Futureproofing #34: Joker's Comeback Comeback

The Bristol dubstep legend talks about taking years to finish tracks, his career in mastering, and about that "purple sound."

Edited by Tom Gledhill

Two years ago, Joker released “Juggernaut,” his first new material since 2018. For a certain kind of dubstep head (me included, along with my editor Tom, who reviewed it), it was the return of a legend. He made good on the promise of his high-profile 2023 collaboration with Skrillex with a new EP that lightly played on past glories without being nostalgic. It was just Joker doing what Joker does best: incredibly heavy dubstep with a mischievous melodic touch. Those tracks were actually seven years old by the time they surfaced, which explains why they sounded like a bridge from the past into the future—because they were. Now, after 20-month break, Joker returns with a new single “Maelstrom,” a single that balances outright obnoxious heft against the squiggly, melodic signature of his oldest, now-classic music.

Though it also dates back many years—as I found out, an average Joker tune might gestate for close to a decade before it’s finished—”Maelstrom” is perfectly pitched for 2026. If there was ever a time that dubstep could be declared “back,” it’s now, as part of a general free-for-all. We’re in a time when a big festival DJ might play drum & bass, dubstep, Jersey club, and trap all in the same set (which, now that I think about it, is itself a throwback to 2012). But the difference now is that mainstream EDM has merged with the underground, and there’s a taste for the maximalist, over-the-top drops that wasn’t necessarily there before. So “Maelstrom” is built with LFO wubs so gnarled up they involuntarily induce stankfaces, and dramatic snare rolls before the drops built for hyping up crowds wearing kandi and shiny clothes. It’s classic Joker, just recalibrated.

It might seem silly to call a single club track a comeback, especially when the artist never stopped making music. But if you were around in 2008, you know what a big deal Joker was. Early tunes like “Psychedelic Runway” and “Purple City” rewired dubstep with bright, neon filaments that evoked Miami Vice as much as they did the cruising, sinuous groove of ‘90s G-funk. No longer was dubstep relegated to smoked-out skunk dungeons and basslines that made your teeth feel like they were falling out, though there was still plenty of weed). All of a sudden dubstep could be funky, catchy, even sexy.

Joker and his fellow Bristolian dubstep heads Gemmy and Guido became known for their “purple” sound, a Prince-ian color concept coined off-handledly by Gemmy’s “Purple Moon.” It eventually became a way to pigeonhole (or copy) artists who didn’t necessarily prescribe to the genre tag, or even view it as a real scene. (Vintage RA article here.) I won’t try to define purple, but I can define the music Joker made that people thought was purple: high-pitched synths doing loop-de-loops, sampled strings creating a canned orchestral flair and drums that hit with a funky, staccato snap. At the centre was a monolithic but textured bass sound—punishing in the subs but crumbly in the midrange, as if someone had poked a hundred little holes in it.

Joker’s incredible (and influential) run of EPs culminated in “Tron,” a track that took forever to finally come out and was rinsed as much as other scene anthems at the time (like “Hyph Mngo” or “Sicko Cell” or basically any other Joy Orbison track). Hearing it was a thrill every time, because of its incredible build-up. “Tron” jumped from funkadelic synths to a beat drop that sounded like God cutting into the earth with a hand saw—deep, rumbling and moving back and forth with hyperactive aplomb. It still sounds incredible today, boasting what is probably the best single bass tone Joker has ever achieved. At least, until “Maelstrom.”

That bass sound has become Joker’s calling card, and part of the reason why his appeal remains wide across generations: the low-end has the head-banging thwack of EDM ragers, and the deep sub mastery of classic Bristol dubstep. It’s tasteful and lowbrow at the same time. A few years ago I introduced a young friend who was just getting into dubstep—the dark, dungeony, growly Youngsta stuff—to tracks like “Psychedelic Runway,” excited to see his reaction. He hated it, and couldn’t understand why this dubstep sounded so chirpy and goofy. But now he loves it, just in time for The Great Joker Revival.

“Tron” and its bassline also became the albatross around Joker’s neck, the track that would haunt his future releases and the one everyone would expect him to recreate. His attempt to redefine himself with a post-”Tron” pop crossover album, after signing to 4AD, kind of fizzled out, just as the dubstep world pivoted towards house anyway. (Fun fact: Joker was one of the first people to work with Jessie Ware. Extra fun fact: you can see a 21 year-old me in the background of their 2011 Boiler Room performance.)

Now Joker seems more comfortable with himself, content to release bangers every few years and let the people come to him. It helps that he’s found his niche as a mixing and mastering engineer, working for labels like Hyperdub and becoming a go-to source of good sound, like a Rashad Becker for the post-dubstep generation. Even if his tracks aren’t defining scenes anymore, his sonic fingerprints are.

As Joker told me in our interview last week, he spends pretty much all his time—when he isn’t sleeping or working out—in his bedroom studio in a Bristol tower block, which he obsessively deconstructs and rearranges in search of the most neutral sound possible. We spoke about why it takes him forever to finish tunes, why he likes mixing and mastering so much, and what it’s like to be a dubstep DJ in 2026.

The last time you released music, it was a few years old, right?

Yeah. Most of my stuff usually is. Sometimes something gets made and put out within the first few years, but I’m always tinkering with stuff for a second.

Why is that?

Usually when something’s being made, in my head I’m sure of how it’s supposed to sound production/sound-wise. Until it meets that bar, it’s just not complete.

So what is the process if you’re working on something for like months, or years?

Months would be great. [laughs] I’ve just written so much stuff throughout the years and during lockdown… man’s got shit to finish rather than making new stuff. It ends up being a mix of improving a track and adding something new. But usually I sit down and write loads and loads of ideas and eventually the good ones come to the surface. The process has also changed over time. In 2009, those songs were coming out within a year or two of being made.

So how long did this new track take?

It’s from… 2020 maybe? It’s not that it takes six years to make a track, but I’ll be working on something for a few days and then I won’t touch it for ages, and then come back, and before you know it’s been six months. And then if I don’t have a lot of pressure to finish the track because all these things are happening, then it’s easy for it to become years. There’s no need to rush anything, because I know what the track is supposed to be like in the end. It’s chill. But maybe ten years is too long. Let me look at my computer. Yeah, I started “Maelstrom” in May 2020.

When you’re working on tracks like this, how do you decide when to go back to it?

It might be between gigs. I’ll play the latest mix out and be like, nah, it’s not there yet. Then go back. I can usually tell in my room before the gig anyways, but sometimes you can hear it out and know that it’s just not it. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t sound good, it doesn’t mean that if it came out five years ago everyone would have hated it. It would have been fine. It’s just particular things, for me.

Are you talking about major elements of the song, or is it more of the mixdown stage?

It could just be between production and mixdown. Sometimes barely anything changes—a track might only change 1% in six years. The whole structure of the song won’t change, but it might go through different sonic takes.

Are there any particular elements in the production or the mixdown stage that you have a lot of trouble getting right, anything that usually holds the song up for you?

It’s actually getting quicker, relatively. The more time goes on and the more I tweak my studio, it gets faster. It’s just harder when I’m working on my own stuff. If someone sends me a track to mix, we’ve usually got it together in a few hours, and then maybe just small tweaks over another day or two. But with my own stuff, it can take more time, being so close to it.

Do you ever ask for help or outside input?

I’ve always got a few friends who we all share stuff with each other and offer input.

Dance music tends to move very fast. Do you worry about being slow or falling behind?

No. I’m definitely aware the world’s moving a lot faster. I just try to be as efficient as I can at being me. And if that means something doesn’t come out then I’m happy still. I’d rather a year of no music for it to be great—in my own opinion, anyway—rather than do stuff for the sake of doing it.

Does making this kind of music like dubstep or dubstep-adjacent music still come naturally to you?

I would say it’s just… 140 bass. My music is dubstep influenced, or like you said, adjacent. But there are so many other things. And grime. But I know this kind of music like the back of my hand. I try to make it more alien and different, because I feel like when you’re comfortable, you’re not pushing as hard as you would otherwise.

So what are you trying to do differently these days?

When I listen to my music from when I first started out as a kid to now, I can still go back to the original songs and pinpoint the different styles that I do. They’re still there. It’s like the Porsche 911. They’re like, “we’re going to make it a little better every year,” but it’s still the same product. So it’s a bit of that, while trying to search for something new at the same time. Not always successful. I think of what I shouldn’t make, and then try to make that, because you can only be yourself. So you’re never going to make something you shouldn’t make, but you can try. Being uncomfortable helps you find something new.

What are the different “styles” of your music?

There’s a moody style, a more colorful style… I can pinpoint tracks from all the way back to 2004 till now and put each one in a box. I’m like, “Fuck, I’ve been playing with this for a second without even noticing.” So I look back and realize that I’m just naturally doing it.

Are you proud of your earlier tracks?

Yeah, I’ve always tried to do as much as I can do at the time. That’s all I can do. So even if I feel differently in the future, I always knew what I was doing back then. I can’t fix anything now anyway.

Looking back at those early days, can you explain how the “purple” sound came to be?

How I felt then and how I feel now is very different. It’s just a feeling, basically. People say, “oh yeah, that track’s that purple.” And I think to myself, “No, that’s not even the purple one.” It means something different to different people. I think it describes an idea that we were playing with, and that a lot of other people who were not connected to us at all were also playing with. I think in the end the label was used for anything that was emotional, grimy, or sexy—or at least melodic, funky. If anyone was making anything like that, it would be called purple. And if not that, then wonky. Remember wonky?

My earliest memories were me and Gemmy talking about it. But even that, me and Gemmy—I sound like me and he sounds like him. You wouldn’t confuse us.

So what did purple mean to you?

It was a vibe that just caught on. But I wasn’t really trying to make it catch on. [laughs]. Then suddenly everything was purple, purple, purple. Even though it was all love, there were points where it was a bit annoying.

Did you feel pressure to keep making music that sounded that way?

I don’t know. That’s the truth. But thinking about it now, I didn’t. So… I don’t think I did. [laughs] Or if I did, I didn’t fall for it. There was a time when it was kicking off, and a lot of people were jumping on that sound. Which was a little weird. I didn’t like it. I didn’t find it flattering. But I can only make the music I make. I can’t be someone else.

The more it kicked off and the more people kind of jumped on it, the more I wanted to try and figure out a different branch. To the point where in recent years, I’ve found older things that I’ve thought, “Ahh, this is cool,” and probably never put it out because it was “purple.” [laughs]

Is that why you kind of moved into a vocal direction for a while, like with the first album?

By the time that album came out, everyone had their own idea of who Joker was. Prior to “Gully Brook Lane” coming out, I was in Kold Harted Krew. We had two CDs, and one of them had a bunch of my productions, and there were a bunch of rap and R&B songs. It never officially came out, but people in the underground knew it. It was called Too Kold For The Hart. And there was another one that was all vocal tracks. But by the time I had my first single out, it was instrumental, and I ended up just dropping instrumentals, so that’s what people knew me for.

When The Vision came, I think the whole world was expecting an album of Purple Cities. And I was like nah. I’m bringing you here now. It probably felt like a shock to some people.

Do you think you’ll make vocal music again?

Honestly, I love working with vocals. The second you get a vocal in a song, 20 more branches open up, it’s like, “We can go here. Or here. Or here.” There are so many more ideas. But I also struggle working with vocals. When we were younger, no one cared. It was like, “Here’s the beat. Sing.” Someone would sing, and it would be fucking sick. Now people are so much stricter about it want it to be this or that. I like to just work on my own. It’s more efficient that way. I don’t need to work with vocalists, but I do want to do more… it’s just not that easy.

I’m really into cameras as well. So I want to be able to shoot videos and have a person in front of the camera, something good to point the camera at.

What do you mean you’re really into cameras?

I had a decent digital camera and I shot the Marching Orders video with me and my friend Pete [Forsaken] with Footsie in it. Then I got really into it, before kind of falling off. Now I’m into the film side, analog film. I’ve got a Super 8 and a Super 16 and I want to shoot some analog music videos.

Do you think you have your own style when it comes to filming stuff?

Well… I like when I point the camera at certain things and it looks nice. [laughs]. I can’t explain what it is, or what particular shot it is. But I can tell when I’m looking through the glass, when it makes me happy. There’s probably inspiration from some movies I’ve seen, but at the moment I’m just having fun. It’s just beginning days, so I’m still figuring it out.

Do you have any other non-musical hobbies or interests?

Riding my bike, which I don’t do much.

Why not?

One: because it’s broken. Two: because I’m doing this too much [gestures to studio gear]. Which definitely ruins my back even more than biking.

Sitting in your studio?

Yeah. And when I get into things, I like to really do them, and riding bikes can get real dangerous. Because I want to do dangerous stuff. There’s been plenty. I’m a tiny bit scared to go and have proper fun. And I’m taking my time fixing the bike because the second it’s fixed then I’ve got to go do some dangerous stuff. [laughs]

You’ve been spending a lot of time in your studio because of your mastering work, right?

Yeah. Mastering, mixing. Even when that’s not happening, I just love fucking around with shit. If I’m not doing something for someone else I’m working on one of my own bits, or writing something up. There’s always something to do.

I’ve talked to a few people who said that you’re amazing at mixing and mastering other people. How did you get into doing that to begin with? It’s a major part of your work now.

My brain likes to figure out problems. And to find tools to use to figure out these problems. I’m already so involved with music, and mixing and mastering is just sorting out problems with music. It was something I always wanted for my own music, anyway—I used to struggle to get the right sound, so I thought the only way to do it was to put in the time and figure it out. And then when I did have the skill, I could offer it as a service to everyone else. I feel like, after a little conversation and back-and-forth, I know exactly what most producers want out of a record. And the more I’m working with other people, the more I’m training up my brain to perfect my own stuff as well.

Why do you think you’re so good at helping people get the sound they want, that they can’t get on their own?

I don’t think I’m “so good” at it. I think I’ve just only done one thing all day, every day, nonstop, where most people don’t have that time. To give you an idea, people at one point often asked me how many times I’ve moved my speakers around that day.

If you look at my room, you can’t see it’s not very pretty. I gave up trying to make it look good, and just turned into a lab. I need to be able to cut things out. I’ve removed a whole wall, and then put it back up. It’s just a playground for science, for figuring things out. And I’ve done that every single day. I’ve been living here for six or seven years, constantly on that vibe. No exaggeration.

How many hours a day do you spend in there?

My whole life. Apart from going to the gym and a few other things, I’m constantly in here. If I’m out and nothing’s going on, all I’m thinking about in that time is moving quick. I could be working on music.

Do you enjoy spending so much time in your studio?

Yes, except… to get the most out of my speakers, I had to build them into a wall, which meant I had to cover my windows. So I’m constantly in a room without natural daylight. I’m like a plant that’s not feeling the sun as much as it needs to. So I need to change that, with a glass wall. Once I do that, I’ll be happier. As long as I get some exercise in the day, it’s good. Apart from fucking around with my camera, I can’t think of much else I want to do right now.

Do you work mostly in the daytime or nighttime?

Unless something’s urgent, my body struggles to kick in until the evening. I do a lot of my work throughout the evening or really late. And then I wake up in the afternoon and it takes me a second to get going in the studio. That’s probably because I don’t have a window. [laughs]

Do you plan out your work days or work nights? How does your workflow work?

If you’re talking mastering and mixing work, then yeah, I have a list of names and what’s been sent in and what needs to be sent out. And then in between that, I’m just, like, fucking with other shit.

How many other people’s records are you working on at any given time?

That’s a hard question, but I can’t remember the time when I wasn’t working on someone’s work.

Were there any records that you were working on that were really hard to get right?

Well, if things are hard to get right, it’s usually because I was fighting with something in my room. Nine times out of ten. A lot of these things are ironed out now, but it’s been a journey. Usually it’s an issue with the setup in the room and the way sound is moving, more than it is an issue with the music itself. If I’m struggling with something, usually there’s something going on between me and my speakers.

But I’m an artist myself. It takes me ten years to finish a song, so if someone needs to go back and forth a thousand times, that seems normal because it takes me so long. And after all, it’s people’s art, it’s emotional and it’s close and sometimes it’s about the smallest thing they want you to feel. So I respect that. And each person’s different.

If you were talking to someone who didn’t know anything about mastering, how would you explain the importance of it?

Well, on the one hand, you don’t really have to do it. You don’t have to mix your music, you don’t have to master it, you don’t have to buy nice speakers. You don’t have to do anything. You could do it all on a laptop with shit headphones and release and have fun. That’s the truth. But, you can also get your music mastered by people, including myself, who can take your record to the place you couldn’t get to yourself, or to a place you didn’t even know it could go.

It’s just through years of messing with audio and equipment and the setup. It’s just not possible to do certain things in other environments without the right equipment, for me anyways. Even with a record that already sounds great, you can put some love into and inject things into it that make it more impressive.

Like what?

The main reason why I’ve gone crazy with my room is because all you want to do is just hear the music. You want to hear just the speaker, with nothing else affecting it. To hear just the speaker means you have to not hear everything else, and that everything is the room itself. If you put a few panels in a room, you’re still hugely hearing the room. So most people don’t want to fully treat their room and go through the time of setting up speakers.

How did you learn all the technical stuff? Because you’re getting pretty technical with the sound of the room and where things should be.

I think the only way to learn is just by going through it. And luckily, music is not dangerous.

When I was riding my bike, learning how to do things, like “What? Take my hands off now? In the middle of the air?” And then when things go wrong in biking, it goes wrong, like, I’m only half built like that, bro. When it goes wrong in music, you just wake up the next day and go again.

So it’s easy for me to sit in here and just read online, test, go, and just push things to the limit, take them back. Exploring everything, breaking it, unbreaking it, listening to things in every possible dimension and version that I can do in the environment that I’m in. Within that, then you start to understand what’s going on.

But if you’re reading online about speakers and rooms and positions, you’re never going to know what it’s like until you put time aside and do it yourself. Fortunately, I had the time and was able to just fuck around all day, every day.

As a producer, when I’m trying to get my things ready and take them to the club, I’m focusing on trying to make my stuff sound good anyway. So I was already doing this process, but with better equipment and better setups, my studio became appealing to other people as well.

You didn’t release music for quite a while, until 2024, and I feel like between 2024 and now it’s been like, “Joker’s back, and he’s making Joker stuff.” Why didn’t you release music for those six years?

Lockdown kicked in and it just gave me more time to work on music and making things sound better. So that eventually it will become easier. Like we were saying earlier, the world moves a lot quicker now. I guess I took last year off to be able to finish more things so I can be more consistent with releasing stuff, so I’m not always chasing my tail trying to figure out what to finish or how to finish them. Having loads of close-to-finished tracks that aren’t ready yet, that doesn’t work.

Where do you see yourself fitting in the dance music scene? Are you part of a scene?

I have no idea. I don’t think it matters. I just try to be nice, make music, play it out, and see what happens.

You’ve been making basically a similar style of music for almost 20 years now. What keeps you interested in it and inspired?

Well, I’m usually not listening to 140 BPM music, so I don’t come across a lot of new stuff in that genre. I listen to a lot of other music. I find myself going everywhere, and if I can find new music I’ve not heard, it’s really exciting to me, especially if it’s not English.

So what kind of stuff are you listening to?

Mmm... My playlist is full of random shit. A lot of it, I don’t even know the names. There’s a lot of old Slavic dance music. Brazilian bits. Frank Sinatra. Movie soundtracks. I like Éric Serra. He did Goldeneye, and Léon: The Professional. And I do still listen to some 140 music, but the farther away, the better.

Do you ever get any noise complaints from having a studio in a tower block?

There’s so much treatment in here, and active bass traps. If I close the door, I can listen to music at any hour in the morning. I have zero complaints, and I’ve asked my neighbors about it too. Never a complaint. There’s enough rock wall in here for probably 20 rooms’ worth. My walls are filled. It’s everywhere, and the sound is dead.

When you first started releasing 12 inches, Bristol had a strong, close-knit community of people doing things. I was around quite a bit then too, and you would just run into producers on the street. Is it the same?

Kind of—sometimes there are music people living here and I didn’t even realize it. But the world is pretty disconnected anyway. We’re just living on our phones.

Do you go out much when you’re not DJing?

Not really, when Molchat Doma came to Bristol, I went to check that out. Or if someone I know comes down, I’ll go out. If anyone from any of my playlists comes to Bristol, I’ll try to go.

But you’re not going to the club every weekend for the sake of it, if you’re not playing.

I only go to things I really want to go to. If there was a club that was put together in a particular way, a bit more adult, if that’s even a thing… then I would go out more. That sounds a bit boring, but…

I know what you mean.

Just a nicer place to go to. Maybe I just need to build this club. I don’t feel like clubs are the sickest environments to be in now. There’s only a few clubs I’ve been to and thought, “This is nice.” And it’s not that all clubs need to be “nice,” because too nice is too nice. But there’s a middle ground.

Here in LA, everything is in illegal warehouses, which is cool in one sense, but I don’t want to go to a remote warehouse every time I go out.

I love the warehouses, and they have certain vibes you can only get there, but sometimes I want to go and chill, sit down and have a drink. I don’t see a lot of spots suitable for that right now.

So, why do you still make 140 dance music at this point in your life? If you’re going out less, what brings you back to this sound?

Well, I do other stuff as well. I found a bunch of 150s and 160s recently that I was like, “we need to put this out.” I love drum & bass, too. You’d struggle to find a genre I don’t like. When I was younger I used to not like things, but then I realized that everyone likes something for a reason, and you can find that reason. It’s easy to just hate on things, but I don’t want to do that. I was like, “hold on, let me just remove myself from it and see things differently.” There’s a lot of music I don’t to listen to at home but when I see it in the environment, I’m like, “That’s fucking sick.”