WELCOME TO SYNTAX.

Early in my career as a music journalist, I regularly wrote reviews for records beyond the remit of my daily listening habits—collections of guttural noise from obscure Norwegian metal outfits; high-altitude experiments in sound and space from the bowels of Berlin’s avant-garde; and challenging, long form improvisational studies that necessitated an open ear and mind. 

Almost a decade later, as I release my own music and simultaneously observe (and appraise) its evolution from the ivory tower of the critic’s chair, I question whether our appetite and curiosity for intentional consumption and challenging ideas—my own included—has dwindled. We live in an era of cultural flattening, where algorithmic feeds prioritize immediate legibility over structural depth. Are we losing our capacity for patient, critical listening beyond the content mill?

Syntax is my attempt to inject more exploration into the club space by approaching electronic music not just as functional tools for DJs, but as part of a longer historical continuum of sound art. The common thread is not one style: it’s an examination of ambient and electroacoustic music’s hidden grammar, spatial logic and processes reapplied to a dance floor framework. 

This isn't a new idea; it's a forgotten discipline. Early electronic pioneers like Steve Reich formed the foundations for process and repetition, transforming raw, human source material into immersive rhythmic abstraction. His contemporaries like Pauline Oliveros (who coined the phrase “deep listening”) and Eliane Radigue, the patron saints of patience, continued and expanded upon his commitment to subtlety, texture and space. Any producer making loop-based techno today owes a debt to these composers, who proved that you don't need a drum machine to make rhythm; you just need a sound source, a loop and a slight shift in time—a rearrangement of the syntax.

SYN001 began as an investigation into how I could fuse my affinity for techno with my appreciation for sound art and minimalism. I took recordings from Swiss electroacoustic composer Alexandra Bellon as a jumping off point, using her unique palette of digital and acoustic instruments as the connective tissue between each track, captivated as I am by her disorienting, almost architectural sense of space.

Syntax will map the wider ecosystem to which Bellon belongs, drawing a direct line from spatial ambient meditations straight through 3AM psychedelic peak time. As the culture accelerates, my aim is to curate thoughtful work as an antidote to the noise of the algorithmic feed, and to publish artist interviews, discourse and accompanying playlists that trace the musical DNA of each release.

I am grateful to Alexandra Bellon for her permission to use her pieces and the friendship that stemmed from my appreciation for her work.

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