub Folkus (2011 - 2016)

Towards the tail end of 2011, Subby started ramping up to another rather big project with his Dubstep free download Falling Down, which received so much play on Radio 1 and crossed the 100k downloads mark so quickly that none other than Skrillex ended up signing it for his label OWSLA. Nothing could prepare him for the successes of the following 2012 singles though, with Out The Blue's #23 unexpectedly establishing a brand new chart record for him, before it got absolutely destroyed by Tidal Wave's immense #12 just a couple months later, eventually becoming his first gold certification. In the middle of his Ibiza residency and headline appearances at Reading and Leeds, Dour, Bestival among many others, he somehow managed to top himself even further, with both (!) Endorphins and Turn Back Time landing at #10 and Turn It Around also reaching #14. All throughout this tidal wave of success, he never lost touch with the scene at large, allowing his favourite producers like KillSonik, Flosstradamus, a young Metrik, Fred V & Grafix, Ivy Lab, Special Request and many more to remix these absolutely massive chart stormers.

Late September it all finally came together to form Nick's second long player: Torus! Not only did he keep his multi-genre ethos all the way up, resulting in Dubstep support from Skrillex, DnB support from Andy C and the usual suspects, all the way to his House tunes being played by Avicii, he actually added another dimension to his circle of influences, now also including groups from the electronic indie scene, like Friendly Fires and The XX. Speaking of: As you can probably tell from the album title, he also added another dimension to his overall design aesthetic, with the Torus replacing the circle as the central theme for all of the artworks. As a 2001 Space Odyssey-esque unexplainable monolith, with the title track even sampling a recording from an UFO site, the Torus wasn't even just limited to artworks, Nick also did a fun promotional campaign in which mini Torussi were spread across a series of meaningful locations on the digital Google Maps globe, each containing an audio preview of the album. All this, plus the move to a major label, plus features by the likes of Foxes, Alpines and Bloc Party's Kele Okereke gave it such a boost that it ended up peaking at #11 of the overall UK album charts.

What do you even do after all this success? Move into a brand new, bigger studio space and enjoy some time off, apparently!

Back To The Sub Fo-Clubs (2016 - 2019)

During these two years of absence from the release circus, Nick turned inward, to recalibrate and discover what he wants to do in music. The answer? Club music! By delving deep into the history of electronic music, exploring the mechanisms behind all his favourite classic tunes growing up and trying to fuse his modern sound with old hardware like the Akai samplers and Emu Emulator keyboards, he was able to ignite his passion for the dance once more. He even went back to some of those Kool FM tapes he recorded in his childhood to look for samples! The first result of this trip down memory lane (douw(n)-ma-mory lane? oh god) came in the form of his 2016 single Nobody Knows, kicking off a series of singles "in advance of his next album project in 2017". With a premiere on Friction's BBC Radio 1 show and the follow-up Love Divine being crowned Hottest Record by Annie Mac, it seemed like hadn't lost a step in his subbatical (intended).

2017 saw the likes of Lingua with Stylo G, Trouble with the Rudimental boys, Maverick Sabre and Chronixx, a remix for Major Lazer and a slightly-older Metrik polishing up the slightly long in the tooth X-Ray to modern standards, but the tune that defined the year for him would be Don't You Feel It, with Finnish "flavour of the moment" ALMA. Radio support from Annie Mac, Mistajam, Danny Howard, Target and Friction, breaking through the million stream barriers like it's nothing, another Hottest Record, all topped off with a remix package from fresh up-and-comer 1991 (and Nick himself), salute and Kideko. While that "bigger project" was still a bit on hold, 2018 would still become a very memorable time for him. Not only would it be the year he finally collaborates with fellow Dancefloor behemoth Wilkinson on Take It Up, he would also add a whole 'nother Dimension to his reportoire of collaborators with the DnB anthem to end all anthems, Desire. With a solid #51 in the charts, gold certifications, all sorts of Hottest Record titles and a (Nico-)laasting impact on the Dancefloor scene at large that you can still feel today, it's safe to say that this fulfilled all of his commercial desires.

Churchular Sound (2019 - Now)

You might have recognised a thorny pattern weaving itself through these last few divine collaborations: A lot of them are Worship artists! As you surely remember from my Dimension and 1991 LP deep dives, Worship is a collective of artists managed by Sebastian Weingartshofer from Skankandbass, including the two aforementioned fashion-wise polar opposites, long-time friend and collaborator Culture Shock, MANT and Oliver Winters. Since he had been working together with them so much already lately anyway, Nick decided to join the ominous cult of the sunglasses himself in 2019! Joining this world-class group of friends and exquisite producers wasn't the only thing the year had going for it though, it also brought us a horizon-expanding remix of Bring Me The Horizon, the most double-able tune ever and the anthem of that year's Let It Roll, Solar System, and of course its flipside Siren.

All throughout this, however, he was already knee-deep in the production of the next big thing™️. No, still not quite that coveted third album, but close. After initially linking up with the razor-sharp Wilkinson back in 2018, they kept in touch, getting on so well creatively that the idea of a bigger collaborative project was born. In an effort to transport the uniquely serene electronic soundscapes by the likes of Jon Hopkins and Bonobo they share a deep love for into the realm of drums and basses, they locked themselves into Peter Gabriel's infamous Real World Studios, which had previously already hosted the likes of Coldplay, Björk, Sigma collaborators Take That and many, many more. During their weeks-long stay, they tried out a ton of new instruments, played around will all sorts of synths and had a whole slew of visitors like Tom Varrall, John Calvert and Tom Havelock joining them every now and then, creating the foundation for a whole album of wonderfulness and one of my absolute favourite LPs ever, Portals.

With a peak at #68 (so close to greatness) in the album charts, it might not have been the most commercially successful record, but that was never their intention anyway. While production of it began way before any of us could have predicted what happened in 2020, the breath-taking beauty of the end result was the perfect antidote to the same-y slog of our day-to-day lifes, in a time of doubt, uncertainty and just a general lack of available floors to dance on. Aside from that, Nick was also working together with Machinedrum and Netsky, commissioning Portals remixes from Pola & Bryson and High Contrast, plus a whole new package of Sub Focus classic Reworks from the likes of Data 3, DnB's newest boyband Camo & Krooked & Mefjus, his boys Culture Shock, Dimension and Wilkinson and the scene at large via his Stomp remix competition, with Nick himself also rewiring both CamelPhat's Easier and one of the biggest tunes of the early 2020s, ACRAZE's Do It To It.

That's not even all though! After seeing his inspirations The Chemical Brothers live in 2019, Nick got inspired to pursue the live show angle once more, once again rethinking the whole thing, now under the Circular Sound brand. Instead of keeping the big LED Torus statically positioned behind him, it would now be hoisted on ropes, allowing it to be moved and tilted almost completely freely, with some more huge LED walls behind him to complete the picture. First debuted in 2021 at the late and great Printworks in London, it was then toured in DnB paradise aka New Zealand the following year, before once more coming back to the UK capital, or more specifically the OVO Wembley Arena, almost 10 years after opening for Pendulum there. If that's not a full circle moment, I don't know what is!

At the 2021 edition of Circular Sound, Nick premiered a new tune, which was only supposed to be a one-off for the show, but went down so well that it became the first single of the album we are here to talk about! Remember that? That's right, a solid 7 years after the initial big things coming announcement, we have finally arrived at our destination, the release of Sub Focus' third solo and fourth in total album, Evolve!

Before we dive any deeper into that though, have some fun facts:

  • A club in Yekaterinburg burned down after he played in it - I have no further information about this but it was too wild not to mention
  • He never really participated in Movember, because "his stubble is pathetic". You and me both, Nick, you and me both.

Resources

Track Breakdown

Congrats, you've made it to the Track Breakdown!

1. Trip (feat. Metrik)

We kick this 14-track personal ode to D&B and Breakbeats from Nick off with the aptly-titled Trip, featuring the one and only Metrik. A long overdue collaboration, in my absolutely non-biased, non-crab-emote-spamming opinion. After an immaculate recreation of what drifting through the vast nothingness of space must feel like, with only the transcendental, meditative vocal sample keeping us company among the stars, our interstellar destination finally appears on our visors, the sun glistening in our eyes. We hop into our futuristic pilot seats, revving up the boosters and we are off! With a truly heavy bass ratatata-ing us to our very core and an almost whimsical synth lead bouncing between the planets, parts of it emphasized by some extra gnarly oomphs, it truly feels like a collaboration between the two, in all the best ways. The synth work is immaculate too, smoothly going from its rather alarm-y first iteration to a lightweight version of it, fluently transitioning over to the breakdown.

2. Calling For A Sign (feat. Kelli-Leigh)

Right away, our next stop on this trip to the futuristic past, Calling For A Sign, lets us know that it means business with some aggressively looping Sub Focus signature synths, each note reverberating in the deepest of depths. That is, until Kelli-Leigh, our Grammy-nominated featured artist for today with credits on tunes from Tiësto, Hardwell and even the anthem Cry (Just a Little), makes a seriously unforgettable entrance, which was actually originally written for Solar System, but later reworked into its own track.

If only you knew how utterly obsessed I was and still am with these vocals. As soon as she starts flawlessly hitting the long notes, the synths start breaking out of their little box, expanding their range further and further, building up the drama more and more, until we switch 'em out for a dangerously catchy synth lead that sits at just the right frequency to still be perfectly crisp even on the potatoest of sound system. Which is perfect, because it gives Nick so much extra room to play with all sorts of other layers, like the distorted yet incredibly clean guitar bassline, the regularly exploding subtle synth bombs or the wandering synth melody from the intro, resulting in an incredibly satisfying headphones experience.

3. Fine Day

We're keeping the earworm potential all the way up, with Nick's spin on the 1983 poem It's A Fine Day, his version being called Fine Day. With only a few warm synth chords and distant sirens quietly going on about their fine day in the background, the vocals are free to lalala-lee-lalala themselves straight into my brain, which they very easily do. In the drop we jump on a river of broken beats, with a subtle bass rumbling underneath and all sorts of synthy bits and bops rounding it all off to a wonderfully vibey liquid tune.

4. Vibration (feat. AR/CO)

There are quite a few candidates out there, but absolutely nothing deserves the title of "festival anthem" more than set closer Vibration (One More Time). It might start serene enough, with some of Nick's signature synths blipsing and blupsing around like the twinkling stars in the night sky, but as soon as Leo Stannard & Mali-Koa alias AR/CO come into the mix, you'll know what I mean. The London-based duo have (ar/)come up with a rather unique vocal technique, in which they layer up a couple dozen takes of them singing into one shared mic until it feels like a whole festival crowd is singing along to it at the same time. Over time, the levels of anthem-ticity rise to sheer ridiculous heights, with an extra clap urging the crowd to put their hands together already, while a bed of pads keeps us warm inside.

With a heartily adlibbed whoo-whoop, AR/CO switch over to a more aggressive part of the verse. Not only are the EYO EYO, SING IT ONE MORE TIME's supremely catchy and scream-alongable, every EYO EYO also brings in more elements into the arrangement, one by one raising the dramatic stakes to intergalactic levels, before unleashing it all into a big whirlwind of catchiness. Of course, there's the incredible lead melody Nick has been teasing in the buildup, but the earcandy doesn't stop there, from the chug-it-chug-it every 4 hits giving the drums some extra oomph to the all-encompassing embrace of the bassline to all the synths floating through space. It's a whole buffet really.

5. It’s Time (feat. Gene Farris)

It’s Time to finally talk some more about the tune that kicked it all off. With House legend, founder of Farris Wheel Recordings (yes) and star of "Body Rock" Gene Farris on the spoken word vocals, we keep the crowd hype vocal streak going, but this one isn't a hyped-up Dancefloor number, this one's a homage to the "special brain melting energy" of The Chemical Brothers! Other than the sweet, sweet Bass voice, we basically only got a minimal yet quite interesting drum beat, bouncy, constantly pumping basses and the star of the show, the funky synth lead. I still can't quite decide whether it's stupid or brilliant, but one thing's for sure: that damn thing sticks in your head forever. What elevates the track from a curiosity to a proper banger for me is the second half. Over a solid minute, Nick keeps working that lead with an anxiety-inducing, ever-rising high-pitched synth on top, while Gene starts to lose his mind repeating This is what we do over and over again, until we finally reach that drop. You ready? Instead of the previous lead, we now just keep falling down the stairs, while the digital crowd applauds us in a rather pleasing rhythm, with the basses pumping underneath. What a trip.

6. Ready To Fly (feat. Dimension)

Four years after Desire, it is now finally time for a second rodeo. Let's get Ready To Fly, together with our boi Dimension. With tons of radio play, a #29 peak in the charts, a Hardcore VIP and remixes by NGHTMRE and Spencer Ramsay, this one definitely has had a good amount of hype behind it, and for good reason.

To recreate the feel of the old UK Hardcore tunes Nick has grown up on and that Dimension also shares a deep love for, they not only pumped the buildup full of ample rave pianos and breakbeats, they also went the extra mile and created the absolutely stunning vocal by taking an originally very slow topline recording from Jo Hill and speeding it all the way up. The main attraction of the drop is of course the two leads, a Trip-y alarm synth and a screechy stabby bit, seemlessly interwoven to become one intensely catchy back-and-forth, but the powerful flow created by a combination of supremely stompy drums and a subtle fast-paced break loop is also a major key why it works as well as it does. As if that wasn't already enough, the duo makes things even more nostalgic, by literally dropping into UK Hardcore-y 4x4 for the second half, preceded by the best vocal sample ever.

7. Alarm (feat. MC ID)

After a decade (!) of enjoying his MC ID's talent for when to keep his mouth shut, Nick decided it was now time for his long-time friend to do the talking for once, on the rave weapon that is Alarm. Tribal drums, intensely bass-y, wonderfully vibey Reggae-inspired vocals and lyrics, I can almost taste the Chase & Status influence. Without wasting any further time, we are then swiftly thrown right into the pits of the relatively minimal yet very much still bassface-inducing drop, presumably inspired by Nick falling asleep on the phone dial. In a good way! My personal highlight of this particular wobbler has got to be the little chopped-up eh's from ID in the second drop though, giving the whole thing a uniquely fun flow.

8. Off The Ground

From the deep pits of delightful disgust we now rise up, Off The Ground so to speak. With an uncredited, unbelievably beautiful vocal from none other than Poppy Baskcomb, we slowly float into the skies to the backdrop of dramatic pianos and heavenly choirs. Once the titular squence of words is uttered, however, Nick throws in these little stabby stabs, pulling us into the powerful vortex of carnage that is the drop, where we are launched all over the place by rather intense sirens, surprisingly heavy-hitting wobbly wobs and the most addictive sequence of claps known to man. Not only does this sound like you are being abducted by extraterrestial beings, at Circular Sound the Torus also actually transforms into a tractor-beam-firing UFO for this one. Fun fact: did you know that the Torus is supposed to be the ideal space ship design? Coincidence? I think not!

9. Waiting (feat. Pola & Bryson & Kelli-Leigh)

Seems like Kelli-Leigh really was tired of waiting, already making a stunning return just a couple tunes later! To be fair, I would too if the other feature guest is Pola & Bryson! That's right, on Waiting we are not only treated to an even more soulful performance by Kelli, elevated to perfection by that little I-I-I-I-I right before she kicks off her performance, but also an effortless instrumental fusion of both Nick and Pola & Bryson's styles. While leaning a bit more towards the latter's usual vibe, with their snappy signature drums making an appearance and an early 2010s Dancefloor wobble that feels right up their alley, Nick's influence can also be heard everywhere, from the atmospheric arps in the buildup to the now soft, but still slightly screechy Ready To Fly-esque oomphs.

I am most definitely not tired of Waiting, and probably never will be.

10. I Found You (feat. Hayla)

Now slowly powering down from the whirlwind that was the first half of the album, we open our hearts as wide as humanly possible with the absolutely breath-taking I Found You. We start off with an arrangement of stupendously lovely, deadmau5-esque synth chords, on which the star of the show, Hayley Philippa Williams aka Hayla from John Summit, MANT and, oh hey, Wilkinson, fame, shows off her oh-so-wonderful vocal talents, performing the beautiful lyrics written by Becky Hill. I lack the words to describe the intense feeling I get when she jumps into the higher octaves and her voice becomes so pristinely multi-layered, effortlessly piercing through any sceptic's walls of defense. Simultaneously, the synths charge up further and further, eventually unleashing an explosion of loveliness onto us, the unsuspecting listener. When I first heard this at Circular Sound, all I could do was smile like an idiot and rock left to right. And that's basically how I still feel now.

11. Secrets (feat. CamelPhat, Culture Shock & RHODES)

From a secretly hidden feature with long-time friend and regular Sub Focus album collaborator Culture Shock we now move over to an actual, public one: Secrets! As usual, the two, with British duo CamelPhat in tow, pursue a path completely different from the one you might have built up from the expectations in your head, taking a break from all the DnB with a dreamy Breakbeat type of tune. With all sorts of charming synth melodies peppered all throughout, some extremely vibey breaks and droning basses underneath it all, the quartet goes as far down the well of old-school vibes as possible, while still retaining the modern production, all tied together by London-based singer-songwriter Rhodes' absolutely wonderful heartfelt performance.

12. Overcome (feat. Frances)

With a lovely, almost cute subdued atmosphere with the littlest of pianos, we ease into our 12th stop on this journey, Overcome. Soon enough, British Pop/Indie Pop/Folk/Soul darling Frances makes an already quite gorgeous entrance, but as soon the You turn the shade into light lyric hits, it makes the jump all the way to heavenly. I melt, every time. I have listened to this tune a hundred times at this point, still, I melt. After this very deserved full spotlight on the vocal performance, we drop into a sublime assortment of nostalgic synth leads that make you want to wave your whole body around, minimal yet piercing drums and the warmest of basses. Superb.

13. Don’t Want To Come Down (feat. LOWES)

Yes, album, I Don’t Want To Come Down from the high you induce in me either, but as you and I both know we are sadly almost at the end already. In this penultimate, Breaks-y vibe of a tune, Nick is joined by Electronic Pop Trio LOWES, who you might remember from his Easier remix or their work with High Contrast, Sigma or the recently solo The Prototypes. Every single part of vocalist Evie's performance here is just outstanding, from the larger-than-life choir-y parts to her deeply soulful titular vocal performance to her chopped- and pitched-up vocals going crazy, with all those tingly bops bouncing behind it! As usual, Nick does his part too, delivering a perfectly fitting instrumental blanket made out of pure vibes.

14. Turn Up The Bass (feat. Jonny L)

Remember way back in 2016, when Nick wanted to incorporate more of what he grew up with into his sound? One of the artists he specifically cited as an inspiration that he would love to work together with was British Drum & Bass pioneer John Lisners, better known as Jonny L. It took a couple of years, but with the album closer Turn Up The Bass, a reimagining of Jonny's 2005 original (under the Mr L moniker), Nick finally fulfilled that promise. Built on the iconic vocal of the original and the melodies spread all throughout it, he created a tranquil garden full of blooming synths, snuggly, turnt-up basses and additional soulful vocals. The pinnacle of the "oldschool but with modernized production" theme. Especially in the second half, when Nick unleashes his inner Jungle demon and chops up the drums into the all sorts of shapes and rhythms. Incredibly fitting, emotionally resonant finale.

Conclusion

Sure, everyone is "inspired by the 90s" lately, so it might as well have been an empty phrase when the album was first announced, but, as we have found out over these 14 stunning tracks, Sub Focus actually meant it. Production techniques you don't hear often anymore, hardware of the olden days, vibes directly inspired by Nick's youth, it's all there, just polished all the way up to some of the shiniest diamonds the scene has seen in a while. Seriously though, Sub Focus' production is unmatched on this album. Not only did he manage to work a ton of different styles and influences into the mix, the end results are also so spotlessly clean in their mixdowns, it's almost unfair. One big part that this especially benefits from is the vocal work. It doesn't even matter whether it's a grimy minimalistic track or a huge anthem tugging at your heartstrings, it always sounds as crisp as a fresh pack of Walkers. Google says those are good crisps, so I'm rolling with that.

Not just all that, it's also all somehow just so ridiculously catchy and danceable that I can't imagine a festival without any of these being played! It's honestly hard to pick, but the ones I want to hear live the most, i.e. my favourites, are probably Calling For A Sign, for the sheer drama in Kelli's vocals and the incredibly fun lead melody, Vibration (One More Time), because while I have heard it quite a bit during last year's festival season, I just want to hear it... one more time, and a tie between I Found You and Overcome, since both are so unbelievably wonderful and heartbreakingly beautiful that I'm glad they are in my life now.

TL;DR: The most precise production in the whole genre, used to create a most marvellous collection of 14 completely different yet entirely cohesive and supremely catchy tunes. Most definitely up there as one of my favourite albums of the year.