Photo Credit: @charliealexandermedia
Three years on from our first conversation with Pinks, a lot has changed. Her sound has evolved and she’s launched Feral Frequencies, her own platform for the jungle, hardcore and underground sounds that first made her fall in love with drum and bass.
But perhaps the biggest change has been a more personal one. After feeling the pressure to become more commercial and play the music she thought the industry wanted from her, Pinks has spent the past year stripping that back and rediscovering what made her want to DJ in the first place.
From her latest release ‘Come With Me’ on Motive Hunter and a growing interest in laying down bars, to Feral Frequencies, Boomtown and finding the freedom to make music without watering down her sound, we caught up with Pinks to talk about finding her artistic identity, the state of the underground music scene and what comes next.
We spoke to you 3 years ago. When you look back at that 2023 UKF interview, what do you think’s changed most about Pinks?
It sounds cheesy, I feel like I’ve learned a lot about who I really am, as an artist. When I started out as a DJ, I was always really into the underground sound, and that was mainly what I was known for and what I played.
I feel like at the time I was trying really hard to people please. The sort of pressures that I felt from the industry to be more commercial. I’d finally found a scene where I felt I belonged, then began changing myself to remain accepted within it. I stopped trusting my taste and feared that the authentic version of Pinks wasn’t bookable enough.
Then earlier in the year in January, I went to Rupture. I’ve been there loads of times before. It’s funny because I was doing dry Jan, so I was completely sober. With one of my best friends, Double O was playing some crazy, jungly techno-y stuff. It was like we’d had some spiritual experience. I was sort of like, why, in that moment, why have I abandoned that underground sound that I love so much and that’s always been like a passion of mine?
Do you think that your relationship has changed with traditional D&B from 3 years ago?
Yes and no, but I think the drum and bass genre has changed so much over the last 3 years. It has become more and more mainstream, which is great because more people are listening to it. There’s obviously more shows and opportunities.
I think also, as a DJ, you’re exposed to more parts of the scene, than you would be if you were just a raver, because when I was just a raver, I’d only go to the drum and bass nights that I wanted to spend money on, whereas now I actually hear more music because I’m going to more events, because I’m being booked for more events. For example, I never used to go to neuro raves. Now I sometimes might go to a neuro rave.
You talked about feeling like, who you actually were wasn’t necessarily “right for the scene.” Do you feel like you’re finally making music and creating spaces that reflect who you actually are now?
Yeah, definitely. So with this latest release ‘Come With Me’ which has come out on Motive Hunter, That definitely felt like me making a big splash completely 100% personally from Pinks. I want to make underground music. I mean, it’s quite a dramatic song as well with a way that the drums hit. It’s almost like a scream in it. But yeah, that’s me making it a statement, this is me making underground music and making the music that I want to make without feeling like i’m trying to please, expectations.
So you describe ‘Come With Me’ as the sound of those expectations burning. What were you actually letting go of when you made that track?
Yeah, watering down my sound to fit in. That’s massively what I was letting go of. And also being like, “everything that I make has to sound really melodic.” Don’t get me wrong. If I want to make a weird, angry, grotty song, then I’m going to do it. And people like it.
Do you think jungle is the right place to express that feeling?
Jungle has a rule-breaking nature: taking sounds apart, sampling and reworking them, colliding influences and creating something new outside conventional musical rules.
They’re not as snapped to a grid. Having said that though, there is also the space to do that in drum and bass, and there is also the space to do that in hardcore. There’s the space to be as weird as you want everywhere, I think.
It’s just about letting go of your inhibitions and actually just doing it.
Do you think that there was a moment when you were making ‘Come With Me’ that you were like, “this is what Pinks should sound like”?
Yeah, it was when I got the drums to sound as weird as they do. Because they’ve got an effect on them, right? So they don’t sound like regular drums, they sound weird. The frequencies are pulled out of them. It was when I worked that out, I was like, “ooh”, and that was the moment.
Recently you’ve been laying down bars on Instagram. Is that something you’d like to move into more?
Yeah, so a while back, I came out with a song with my spoken word on it. It’s not really rapping. It actually premiered on UKF. It’s my remix of ‘Her Story’ by Chamber.
It’s always been something that I’ve sort of been interested in doing. I launched Feral Frequencies this year, and at our launch party, Zira Flo was on the lineup. She often does these (instagram) videos where she’s spitting on the street or whatever and she was like, “oh, do you want to do some spoken word on the video?” I definitely have spit bars in private…
I wrote those lyrics, they kind of just came out of me and I was like, “oh, this is actually really cool.” I said to Zira Flo, “I think I’ve got some actual bars”. So hopefully it’s going to be a bit more of a venture for me.
It’s definitely something that I want to explore more. I’m a bit in the dark with it, but I have also spoken to Zira Flo and she said she’d give me a helping hand with any advice and feedback.
You mentioned Feral Frequencies. Where did that idea for the night come from?
So I’d actually had this idea since last year around Summer, I think last summer was when the idea came to me. So I used to throw a multi-genre night at Planet Wax.
That was just like, kind of a fun thing with a friend. It didn’t have an official Instagram for it or anything like that. So that was the first time that I’d dipped my toes into promoting my own night. I’m a founding member of Unorthodox as well, so that’s where I got most of my experience with events from, but it’s my first time doing it, when wasn’t someone else’s thing, you know?
I frequently go to a night in London called NLDC, which is a free dubstep night. That event is so special. What I really liked about that event was that it was appreciating underground dubstep.
It’s an event that attracts a lot of DJs because the lineup curation is always incredible. And I was sort of like, “I’d really love to do something like this, but with that jungle and hardcore drum and bass as well”, That was sort of when the name came to me. . “Feral” is a play on getting feral in the rave, but also about the ferality of the sound of underground DnB, Jungle and Hardcore. I’m also a big fan of alliteration.
Do you think there was something missing from the drum and bass scene that Feral Frequencies provides?
Yeah, I think there’s a few. I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of jungle and hardcore nights. There’s a lot of jungle, drum and bass nights. There’s not a lot of jungle, drum and bass and hardcore nights. It’s not a lot of them, all 3 together.
I never felt like I fit in anywhere until I started raving, a place where I knew that no one was looking at me and I could just be myself and dance. That feeling didn’t come from nowhere. Dance music and rave culture were built by communities who had to create spaces of their own. House and techno emerged from black, queer and Latino communities in cities like Chicago, Detroit and New York, while jungle grew from Black British culture and the UK’s multicultural rave and sound-system scenes. It wasn’t just music, it was unity, freedom, and resistance.
As much as D&B going into the mainstream has brought positives, there’s also become a pressure to make our sound commercial and fit in. Grassroots venues are under threat, the music has gotten very safe and there’s been a huge conversation lately on the scene’s stagnation in sound. So Feral Frequencies is also focussed on community and diversity as much as it’s a space to uplift the underground sound and a place for artists to tear up the dance with some high-energy, weird, scatty tunes.
My aim is to throw events that are accessible in price, if not, free. In today’s economy that can’t always be the case, but I think that’s something that’s missing for sure.
Do you see Feral Frequencies as an extension of Pinks or is it something that exists separately?
I think it’s definitely an extension of Pinks. The first post I did about it was very much from my perspective. It was very much my experience with drum and bass and my experience with raving, and I was sort of talking about how jungle drum and bass raves were the only place that I really felt like I fit in.
The launch at Planet Wax was packed, the bar even had to pause service for a bit due to glass demand, people literally got feral they were banging on the walls at one point! The response confirmed that people wanted the kind of space I had envisioned.
Then I remember I was talking to my mentor Euphonique about it. She was like, “It’s got to come from you now. You know, you set it up like this and it obviously works and people are loving it.” So yeah, it is an extension of me.
You played the Nachliquor stage at Boomtown. What was that like?
That was great! I love that venue. I just, I love the laundry aspect of it and it’s got a massive Berlin vibe. I remember I was sort of talking to someone outside who worked there and so many people walked out being like, “ah, just reminds me of Berlin.”
We sort of combined our vibes, so we had my jungle, drum and bass, hardcore, high energy, dark vibe, and then I also played a lot of Zira Flo’s upcoming music. So it was almost like a Pinks set, but also a bit of a Zira Flo PA, which was really cool. I also love the dark vibe in there, it sort of lends itself to playing underground music, because a lot of underground music is very dark. I just like how I could get rough and ready with it.
It’s been like such a great summer of festivals, could you give me a standout set that you saw from the whole summer?
I saw a really good Origin8a and Propa set in at Botanica Zoo, and also Serum b2b Ratty with Mad P on the mic, Fantasia takeover, Hidden Woods, at Boomtown. That was really sick. I love seeing Serum do a 90’s set. That’s always really cool and really special.
You grew up in Camden, which is predominantly known for rock music. Did that in any way shape your sound at all?
I actually think out of anything it most influenced my attitude. As an artist, because Camden is known for rock, it used to be the punk area of London. So I think that that has sort of had an influence on me artistically, doing what I want to do being a little bit defiant in the way that I do it.
Being around that kind of vibe. I don’t know if it necessarily shaped my sound in one way because a lot of metal has quite heavy drums. So I think that that probably helped influence me liking jungle. Drum and bass has got ties to rock because a lot of the BPMs are quite similar, and the beat pattern is actually quite similar to a lot of rock.
The bug crackle sound on ‘Cockroach’… What is that?
That’s actually a splice sample of a cockroach. But I assume it’s probably not actually a cockroach. If you listen, you can, you can hear cockroaches hissing as well. Apparently they hiss. disgusting news.
So if you could look back at Pinks from 2023, and she could see where you are now, what do you think she would make of it?
I think she’d probably be really happy to see that I am making the music that I want to make, and playing the music that I want to make, and not being penalised for it.
There is still a space for me in the scene that I’m a lot happier making the music that I want to make as well.
Are there any up and coming DJs or artists that you’d like to shine a light on?
So all of the Diversion Audio residents, they’re all individually doing bits. So that’s Tianna Franxx, Jay-Mo, and Randoma. Diversion Audio is headed by Randoma. Diversion audio is focussed on diverse lineups. and cones. Which is obviously so important to see, but also what I love is that it’s Randoma who’s spearheading it and random is cis, white, straight male, and I think there needs to be more people, more cis, white, straight males who are sort of like pushing for diversity in the scene. because it tends to be minority groups.
There’s also this DJ called Jirani. Who I met through dnb family.
He’s an up and coming jungle DJ. He’s just posted a video of a tune that he’d made recently. I just think he’s so talented. I’m really excited to keep watching him grow.
Then also Big Trev. He’s essentially a character, as well as an MC DJ producer. First of all, he makes absolutely incredible music. But also, he does skits and has this whole persona. It’s just really funny and I think it’s really different as well, to see someone who’s combining performance character work with also incredible music and like DJing. He also is specifically backing the underground sound as well. Amazing.
What happens next? What does this new chapter look like from here?
We’ve got more exciting guests planned for our Subtle Radio show, Feral Frequencies w/ Pinks every first Thursday of the month.
Feral Frequencies is having a collaboration event with Phase Records, which is really exciting. Phase Records has been backing underground drum and bass for years now. and I’ve known Gifta for about 6 years. So that’s really exciting. and we’ve got an incredible lineup for that.
Two brands that are headed by women as well, make throwing an underground music event. It’s going to be Planet Wax, which is really exciting.
Feral Frequencies also has a takeover set, which is just going to be myself at the Moon Festival on New Year’s Eve in Bristol.
I’m also playing Bangface, which is exciting.
Then beyond that, I’m in the planning stages at the moment, I’m looking to throw, sort of events that are not just raves. Maybe something to do with fashion or to do with art exhibitions or photography exhibitions, because there’s so many other sides of the scene that I think also deserve their flowers as well.
