Alok on his new collaboration Keep Up with Argy and Adam Beyer, his growing connection with techno and the rave culture inspiring his new Rave The World era.
Three very different trajectories through electronic music converge on new single Keep Up from Alok, Adam Beyer and Argy.
Alok brings the perspective of an artist accustomed to commanding some of the biggest stages on the planet; Argy arrives with the cinematic, melodic sensibility that has made him one of his generation’s defining names; while Drumcode founder Adam Beyer contributes more than three decades of techno experience.
The result is a fast, late-night club record driven by a relentless bass line, hypnotic vocal and escalating tension. Yet for Alok, its significance stretches beyond the meeting of three heavyweight artists. Keep Up arrives during a period in which he is deliberately reconnecting with harder electronic music and giving the club-focused dimensions of his musical identity considerably more room.
When asked whether the collaboration represents another step in that evolution, he says, “I think lately I’ve been reconnecting with a side of electronic music that has always been part of me. I grew up around rave culture and psy-trance and even my early music was always mixing different things like electro, trance, techno and house.”
Rather than viewing the shift as a reinvention, Alok sees it as a return to something that has always existed within his musical DNA. “For me, Keep Up doesn’t feel like suddenly becoming someone else,” he explains. “It feels like giving more space again to that side of who I am.”
That philosophy becomes particularly interesting when placed alongside Argy and Adam Beyer. Each approaches electronic music from a recognisable position and finding the point at which those identities could intersect was central to the collaboration. “What I like about collaborations is that everyone hears music in a different way,” Alok says. “Adam has so much history with techno and a very strong instinct for groove and tension and Argy brings this melodic and emotional side that is very recognisable. I bring my own energy and the way I like to connect different worlds of electronic music. And when those things meet you can arrive somewhere that none of us would necessarily go alone.”
Preserving those individual fingerprints was essential. “The best collaborations are when you create something new, but you can still feel everybody inside the record,” he says. “It shouldn’t sound like one artist featuring two other names. You need to find the balance where everybody’s identity has space and the sounds can interact freely.”
Collaboration itself has long been an important part of Alok’s creative process, partly because it disrupts familiar ways of working. “I think collaboration makes you question your habits,” he explains. “When you work by yourself, sometimes you already know which direction you’re going to take. Another artist can hear something completely differently and suddenly you have another possibility. I like that exchange because I’m always curious about what I can learn from somebody else. That’s one of the reasons I never want to stop collaborating.”
In Adam Beyer’s case, that exchange also provided an opportunity to absorb lessons from an artist whose career has been built around the subtleties of techno. “What I respect is how much power can come from subtle changes, repetition and tension,” Alok says. “It reminds you that you don’t always need to add more to make a record bigger. Sometimes the discipline is knowing what not to add.”
Argy brought a different quality. “I think Argy understands emotion very well,” he continues. “His music can feel cinematic and melodic, but it still has the energy to work in a club. I think that balance is difficult because if you push too far in either direction you can lose something. He has found a very strong identity between those worlds.”
Keep Up follows the Rave The World EP and Mind Illuminate with SIDEPIECE and Victor Ruiz as part of an increasingly clear trajectory. Alok has been playing more techno in his sets, exploring darker club environments and allowing what happens behind the decks to feed directly back into his studio output. “Honestly, it’s where I’m feeling most creative right now,” he says. “I’ve been playing more club-focused sets and spending much more time with techno and house and I wanted the music I’m releasing to reflect that side of what I’m doing as a DJ. I love the hypnotic energy, the tension, and how much you can do with a groove without needing too many elements. It’s becoming a much bigger part of my sets and also the music I’m creating.”
That doesn’t mean Alok intends to exchange one style for another. Quite the opposite. “I’ve never liked putting myself inside only one genre and I don’t think that will change, but techno is definitely an important part of where I’m taking Alok musically right now.”
He describes this chapter not as a departure but an expansion of what the Alok project can encompass. “I don’t see it as leaving one version of Alok behind and becoming another one,” he says. “The Alok you see today isn’t the same as five years ago, and I hope five years from now I’ve evolved again. I’m broadening the musical universe rather than replacing anything.”
That expanding universe is increasingly visible in the environments in which he performs. Few DJs move between scales quite as dramatically. Alok can appear before enormous audiences at events such as Rock in Rio and Coachella while also entering spaces such as Pacha New York or Robot Heart at Burning Man, where longer-form club instincts can come to the foreground. “When you’re playing for a million people, a lot of those people might not even be regular electronic music fans, so you have to understand that environment,” he explains. “In a dark club, you can go deeper and trust the groove for longer. You feel the room differently.”
His guiding principle is deceptively simple: “Respect the place you’re in and read the room properly. I can’t play the same way at Rock in Rio that I would at Pacha New York or Robot Heart at Burning Man,” he continues. “Robot Heart especially gives you a very different kind of freedom as a DJ. You can go deeper, take more time, build tension differently and play music that people might not expect to hear from me on a huge main stage. I love having access to both worlds. The essence is still me, but every environment brings out something different in me as a DJ.”
For an artist who has already achieved extraordinary global success, moving further into club and techno territory could be interpreted as a commercial risk. Alok sees the greater danger elsewhere. “I think the bigger risk for me would be becoming comfortable,” he says. “If you find something that works and spend the rest of your life trying to repeat it, eventually you stop discovering who you are as an artist. I’ve had moments in my career where changing direction probably wasn’t the obvious decision commercially, but freedom has always been very important to me. I need to feel that I’m still curious.”
That need for freedom sits at the centre of Rave The World, the new platform encompassing Alok’s label, releases and live experiences. The platform’s record label began with his four-track Rave The World EP, the project draws upon values including unity, peace, love, respect, freedom and collective presence. “Keep Up” becomes an important early statement of intent. “I don’t want Rave The World to be a label where everything has to sound the same,” he explains, “but I do want there to be a clear commitment to the dancefloor and to artists who have something real to say musically. Having Adam and Argy involved this early helps show that intention.”