A map of drum and bass: the places that made the sound
From a spare room in Stevenage to a house in Dollis Hill, from a Shoreditch office to a studio in Groningen: where the labels, producers and stations came from.
Photo: Arnold Jaeger Werner, CC BY 2.0. Illustrative where it does not show the subject of the story
Drum and bass is often talked about as if it came from London, and a great deal of it did. But look at the places named in its history and a more varied map appears. This feature walks through that map, one stop at a time, using places that the published accounts give.
Stevenage
Moving Shadow began in 1990 in Rob Playford's home in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, where he had become a focal point for local young artists and bedroom producers who wanted advice on putting out their own music. A town that would not usually feature in a history of dance music gave the scene one of its most important labels.
Dollis Hill and Clapton
Reinforced Records was based in Dollis Hill, north west London, and Kool FM first broadcast on 94.5FM from Clapton in north east London. The two places, a few miles apart, show how the early scene was spread across the capital's outer areas rather than concentrated in the centre.
Soho
In the middle of town, Blackmarket Records on D'Arblay Street in Soho became a hub, with Nicky Blackmarket running a breakbeat department that grew into drum and bass. Pirate stations such as Pulse FM and Eruption FM carried his shows across the city.
Bristol
Roni Size grew up in the St Andrews area of Bristol, learned the basics of production at a local youth club and later founded Full Cycle Records with Krust, Suv and DJ Die. In 1997 New Forms won the Mercury Prize. Bristol has remained one of the genre's most important cities.
Shoreditch
Hospital Records is based in East London, and its publishing company, Songs in the Key of Knife, and its worldwide events brand, Hospitality, are run from Shoreditch. It is a reminder that the scene's businesses are not only in basements.
Belfast and Penarth
Calibre, Dominick Martin, comes from Belfast. High Contrast, Lincoln Barrett, grew up in Penarth near Cardiff, where he worked in a record shop and held a residency at a drum and bass night. These two show that liquid, one of the most successful strands of the music, had roots well outside England.
Utrecht and Groningen
In the Netherlands, Black Sun Empire formed in Utrecht in 1997, and Noisia are from Groningen. Between them they defined the sound design of neurofunk. The Dutch scene has also given the genre a festival, Liquicity, which is listed for July 2027 in Oudkarspel.
Belgium and the Czech Republic
Netsky is Belgian, and Rampage, the Belgian festival, returns to the AFAS Dome in Antwerp in March 2027. Let It Roll, in the Czech Republic, takes place at Lake Most. Both are signs of how far the audience has spread.
Croatia
Outlook Festival, which began as a subsidiary of the Leeds night SubDub, moved from the area around Pula to Tisno on the Croatian coast in 2020. It is known for putting sound systems in fort tunnels and in the moat of an abandoned ruin, and for boat parties on the Adriatic.
Why geography matters
A map like this makes two things clear. First, the music was not made by one place. It was made by many, with connections between them. Second, the places are often ordinary: a spare room, a youth club, a record shop. That ordinariness is the point. Anyone with an idea, a few records and a few friends could start something, and a great many did.
