Route 94

Since emerging with a clutch of much-played tracks a couple of years ago, Route 94 has quietly yet forcefully established himself as a distinctive young figure in the house music scene. His music - simmering, forceful and purpose crafted for late night dancefloors - speaks of long evenings spent locked deep into mesmerising four-to-the-floor grooves, so immersed that the surrounding world falls away.


Remaining a low-key presence and allowing the music to take centre stage, Route 94's tracks - propulsive, bass-heavy and with a keen ear for subtle melody - encode within them his many influences, drawing equally from the jacking momentum of Chicago and New York house and the sub-loaded sounds of his London home. It's an approach that's seen them become regular fixtures in the sets of DJs as varied as Skream, Richy Ahmed and Seth Troxler and has seen him tipped among London station Rinse FM's artists to watch in 2014.


If Route 94's swift rise to wider attention might seem surprising for a relatively new artist, it belies the fact that he's been making music for years. Growing up in London, he was exposed to all manner of musical styles played at home by his mother and developed a fascination with dance music from an early age. Once he acquired a copy of Cubase at the age of thirteen, that was the only cue he needed - he immediately began immersing himself in making music, toying with making beats and experimenting with producing everything from house to drum & bass and dubstep.


His gradual focus towards a lean, stripped-back house sound came, he explains, as a result of becoming enamored with the atmosphere of house nights - the intoxicating mood of a crowd caught up in perpetual, pulsing momentum. His tracks, however, remain steeped in the dark, bass-led energy that characterises so much London-borne dance music - even at their most melodic and atmospheric they're powered by serious low-end heft.