D&B in Focus: Mandidextrous

It’s fair to say Mandidextrous’ music has zero chill. Hovering around the one million BPM mark, their music is made for explosive dance floor moments and designed to release every ounce of excess energy. Although Mandidextrous is well known-for their multi-genre productions, they came up in the D&B and jungle scenes, heavily influenced by the UK’s free party community in the late ‘00s and early ‘10s. Today, they’re one of D&B’s biggest names, and arguably the most versatile producer on the circuit. We caught up with M to learn more about their journey into D&B and jungle, their perspective on the latest wave of the genre and how the scene has changed since those hedonistic days of free parties next to motorways.

A Community of Misfits

Mandidextrous, AKA M Gordon, never fit into society’s prescribed boxes, so when they discovered the free party scene in their mid-teens, it was a huge relief. Born and raised in Buckinghamshire in the south of England, M had a turbulent childhood and found a sense of home and community in the D&B and jungle scenes.

“I struggle to fit into society in many ways, being trans,” they say, speaking from their studio in Bristol. “So it was a good space for me.”

There wasn’t a huge amount of queer representation in the D&B scene back then, but it was a space for people who didn’t quite fit in. Drum & Bass was conceived on the outskirts of society – parties weren’t confined to four walls, but held in open spaces like barns, fields and tunnels instead. That’s where the culture flourished, unconfined, and where M first began DJing their breakneck BPMs. “I started mixing Drum & Bass on vinyl, and ended up being part of numerous sound systems down south, doing the illegal rave thing,” they say.

Multi-Genre Madness

Around the time M immersed themselves in production, they found themselves drawn to London’s techno underground. That’s when their multi-genre journey began, and M started merging D&B and techno to create a unique sound known as jungletek. Their early releases on their own Amen4Tekno imprint, Medusa Records and Bass Militia Records changed the game entirely, redirecting the UK’s underground towards a brand new style that made shockwaves across many scenes.

“I've been straddling two different stratospheres of music, and working professionally in both,” says M. "I’m a multi-genre person myself, and I'm multifaceted in many different ways.”

In the months preceding COVID, M found themselves gravitating back towards pure D&B, and started producing more and more of it during lockdown.

“I was scared when I first came back to it,” they say. “But now I’ve met so many people that I’ve respected for so long, and they’ve welcomed me with open arms.”

And it’s no wonder, really. M is one of the most progressive talents in the D&B scene today, with many new artists entering the scene through the doors they kicked open. Mandidextrous is a graduate of the gender equality-focused D&B collective EQ50 mentorship, and their performance at Let It Roll in Prague last year has gone down in history as one of the most unhinged in its history. Their track “Hold Your Rhythm” closed out Boomtown in 2022, where they now have their own venue Spectrum 360, and in the last few months alone they’ve played at Hospitality Paris, Lowlands, Hospitality on the Beach, and their own Mandidextrous & Friends club night at XOYO. 

The Third Wave

M is fully aware that the third wave of D&B is very different to the first and second. “Drum & Bass is inherently quite a masculine, male-dominated scene, but we've made progress over the years and now there’s so much more diversity coming through,” they say.

Now, what used to be a closed scene has been cracked wide open. “The accessibility has become greater,” M says. “So therefore we have a lot more people putting their hands in the pot knowing they want to do this.”

It’s a real departure to the closed nature of the first wave of D&B, but M believes the core of the culture will always shine through. “All the original Dons like Ray Keith, DJ hype, DJ Zinc, Fabio, and Grooverider, when they started making music it was a hard task,” M says. “Production equipment wasn’t readily available, everything was hardware, external, nothing was on computers. But you’ve still got tracks from the late ‘90s getting played every weekend now.”

Looking to the Future

Mandidextrous has big plans for their multi-faceted artistry and the values they bring with it. On November 8th 2024 they had a huge, curated headline show with their Spectrum 360 event brand in their hometown of Bristol. They have a ton of releases lined up including on their own label Amen4Tekno, and with summer coming to an end, they’re fully geared up to get back onto the club circuit.

“I love club season,” M says. “There’s something about playing a 200 cap sweaty club with loads of ravers going nuts that I buzz off so hard.”