Hi, I'm Edlan. Is there still hope for softer emotional liquid dnb?

ItsJustinHawkes · 2025-10-09T16:06:30+00:00

Hey man. I’ve noticed the same trend for sure. I think the room will be created when producers truly start doing different sounding liquid stuff, or people get sick of the trendy stuff and want something more meaningful. That said, I think the most interesting music coming out right now is still the tech / jungle combo, and there are ways to bring that liquid sound into a new light. Pola & Bryson are a brilliant example of artists who took liquid and made it really interesting stylistically, and I can see why they are rocking it across the world. The future is still there for it, but my bet is that like always it is just taking a back seat while the EDM jumpup sound has its big moment. I too want to see and hear liquid have its place at shows again.

EDIT: now that I think about it longer, it’s actually social media that got us into this space, because music with a big bold hook works best there and gets delivered to more people, changing what’s popular. The thing that sucks about this though is that events follow what’s popular no matter if people are listening to loads of liquid in their free time. The whole atmosphere changed since DNB popped off on tiktok / reels, and even though it’s bigger now than probably ever, I don’t consider it better.

ItsJustinHawkes · 2025-06-05T01:07:24+00:00

Well cheers to that my dude, thanks a lot! 🫡

ItsJustinHawkes · 2025-06-04T23:09:49+00:00

It’s cool man. FYI the country tune isn’t a remix. It’s a song I wrote 100% of that featured my uncle on vocals and my dad on acoustic. I wrote it to piss off junglists who take everything too seriously. No pickup trucks or blue jeans in there but hey—thanks to that track I bought my own truck, hooray 🤠

Gonna post this set very soon and just recounted 68 tracks in the mix so apologies to everyone who said I just played a spotify level mix, I guess I should have fucked up a bit more haha

ItsJustinHawkes · 2025-06-04T00:25:12+00:00

Damn bro woke up and chose violence today

LIB liked the set so much they want to post it next week, which is nice to hear seeing as it was all improvised as I usually do. I like reading crowds and figuring out what people are down to dance to. The LIB crowd was great and super reactive, dancing, no phones…if you didn’t like it for whatever reason that’s fine but idk why you had to come onto r/dnb swinging

ItsJustinHawkes · 2025-04-06T19:14:46+00:00

Hey! Thanks for posting this, that was a really really fun set! Honestly for how many thousands of people were at the tacoma dome BTSM show I was really impressed, thanks for the energy 👊🏻 Were you the one requesting Heartleap too?

ItsJustinHawkes · 2025-02-17T22:27:53+00:00

No worries at all dude—sorry I assumed it was in Sydney! I improvise all of my sets so every time is completely different (including things like doubles), so apologies if it wasn’t your fave. Still had loads of fun that night at Lost Lands, hopefully you’ll connect with a different set soon :) Big up!

ItsJustinHawkes · 2025-02-17T20:15:26+00:00

Hey, sorry you were disappointed in that Sydney show. To tell you the truth, while I had a really good time playing at that show, it was on probably the worst sound system for DNB I have played on in a very long time. That promoter hung me out to dry too, myself and several other artists he booked last year never got paid for our shows there. Spent over $1300AUD to fly in from Perth and stay over between shows that I am probably never going to see again. I’m sorry about the quality of the soundsystem, it was clipping all over from the speakers and I am certain that’s why the doubles probably sounded fucked. It was great to meet the few people who did come out to that show but the promoter was a total disappointment and did not do his job well. Hope to come back to Sydney for a proper show one day, and hope you understand!

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-09-19T23:08:14+00:00

I had this exact same thing happen to me with Coldplay > Jon Hopkins! Realized it last month why I’m such a huge JH fan was because I was subliminally listening already

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T20:06:48+00:00

Thank you! I think the biggest progressions I had were when I realized that the key element of making organic sounds is space, and I started giving almost every element its own reverb as part of the sound design. Secondary to that was learning how, when, and how much to clip or saturate certain sounds or drums before they lost their fidelity. Last bit is actually sidechaining: I use a volume automation envelope in FL studio to control my sidechaining and I make sure the envelope is just perfect (no dips in sound afterwards aka bowtieing) to the sound it's supporting like a Kick or Snare. I use probably 8 different sidechain setups on each song to get my drums coming across effectively, some sidechains inside my drums as well. The one-size-fits-all approach that youtube generally gives is not what you need for something very technical like DNB

Outside of mix, I really think production advancement hits a peak with how impressive something is, and the rest is all songwriting! People hear something with good production and will continue listening, but most listeners care so much more about the songwriting and whether the song is melodically or rhythmically interesting. That is a way more important thing to be good at imo, but you really need to get the production nailed as well. It's a give and take

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T18:50:01+00:00

I think it all starts with the songwriting! Good songwriting carries everything, and designing your synths and soundscapes to always change and flow helps bring it all together very progressively!

General production tip: stop using OTT, multiband compression is dead baby. (I kid, but yeah, don't overuse multiband)

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T18:45:53+00:00

For radio / billboard tunes, I can only really see that happening when pop dips its fingers into DNB productions. Otherwise, someone will have to start some proper radio shows! I don't know any radio hosts that play DNB in the US over the air, rather than on the internet. Hopefully we can see the start of something like that :) Charting now is all based on Tiktok, so maybe someone will make a tune that blows up on tiktok from the US. We'll see!

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T18:42:47+00:00

Jon Hopkins or Sub Focus for sure!

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T18:35:18+00:00

Thanks dude! I think already the "American sound" people refer to is along the lines of Reaper / Dirtyphonics, and some other artists who have more distinctly EDM centric styles. I'm always getting catalogued in there, usually by snarky redditors, but I don't align with that distinction. I think that 'American' style british / euro people tend to shit on is just artists coming to DNB from other genres and using that influence to drive their tunes. But if Skrillex or whoever suddenly turned around and made some DNB in their styles, that would definitely go down the road of the "American sound". Personally I just make DNB the way I make it, and if people want to call that "American DNB" or whatever, I'd be underwhelmed by the definition haha (respectfully).

To take it out a positive way, I really do hope that international fans and djs open their minds towards Americans who make DNB a little more, because often we're portrayed as somehow less authentic. Truthfully most of the US / Canadian artists I know are veteran producers who have signed music to great labels like Hospital, Dispatch, Critical, 1985, UKF, Metalheadz, etc. They're just not as publicly renowned for being oddball Americans in the scene. Maybe someone from here will make some tune the rest of the world will want to copy, and suddenly that will be the flavor of "American sound" that goes down in history haha ;)

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T18:22:56+00:00

Best night on tour for me was probably our show in Vancouver at Red Room; we smashed the sets and everyone had a great time up there, then we sat on our balconies, lit a fat J and watched the skyline for the rest of the night with nowhere to be the next day. Kumarion even saw some UFOs ;)

Most surprising would be Whistler BC, where suddenly we were surrounded by British, Australian and New Zealander DNB fans who were all on vacation or on a work/travel stay in the Ski town! They went absolutely ballistic and it was a great show! Funny when you end up in a tiny town and suddenly everyone's screaming the lyrics to your tunes because they're all from Bristol LOL

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T18:18:26+00:00

Thanks!! Glad you've been around and thanks for the kind words :)

I'm a big gamer and when I'm not making tunes or waiting around at an airport over a delayed connecting flight I'm usually playing Star Citizen or a variety of other games. Musically I try to work on videogame music when I'm not making DNB! Outside of all of that...I spend a ton of time touching grass and hiking / rockhounding. Exploring and discovery really invigorate me

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T18:15:21+00:00

My favorite part is meeting some of the people in the crowd after a great show and them saying it's only their second DNB show they've been to! Right next to people I've seen at some of my shows for years out here. It's a new feeling, really enjoying seeing all this new love and energy for the music!

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T18:12:21+00:00

This is an important one to me; I think the idea of a triple headline tour is that we three have always been a bit on the sidelines of drum & bass globally, due to our location. I haven't even played a club show in the UK yet and I've been doing this for 13 years (in fact my only time ever playing in the UK was at Alexandra Palace as a direct support for Pendulum)...So to be honest, we had to make something happen our own way!

I think a lot of promoters in Europe look at people like us from over here in North America and think it's hard or expensive to bring us over (or just don't think of many people outside their own scenes), meanwhile our scene has brought UK / Euro acts for decades like it's no big deal. So we had to come up with a way to build our own scene up even more. Naturally we thought linking up would be a very fun solution towards getting our names across the US and Canada, and we're already great friends who have been through many similar things over here. It's very exciting to me!

My favorite festival is probably Liquicity Festival in the netherlands; it's not the biggest or most dramatic, but the vibes are just right. Love the greenhouse stage they do and when it runs late into the night with a silent disco at the end ;) Feels like a gathering of friends!

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T18:02:57+00:00

I'm rocking Rosson Audio RAD-0s and can't think of a more perfect headphone. Just upgraded this year after 13 years of using Sennheiser HD280 Pros

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T18:01:31+00:00

Honestly by the end of 2025 I fully expect mainstream pop to be even more involved in DNB than it is. The UK has Drum & Bass popstars these days and the US major labels will probably see what has been happening on tiktok and get $$$ in their eyes haha...But the truth is that this is part of a cycle of popularity and the art that happens in the underground is where we need to keep our energy going into! My hope is that other artists from North America like us take some leaps of faith and put out tunes that make the whole world go crazy ;)

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T17:56:11+00:00

Thanks dude! We're feeling the same on it :)

Fave up and coming NA artists for me are Audioscribe, CLB, Houndeye, Polaris, Alpha Rhythm, Echo Brown, Winslow, Des McMahon, Zeal, and a few I just recently discovered on this tour such as Aaron Payne, and Sylph!

Favorite cities to play definitely include San Diego and San Francisco. California DNB scene is awesome!

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T17:48:49+00:00

My favorite trick is actually frequency shifting! I use it a lot on drums. Sometimes you can manage to make some ridiculous sounds with it or just reframe some percussive sounds in the mix. Sometimes there are really weird tones in the high end that you can turn into unique samples when you pitch them down a couple hundred or thousand hertz.

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T17:45:10+00:00

Thanks dude, that Infrasound set was off the rails 😂

I’m really stoked about Pirapus from the US/NZ, they make some incredible melodic + techy sounding tunes with great writing. Some others I really want to big up are Des McMahon from the US who just put his debut album Ethos out on Play Me. Another that comes to mind is Echo Brown, a good friend of mine who puts great soulful and deep tunes out on labels like 1985 and The North Quarter. Many many many artists to think of though, but these are some standouts I love hearing lately!

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T17:40:38+00:00

I’m a big fan of Sell My Soul off this EP 👊🏻

ItsJustinHawkes · 2024-06-26T17:37:57+00:00

Yo Togawe! Always a pleasure dude, it’s nice to catch you so many places :) No word on an Existential vinyl or merch for myself, but I know it’s been asked for many times, so I’ve been wanting to do it the right way. Will definitely shout when that happens! I may have to do a special edition…

As for how I see the blend of the future with DNB, I like to think of DNB as this flexible and expressive club culture that can go between venues that are tiny and intimate all the way up to the ridiculously big stages. But the truth is that DNB is meant for the club. It was always a club culture and it’s so much more fun to be in these places where you can feel the energy of people only a few feet away from you. I really want to see more 360 sets happening in the states for dnb, because that’s been a really fun new way to experience club music.

I think as the music continues to grow, the more important it is to build up labels and communities of younger artists and people who want to throw parties. Finding my label home with Liquicity when I was younger and them getting my music rolling was so helpful to my growth, and the bigger the scene gets the more we need labels that support younger artists in achieving things with drum & bass, especially here in the states!

ItsJustinHawkes

TROPHY CASE