The Phase 2 announcement brings even more heavyweight talent into the mix. Drum & Bass powerhouses Netsky, Friction, K Motionz, Turno, Clipz and Serum join the bill, alongside rising stars A Little Sound, Sota, Kleu, Katalyst and Kalia. Flava D brings the bassline energy, while the electrifying DRS Live adds a special touch to an already stacked lineup. With over 30 more acts locked in, the vibes are guaranteed to be next level.

They join an already monumental lineup featuring Andy C, Hedex, Bou & Wilkinson, and Knife Party, Pendulum’s legendary side project. Expect hard-hitting sets from Joey Valence & , Caspa & Rusko, and jungle favourites 4am Kru, while the one and only Flowdan delivers his unmistakable lyrical fire.

Renowned stage hosts UKF, Fantazia, Fabric Live, and Breakin Science are curating immersive experiences that bring together the biggest names in bass music with the freshest breakthrough talent. From drum & bass and jungle to dubstep and hip hop, each stage will have its own distinct energy, ensuring an unforgettable journey through underground sounds.

After last year’s sold-out debut, Tribes Unite 2025 is levelling up with more stages, more artists, and an even bigger fusion of live and DJ performances. This isn’t just a festival—it’s a movement, uniting music lovers from all corners of the scene in one epic celebration.

PRICE INCREASE INCOMING!

Final £52.50 Second Release tickets are selling fast—once they’re gone, prices rise to £57.00 Third Release at 6:00 pm GMT on Wednesday, 19th February (unless they sell out sooner).

With Early Bird and First Release tickets already snapped up in record time, don’t wait—secure yours NOW before the next price jump! www.tribes-unite.com

The post Tribes Unite 2025 Unleashes Huge Phase 2 Lineup – Final Tickets Selling Fast! appeared first on Data Transmission.

Swindle

The London producer’s second foray into LP territory will also be somewhat of a milestone for Elijah & Skilliam‘s label, marking Butterz’s first album release.

Said to be inspired by Swindle’s globetrotting touring schedule, Peace, Love & Music includes a host of international guest appearances, including L.A.’s Ash Riser (stream below), Amsterdam’s Guerilla Speakerz and Nonku Phiri of South Africa. Plus they’ll be some slightly more familiar faces, such as JME, Terri Walker and Flowdan, coupled with Swindle’s familiar jazzy, left-of-centre experiments developed through his work for Brownswood and Deep Medi.

Peace, Love & Music is available for pre-order here, and you can catch Swindle back on the road in August. Tracklist below.

Tracklist:

01. Gotta Do (Intro)
02. London To LA Ft. Ash Riser (LA)
03. Transkit – Yea Yea
04. Denver Ft. Submission @ Cervantes (Denver, CO)
05. Transkit: Walk N Skank Radio
06. Global Dance Ft. Flowdan & Mungo’s Hifi (Glasgow)
07. Find You Ft. Nonku Phiri (South Africa)
08. Black Bird Ft. Joel Culpepper
09. Malasimbo Ft. Hilarius Dauag (Philippines)
10. Shanghai (China)
11. Tokyo (Japan)
12. Transkit – Loving Ft. Terri Walker & Joel Culpepper
13. Elevator Ft. TC
14. Smoke Break Ft. Guerilla Speakerz (Amsterdam)
15. Mad Ting Ft. JME (London)
16. Sing Like You’re Winning Ft. Jay Wilcox & Terri Walker (Outro)

The post Swindle Preps New Album for Butterz appeared first on Data Transmission.

Label:

It’s been 6 years since Kevin ‘The Bug’ Martin’s last incarnation under his most lauded moniker. That record, London Zoo, set a genre benchmark and placed its flag firmly in the ground, claiming the last disparate shards of the splintering London dubstep sound as its own, blasting down the genres played out cliché’s and returning the capital’s bass music heritage to its roots – punishingly heavy dub centric, West Indian music combined with a British, ‘fuck you’ punk rock heritage and futurist urban decay sensibilities.

Since that record was released, Martin was busy with his ‘Lover’s Rock’ project King Midas Sound (KMS). A similarly experimental yet more laid back affair that allowed his powerful productions space to breath, centring them on his co-conspirators Roger Robinson and Kiki Hitomi rather than his own militant beats.

His third outing as The Bug – Angels & Devils – comes in a historically deserved wave of hype. Released on the on fire Ninja Tune, the record plays out as a game of two halves. A slightly more subdued, atmospheric, bass heavy yet comparatively gentle beginning, that is followed by explosive, off the bench, second-half substitutions that turns the record into the cacophony of punishing vibes we all want and expect from the ferociously fiery producer.

However, with the exception of the opening six numbers, which have more in common with Martin’s KMS project than it does The Bug – with the exception of the odd 3-3-2 dancehall riddim – Angels and Devils doesn’t really offer much in terms of progression on his original template that was birthed on his first offering, Pressure, and then subsequently honed, and then basically perfected on London Zoo.

One of the main reasons London Zoo worked so well was because of how immediate and taunt it was. It was streamlined and explosive, and despite the fact each tune was basically a blisteringly brutal stand-alone offering, Martin’s style was so unique and exploratory that that didn’t matter.

Therefore, it is surprising he has coughed up the KMS pseudo-trip hop openings of this album (the titular Angels)- which are nice – yet at points plodding – heavy slow-burners that utilise their respective vocalists (Liz Wood, Copeland, Miss Red and a surprisingly boring Gonjasufi) sparingly but well enough – and combined it with The Bug dancehall at the end (the Devils). Maybe he wanted to make an actual album for The Bug rather than another sick as fuck collection of singles and tracks?

What’s most surprising however is that the best of the vocal cuts do not come from frequent collaborator Flowdan, who has three tracks to dominate on the spoken word count. His lyrics come across as clichédly dark and insipid – as evidenced on the minimal and ominously dirty ‘Fat Mac’ – and at points watery, uninspired and anaemic – on the otherwise dancefloor destroying ‘The One’.  He manages to redeem himself somewhat on the previously released ‘Dirty’ where his themes and delivery are much more assured and well-executed, with his esoteric, enthused personality clearly more on show.

The stand out vocal plaudits have to go out to Roll Deep’s Manga whose up and down, brilliantly erratic delivery on the beefy, dubwise grime number of ‘Function’ fits the hard, dank, midi-horn beat absolutely perfectly. He is hyper, paranoid sounding and agitatedly aggressive, in short he is sick. Props also have to go out to MC Ride, the Sacramento based MC of the Death Grips, who is a brave man to feature on such a UK centric record. His rapid fire, double time grimey delivery perfectly fits and compliments possibly the most out there and progressive beat on the album, ‘Fuck a Bitch’, a truly explosive number that shows The Bug at the top of his game.  Warrior Queen’s contribution on ‘Fuck You’ is workman like, but still works well in conjunction with the really nice industrial tinged beat.

All things said, Angels & Devils is nice, its beats are uniformly good, with a couple of excellent offerings, and the vocal performances of Manga and MC Ride are worth the admission price alone, but if you want a true taste of what The Bug is all about, your best sticking with London Zoo and Pressure.

Words: Al Kennedy

The post The Bug – Angels and Devils appeared first on Data Transmission.

I was curious to find out his ultimate intention when it came to putting the album together. Did he have a set plan or goal in mind in terms of sound or otherwise? “Not really. When I sat down and thought about it, especially as we got towards the end stages, all I really wanted from putting this album out there was for people to listen to it and go ‘that’s good underground dance music.’ I tried to be better than what I’d done previously and took my time on each track. I wanted to have the production levels and detailing so if you’re traveling around you can listen to it in your headphones and find it interesting. I think it also has a theme of well produced music that people will want to play out. Ultimately I wanted it to sound better than anything I’d made before production wise. I put more effort into each track, whether anyone else can hear that remains to be seen. I know I did and I can, personally, hear the improvements I’ve made. I’m still a little bit far off from where I want to be but I put a lot of effort in.” Repeated listens leaves you in no doubt that To Have & Have Not is the sound of a producer, highly revered in underground circles, at the top of his game and has brought some similarly talented friends along for the ride. 

The significance of working with Goldie on The Prayer is something you can hear fills him with pride, and rightly so. “I’ve been mates with Goldie for years. To sit in the studio and write a tune with him meant more to me than anything. He’s not written tunes or done collaborations with many people. That let me know how much he thinks of me to even agree to do it, and for me it was like ‘Fuck! I’m writing a tune with Goldie!’ you know? When I used to travel to London from Dorset to go to Metalheadz nights I never would’ve imagined myself in the position where I’m in the studio with him writing tunes for three days.” I mention that it’s one thing for him to cross of his producer bucket list. Laughing, he continues; “Yeah, and if I never do it again I know that the one I did do with him was on my album!” Despite the success of the collaboration, it all could’ve been very different after Goldie was struck down with food poisoning after the first day. Knowing he didn’t want to let the side down he was back in the studio the next afternoon and the entire third day with Jubei and Heist making sure The Prayer was finished. The resulting track is a cut you could place anywhere in Metalheadz’s musical timeline, straddling new school production values with old school styling, swamping you in menacing bass weight and rattling drum work. “I was talking to him on the phone about it and said I want to do something really fucking dark. I didn’t wanna go in there and write something really deep because there were options to make various different things. I wanted it to sound like something me and him would do, that was the most important thing. I feel that it kind of does.” 

From emerging onto the scene alongside Breakage in 2006, with detours via labels such as Ingredients and Critical, to being a full on Metalhead with his first album under his belt in 2013, it’s been a hell of a journey for the man they call Jubei. One solitary skit makes it onto To Have & Have Not. It’s the voice of a young woman explaining how being from the middle of nowhere meant they had to make their own parties and that “all the boys had decks, they all wanted to be drum & bass DJ’s.” For such an interesting interlude I had to ask how what she talks about in those 20 seconds resonates with Jubei as a person. “I spent a few years growing up in the countryside so when I heard it I thought ‘Wow, that’s exactly how my introduction to the music was like.’ Me and my mate Will used to hang around his house, wait for his older brother to go out, go in his room and mix really really badly!” he laughs. 

Now he’s become that DJ, and producer, he’s always wanted and pretty much knew he was going to be. Proof that no matter where you’re from, hard work means that you can definitely have more than have none at all. 

Jubei’s debut album To Have & Have Not is out now on Metalheadz. Check it out below.

The post Jubei: Saying Something appeared first on Data Transmission.

Patience; stated to be some sort of a virtue with good things coming to those who wait for them. Ironically it’s also the name of one of Jubei’s biggest and most well known productions. Even more ironically, patience is a trait that many of Paul Ager’s fans and peers within the drum & bass scene have had to exhibit in the time leading up to the long awaited release of his debut full length opus, To Have & Have Not. 

A project that had been over two years in the making, album buzz is undoubtedly a great tool for a producer to utilise when the timing is right. Saying that though, the life of such buzz only lasts for so long before people get bored of waiting or, even worse still, no longer begin to care anymore. It does and has happened in the past. Not that any of this was a secret to him in the creation process of To Have & Have Not. ” I was worried about it taking too long because people are quite fickle and they tend to forget and move on. When you’re not there it then creates space for someone to fill and I was worried that the heat might go onto them or that I wouldn’t be as current as people releasing big tunes.” 

It must be a tough line for a producer to draw, especially one with a talent for crafting and building his music in its purest, darkest and quiet often most untainted form. Rush it and end up with a project that doesn’t quite live up to its hype, potential and expectation? Or wait too long and end up with an overcooked product that people may acknowledge but not in the way you’d probably want them to? Jubei is nothing if very frank in his admittance that whilst the wait might have been frustrating, not only for us but in particular for him, the payoff would eventually be worth it in the end. “I’m glad it took longer than it did because I wouldn’t have been as happy with it as I am now. Certain tracks didn’t come about until the very last minute. Prime example; the track with Goldie (The Prayer), the track I did with Marcus (Tip The Scales) and Rufige 11, which was the last track I made to make it onto the album. Pushing it back did benefit me and it’s definitely a better album because of it.” Having the backing and experience of one of D&B’s most legendary labels and label bosses helped a lot too. Metalheadz has never sacrificed quality over quantity. That’s why it was and still is the force it is today, nearly 20 years down the line. “That’s the benefit of working with someone like Goldie and Metalheadz. Everybody’s got to be happy. He would never force you to put something out just to fill the shelves.” 

Taking himself away from the bustling utopia of London to Newcastle was another beneficial factor that helped to play a huge part in getting his LP completed. After finding himself in limbo housing wise for a few weeks, Paul relocated back up north while waiting for a new place in the big smoke. But after reassessing his situation he decided to stay. Now permanently based in the North East, Jubei says being detached the way he was worked massively in his favour. With his own purpose built studio in place, the building of which caused more musical delay, it was time to knuckle down and get his eagerly anticipated creation back on track and ready for launch. “There’s was no distractions for me here. I’d wake up Monday to Thursday, do 10-12 hours a day in the studio finishing stuff, making myself do proper work hours you know? Whereas if I was still in London I’d be living with other people, I’d get people coming in and out of my room or calling me up to go to the pub!” He does go on to inform me that some of those ‘other people’ he would’ve been living with include the likes of dBridge and Rockwell. It makes you think what a household that would be like and what effect, positive or otherwise, it may have had on the music itself. Having decided against the move I guess we’ll really never know.  

Despite opting out of living with his fellow production peers, dBridge does feature on To Have & Have Not. As one of the numerous guests spread amongst its 14 tracks, he adds his breathy falsetto style vocal to These Things. It’s an album bearing all the hallmarks of Jubei’s signature sound that have been instrumental in propelling him to Metalheadz seniority as an artist. It is in equal measure brooding, atmospheric and aurally cinematic. There are no unnecessary bells and whistles when it comes to the music, the production being clinical without being too clean. It’s raw yet still unmistakably Jubei sounding. It traverses tempos. From the Grime influenced opening of The Moment, accompanied by the measured lyricism of Flowdan, who had previously terrified listeners on Say Nothing, via dubstep tracks such Visions with J:Kenzo to its various 170 offerings. The 2 step groove of Paloma, the industrial chill of Block Code or State Of The Art, blessed with the precise rhymes of longtime friend SP:MC. 

Continued on page 2

The post Jubei: Saying Something appeared first on Data Transmission.

I was curious to find out his ultimate intention when it came to putting the album together. Did he have a set plan or goal in mind in terms of sound or otherwise? “Not really. When I sat down and thought about it, especially as we got towards the end stages, all I really wanted from putting this album out there was for people to listen to it and go ‘that’s good underground dance music.’ I tried to be better than what I’d done previously and took my time on each track. I wanted to have the production levels and detailing so if you’re traveling around you can listen to it in your headphones and find it interesting. I think it also has a theme of well produced music that people will want to play out. Ultimately I wanted it to sound better than anything I’d made before production wise. I put more effort into each track, whether anyone else can hear that remains to be seen. I know I did and I can, personally, hear the improvements I’ve made. I’m still a little bit far off from where I want to be but I put a lot of effort in.” Repeated listens leaves you in no doubt that To Have & Have Not is the sound of a producer, highly revered in underground circles, at the top of his game and has brought some similarly talented friends along for the ride. 

The significance of working with Goldie on The Prayer is something you can hear fills him with pride, and rightly so. “I’ve been mates with Goldie for years. To sit in the studio and write a tune with him meant more to me than anything. He’s not written tunes or done collaborations with many people. That let me know how much he thinks of me to even agree to do it, and for me it was like ‘Fuck! I’m writing a tune with Goldie!’ you know? When I used to travel to London from Dorset to go to Metalheadz nights I never would’ve imagined myself in the position where I’m in the studio with him writing tunes for three days.” I mention that it’s one thing for him to cross of his producer bucket list. Laughing, he continues; “Yeah, and if I never do it again I know that the one I did do with him was on my album!” Despite the success of the collaboration, it all could’ve been very different after Goldie was struck down with food poisoning after the first day. Knowing he didn’t want to let the side down he was back in the studio the next afternoon and the entire third day with Jubei and Heist making sure The Prayer was finished. The resulting track is a cut you could place anywhere in Metalheadz’s musical timeline, straddling new school production values with old school styling, swamping you in menacing bass weight and rattling drum work. “I was talking to him on the phone about it and said I want to do something really fucking dark. I didn’t wanna go in there and write something really deep because there were options to make various different things. I wanted it to sound like something me and him would do, that was the most important thing. I feel that it kind of does.” 

From emerging onto the scene alongside Breakage in 2006, with detours via labels such as Ingredients and Critical, to being a full on Metalhead with his first album under his belt in 2013, it’s been a hell of a journey for the man they call Jubei. One solitary skit makes it onto To Have & Have Not. It’s the voice of a young woman explaining how being from the middle of nowhere meant they had to make their own parties and that “all the boys had decks, they all wanted to be drum & bass DJ’s.” For such an interesting interlude I had to ask how what she talks about in those 20 seconds resonates with Jubei as a person. “I spent a few years growing up in the countryside so when I heard it I thought ‘Wow, that’s exactly how my introduction to the music was like.’ Me and my mate Will used to hang around his house, wait for his older brother to go out, go in his room and mix really really badly!” he laughs. 

Now he’s become that DJ, and producer, he’s always wanted and pretty much knew he was going to be. Proof that no matter where you’re from, hard work means that you can definitely have more than have none at all. 

Jubei’s debut album To Have & Have Not is out now on Metalheadz. Check it out below.

The post Jubei: Saying Something appeared first on Data Transmission.

Patience; stated to be some sort of a virtue with good things coming to those who wait for them. Ironically it’s also the name of one of Jubei’s biggest and most well known productions. Even more ironically, patience is a trait that many of Paul Ager’s fans and peers within the drum & bass scene have had to exhibit in the time leading up to the long awaited release of his debut full length opus, To Have & Have Not. 

A project that had been over two years in the making, album buzz is undoubtedly a great tool for a producer to utilise when the timing is right. Saying that though, the life of such buzz only lasts for so long before people get bored of waiting or, even worse still, no longer begin to care anymore. It does and has happened in the past. Not that any of this was a secret to him in the creation process of To Have & Have Not. ” I was worried about it taking too long because people are quite fickle and they tend to forget and move on. When you’re not there it then creates space for someone to fill and I was worried that the heat might go onto them or that I wouldn’t be as current as people releasing big tunes.” 

It must be a tough line for a producer to draw, especially one with a talent for crafting and building his music in its purest, darkest and quiet often most untainted form. Rush it and end up with a project that doesn’t quite live up to its hype, potential and expectation? Or wait too long and end up with an overcooked product that people may acknowledge but not in the way you’d probably want them to? Jubei is nothing if very frank in his admittance that whilst the wait might have been frustrating, not only for us but in particular for him, the payoff would eventually be worth it in the end. “I’m glad it took longer than it did because I wouldn’t have been as happy with it as I am now. Certain tracks didn’t come about until the very last minute. Prime example; the track with Goldie (The Prayer), the track I did with Marcus (Tip The Scales) and Rufige 11, which was the last track I made to make it onto the album. Pushing it back did benefit me and it’s definitely a better album because of it.” Having the backing and experience of one of D&B’s most legendary labels and label bosses helped a lot too. Metalheadz has never sacrificed quality over quantity. That’s why it was and still is the force it is today, nearly 20 years down the line. “That’s the benefit of working with someone like Goldie and Metalheadz. Everybody’s got to be happy. He would never force you to put something out just to fill the shelves.” 

Taking himself away from the bustling utopia of London to Newcastle was another beneficial factor that helped to play a huge part in getting his LP completed. After finding himself in limbo housing wise for a few weeks, Paul relocated back up north while waiting for a new place in the big smoke. But after reassessing his situation he decided to stay. Now permanently based in the North East, Jubei says being detached the way he was worked massively in his favour. With his own purpose built studio in place, the building of which caused more musical delay, it was time to knuckle down and get his eagerly anticipated creation back on track and ready for launch. “There’s was no distractions for me here. I’d wake up Monday to Thursday, do 10-12 hours a day in the studio finishing stuff, making myself do proper work hours you know? Whereas if I was still in London I’d be living with other people, I’d get people coming in and out of my room or calling me up to go to the pub!” He does go on to inform me that some of those ‘other people’ he would’ve been living with include the likes of dBridge and Rockwell. It makes you think what a household that would be like and what effect, positive or otherwise, it may have had on the music itself. Having decided against the move I guess we’ll really never know.  

Despite opting out of living with his fellow production peers, dBridge does feature on To Have & Have Not. As one of the numerous guests spread amongst its 14 tracks, he adds his breathy falsetto style vocal to These Things. It’s an album bearing all the hallmarks of Jubei’s signature sound that have been instrumental in propelling him to Metalheadz seniority as an artist. It is in equal measure brooding, atmospheric and aurally cinematic. There are no unnecessary bells and whistles when it comes to the music, the production being clinical without being too clean. It’s raw yet still unmistakably Jubei sounding. It traverses tempos. From the Grime influenced opening of The Moment, accompanied by the measured lyricism of Flowdan, who had previously terrified listeners on Say Nothing, via dubstep tracks such Visions with J:Kenzo to its various 170 offerings. The 2 step groove of Paloma, the industrial chill of Block Code or State Of The Art, blessed with the precise rhymes of longtime friend SP:MC. 

Continued on page 2

The post Jubei: Saying Something appeared first on Data Transmission.

March the 30th hails the return of the illustrious Squarepusher and the latest incarnation of his innovative live AV show ‘Ufabulum’ supported by an eclectic line-up of guest artists sure to get the legendary Roundhouse pulsating.  The live show follows the release of the same titled album on the seminal Warp Records last year. Entirely programmed by Squarepusher himself the phantasmagoric blitzkrieg awaiting in a venue as coolly iconic as the Roundhouse coupled with with a stellar undercard of The Bug and Factory Floor is certainly worth getting excited about and not to be missed. For more information or tickets check out www.squarepusher.net

The post Squarepusher To Headline London’s Roundhouse appeared first on Data Transmission.