Hi, Who are you?
Fabio, founder of Generation Liquid.
What’s your ethos?
The ethos of the label is simple really: to bring out good music. There’s no deep rhetoric behind it—just a passion to bring out beautiful music that I like, music that I think is being overlooked. The focus is on music that speaks to personal taste rather than fitting into rigid genres. That’s the long and short of it.
Tell us your origin story.
The label was born from a desire to fill a gap in the market for music that I like, with more depth and substance. I think nowadays, people – especially the younger generation – tend to really like loud, brash or boisterous music, and I wanted to go in the opposite direction, offering something more refined, something hat resonates beyond trends and brings a fresh perspective to listeners.
Where are you based? Tell us about your local scene.
I’m based in South London, brought up in Brixton. At the moment, it’s very vibrant with a lot of young people living here. Brixton has always been good for nightlife, but now it’s thriving. I think it’s almost on Hoxton / Camden / West End levels. Brixton has been through a lot over the years and I’m proud to see the scene as it is now. To be fair, gentrification has got its upsides.
Does the label have a specific sound or vibe?
No, I really want to get away from that, because I think there’s too much tribalism and too much pigeonholing within music: for me, that’s one of the big issues with music at the moment. Generation Liquid is all about breaking free from those rigid categories. People might think, Well, it’s Fabio, it’s got to be really soulful, but it doesn’t. I’ve got such a broad taste. It doesn’t really matter whether a track is soulful, a tech funk banger or something a little bit harder, as long as it’s got a little bit of mystery and is funky to a degree – even the hard and nasty variety – it’ll get the green light from me.
Do you have a regular artist roster- who can we see releasing with you?
No, it’s going to be very ad lib, fluid and open. The goal is to bring through new artists that are not so well known. I don’t want to spit out the same old names that everyone else talks about. Right now, I’m looking at artists like Motiv and Jet Li from Ireland, who I think is amazing.
This approach stems from my time with Creative Source, where we championed emerging talent. When we brought out Calibre and Alix Perez’s first work, no one had heard of them, and I want to do that again —encourage new artists and build a foundation.
I recently put out a post for track submissions from artists who have any music they think I’d be interested in, and I’ve been inundated. So, I’m not gonna specify any artists on the roster as such – it’s an open forum, especially for new artists and artists that I’ve not even really heard of yet.
Tell us about your A&R process…
The long and short of it is just to collect and find the most interesting tunes. I received a lot of submissions, and it’s my job to sift through them and find tracks that truly stand out. Then the process of getting tracks out is much simpler than it used to be. You’d have to go to a distributor; you then have to press something to vinyl. You’d have to get album sleeves done. It took ages. It was a very long, arduous process of getting tunes out that now you can do in a day. You can just go online and click a few buttons and the tune has been released.
What makes Generation Liquid different from other labels?
It’s kind of a forum for my taste. I don’t know whether this makes it different, but I really hate planning; I do things on instinct so I’m letting that lead the way, allowing the music to take shape organically rather than being overly planned or premeditated. Everything feels too tailored these days and I want to break free from that. It goes back to what I was saying about tribalism and how there is no set template for Generation Liquid. I might bring out a tune that’s really soulful and the next could be an absolute banger. I’m not interested in creating a label for chin stroking fans, I want people to be surprised, to hear atrack and think, Oh, wow. That shocked me. I didn’t think you’d ever put a tune like that out.
What does it take to run a bass music label in 2025
As I said before, it’s a lot easier than it used to be. You don’t have to go through the long process of going through so many different doors to get a tune released – it really was a piss take. I don’t think people realise how difficult it was bringing out music. It was quite costly too, and you’d have to rely on other people to do so many things, like distributors. It would literally take months, even a year to bring out a track. Drum and Bass moves so fast, even within three months, a tune could sound dated. Back then, a tune could go stale before it
even had a chance to make an impact. I remember this tune I completely regretted bringing out, because the process took so long. Now, you can just bring out a tune in days, keeping the freshness and heat of the tune,
which is great.
What have you got coming up we should look out for?
We’ve got some really good label showcases coming up. First up, we’ve got Camden Assembly on May 17, featuring Command Strange from Russia—a truly talented DJ—as well as Zero T, who’s fantastic at the way he puts his sets together, and GAIA, an incredible young DJ I’ve listened to a couple of times and knew she’d be great for a Generation Liquid night.
Then we’re heading to Tramshed in Cardiff on June 28, which I’m really looking forward to. After years of trying to book Skeptical, it’s finally happened. We’ve also got Breakage, who is Shy FX’s right-hand man and the king of dub-style Drum and Bass. The way he balances dub and DnB is unmatched, better than anyone else in the game. They’re two of my favourite producers, actually, and fantastic DJs. So that is going to be an absolute banger.
Beyond that, there are more plans brewing for later in the year—things I can’t disclose just yet as they’re still in planning, but trust me, they’re exciting. There’s also some incredible new music on the way, but I want to keep the artists and tracks a surprise for now. Let’s just say the label is gearing up for some serious heat, and everything is set to kick off in a big way.
