ben hemsley


At the same time, that openness carries risk. When everything feeds into the process, the boun- dary between clarity and overload becomes thin. There have been periods where the external pace continued while the internal one resisted, creating a disconnect that could not be resolved throu- gh productivity alone. Choosing not to force that alignment be- came a defining decision.


“I’d like to think I always stay real and true to who I am, and I think people can recognize that. Even on social media, you can see who’s full of shit and who isn’t. I’ll always speak my mind and say how I really feel about things. My mental health hasn’t been in the best place for the last three years, so I didn’t want to just put music out and force something for the sake of it. I needed it to be right. That’s why I’m now in a place where I’m about to relea- se loads of music and give fans what they deserve, not just so- mething rushed that isn’t true to who I am.”


That refusal to force output in- troduces a different kind of pa- cing. It shifts the focus away from constant presence toward selective release, where timing becomes part of the creative de- cision rather than a response to demand. The result is a body of work that feels less reactive and more aligned, even if it arrives in bursts rather than in steady increments. In a landscape that rewards visibility, that restraint becomes a form of control.


His sound reflects that same openness. It moves through re- ferences without settling into a fixed position, drawing from rave structures, melodic frameworks, and club energy without commi- tting to a single lane. The identity emerges not from genre but from selection, from the way elements are combined and filtered throu- gh his own instinct. What re- mains consistent is not the style, but the intention behind it.


“There isn’t really any one way I could define my musical identity. I love all genres, and I think that


comes through in my sets, the music I release, and especially what I’m about to put out. In ter- ms of sonics, there’s this sound I’ve used in a lot of my records that I honestly can’t take credit for, but it’s kind of become part of my identity. I first came across it through listening to Hi-Ga- te’s Sunshine Remix. I was mes- sing around with a synthesizer one day and stumbled across it by accident. It was the type of sound I’d always been looking for. Paul Masterson is a genius. That sound, to me, feels Balea- ric. That’s why I use it so much in tracks that are built for Ibiza, or inspired by my love for the island.”


Accident plays a role within that process that cannot be repli- cated deliberately. Certain ele- ments surface without being planned, revealing themselves as central only after they have been repeated and recognized. That unpredictability keeps the work from becoming overly enginee- red, allowing moments of disco- very to remain part of the struc- ture. Even meaning can arrive retrospectively, attaching itself to something that was initially instinctive.


“Weirdly, the Spanish lyric in Era- se Me translates to: ‘Everything started with a song, you made your way into my heart.’ I didn’t even know that at the time, but it makes sense now.”


That balance between instinct and structure is rooted in some- thing earlier. Growing up in the North East placed him within a specific musical environment, one shaped by community, re- petition, and a shared unders- tanding of how energy moves through a room. That context continues to inform how he approaches both production and performance, even as the scale of those environments changes.


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