Opening the doors with 'Elevate' by Sub Focus and Sota says plenty about this festival selection's ambitions: Nick Douwma, the Guildford producer who entered RAM Records' orbit in 2003 after one of his demos landed in Andy C's hands, closed 2024 as Beatport's number one drum & bass artist. He is the biggest name of the 28, yet not the one carrying the most collective weight.
That honour goes to Critical Music, the label Kasra Mowlavi founded in London in 2002, which places four cuts here, more than anyone else: Enei signs 'Stoned' solo and 'Kerosene' with QZB, while Waeys shows up with 'Next Record' and alongside Kasra himself on 'Rear View Mirror'. A festival-minded chart leaning this hard on the genre's most technical, least complacent wing is quite a statement of intent.
The old guard holds up entire stretches too:
- Break ('So Right', on his own Symmetry Recordings) and Breakage ('Dread', Digital Soundboy), two rolling benchmarks competing in restraint here.
- DJ Die with 'Slingshot' on his own Gutterfunk, three and a half minutes without an ounce of fat.
- Serum, rewriting 'Wave Riders' as a VIP for Souped Up, one of the few cuts that drift away from the standard tempo.
The jump up flank answers with Macky Gee, with Majistrate's 'Step Up 2026' and with Fatman D and Bou on 'No Beg', the shortest cut of the lot. And amid all that artillery sits the crowd-scale single: 'Once In A Lifetime' by Dimension with bbyclose, a Brit-nominated vocalist, released in late March and unashamedly built for the main stage. With Enei, Waeys and ROVA (NZ) each appearing twice, the final picture is less a catalogue of rival labels than a first-choice lineup: every name brings its speciality, and almost all of them deliver it locked at 87.
Sources: Wikipedia · Critical Music · Drum & Bass UK
