Aggressively Beautiful: The nomad spirit that keeps dBridge moving

We start by comparing our impressions of this peculiar country, both Brits who have based ourselves at this crossroads of European commerce and culture. He’s here for Abrupt festival, a series of concerts that take place across the city. The programme is as varied as the venues; Kali Malone played in the cathedral and session supremos Pino Palladino and Blake Mills played in the Bozar fine art centre. In an hour dBridge will DJ at a repurposed police station (Brussels has a lot of cavernous buildings it doesn’t know what to do with).

Belgium’s not the first destination that comes to mind if you’re looking to leave the UK; the bright lights of Brussels are not a siren call for international creatives, who prefer to colonise Berlin or Barcelona. You might wonder why someone whose career was rooted deeply in London and its renowned musical environment would trade it for Antwerp. But when love comes into the equation all becomes clear – Mrs dBridge is Flemish and in 2015 they moved over to be closer to her family. Then in 2023 they embarked on the next adventure, this time to Phuket.

Whilst the world hasn’t yet woken up to the creative capital bubbling away in Belgium’s multilingual microcosm, those in the know are increasingly tuning in to the profusion of projects that make it a hotbed of invention. “It feels like the scene in Belgium has popped off since I left. There’s various things that are now on my radar which weren’t when I lived here.” He mentions a recent collaboration with AliA, local DJ and founder of Artistjok records. Working with other artists has been central to the development of the dBridge sound, an exercise that has delivered varied results, from industrial techno with Forest Drive West to an electronica/classical crossover with Madison Willing – which the pair will perform tomorrow in Bozar.

Are these projects harder now you’re no longer in Europe?

In fact, it’s the opposite: “I’m the most prolific I’ve ever been because I don’t have weekly distractions. Thailand has helped slow me down. I’m not gigging every weekend. In an ideal world I’d rather not DJ, but the economics mean I have to. I was a producer first.” There’s a happy medium to be found in live performances, which force dBridge to play his own music and allow him to experiment with new setups. The thrill of the unknown has been a big motivation: “I like the sense of adventure when people ask what I’m gonna play and I say I don’t know.” 

Restlessness is a common theme in our conversation. “I don’t want to get too stuck in one thing,” he admits – a feeling that pushed him to leave Bad Company (“I was making money and it was going well but I wasn’t enjoying it. It wasn’t the direction I wanted to go.”). This sense of agitation is there in the music as well as IRL. Looking back on his career, “nomad” is a label dBridge keeps returning to. “I’ve moved around so much in my life,” he says – not always under easy circumstances. As a child he was relocated to his aunt and uncle as his home situation in London broke down. “Nomad” isn’t just an interest in new horizons; it also conveys a lack of attachment.

You can hear it in the music. We talk about the first two dBridge albums – The Gemini Principle (2008) and A Love I Can’t Explain (2018) – which explore the limits of drum and bass, pushing into more introspective territory with cinematic synth lines and downtempo ambient influences. The effect is evocative soundscapes that feel profoundly personal, at times disconcerting with haunting vocal samples. These tracks are a far cry from the high energy hits that whipped clubs into a frenzy in the early days.

“Ultimately music is therapy, it’s intended primarily for me.”

I suggest that, paradoxically, this is what makes these solo dBridge records so emotive; it’s a happy outcome of what is a cathartic process. “I vent through my music and follow my mood… I’ve gradually learnt the art of letting go, being able to open up more. I’m lucky I didn’t turn out another way, my past could well have put me on a different course.” Questions about the tougher times are met with careful self-reflection, a genuine effort to explain how dBridge finds expression through music. As he puts it: “My songs are like the soundtrack of my life.”

“Aggressively beautiful” is how he describes the underlying tension that pervades his music – the thread that connects his lived experience to his recorded body of work. It’s a constant that has driven his creative progress and keeps taking listeners in fresh dBridge directions. As if to demonstrate this, the performance with Madison Willing is musically miles away from the set he played the previous night. Madison’s lucid lyrics and piano accompaniment are offset by drum machines, electric and acoustic weaving together with sometimes unpredictable effects. 

At times the beats grow chaotic, as if the sequencers are allowed to spiral to their own time signatures, unfastened from a discernible formula. It’s not uncomfortable, the crowd is down for it, here as listeners rather than dancers. And with yesterday’s conversation fresh in my mind, the disintegrating drum patterns and cascading piano arpeggios seem to make sense. Even if just for this moment, things have fallen into place.

Photography courtesy of ICA and Jonas Reubens.