Drum & Bass in Focus: BRAIN

Straight out of Bogotá’s DIY underground, BRAIN has spent the last decade honing a sound that combines the cadence of Latin America with the energy of UK D&B. The result is a fresh, vibrant and compelling take on the genre, and with his debut album soon to be released, he’s all set to take over the world.

Background

Born and raised in a suburb of Bogotá, Columbia, Juan Aguilar got a taste for the underground through hardcore, punk and metal. One night, after an evening spent moshing at an underground club called Piso3, a DJ stepped behind the decks and started playing a D&B set. “There was this DJ with dreadlocks, turntables, and he was playing these records and I was really curious about finding out how they made these crazy sounds,” Juan says. The DJ turned out to be DJ Sebass, who soon became Juan’s mentor.

Juan’s first D&B rave was called Radikal Styles, a huge festival in Bogotá with three stages that covered D&B, hardcore and techno. They brought huge global artists like Goldie, DLR and London Elektricity, and that’s when Juan’s love for the genre was solidified. “So after that I started music production, I was about 21, and I started to focus on how to make these sounds,” he says.

At the time, D&B and Jungle was extremely niche in Columbia, so it was challenging for Juan to find out how to produce the genre, but after experimenting for a year he released his first track in 2012 on the first Bogotá Drum & Bass compilation on a label called Fractal Records, run by some of the early pioneers of D&B in Columbia. And that’s how the BRAIN project started.

D&B and Columbia

Drum & Bass' migration to Columbia is particularly unique. Back in the ‘90s, free raves and D&B culture was routinely suppressed by authorities in the UK and across Europe, so a group of disillusioned French D&B artists and promoters decided to pack it in and relocate to Columbia. They brought their percussive sounds and fresh ideas and started throwing free raves on the outskirts of Medellín and Columbia. “These French guys brought their vinyls, their music and started to make the free parties,” Juan says. “It was very special, because it was really underground, really DIY, really alternative and deviant from the society.”

That’s the energy BRAIN was swallowed up in. At first he focused on producing but then realized it was important to play the music he made, so he soon started DJing. “Bogotá’s sound is dark, industrial, you can feel that big city vibe,” Juan says.

His first gig was the launch party of his first release, and then he joined local rave crew Reset. “They are the biggest crew in Latin America, they’re from Bogotá, and they have so many big artists - too many to name,” Juan says. Juan toured South America with this crew, playing to increasingly large audiences, honing his sound and building a base of loyal listeners.

Label and Releases

Juan started his own label ID Bogotá in 2020. His aim is to platform D&B artists from Latin America, championing the continent’s unique take on the genre and catapulting it onto world stages. He’s released music by Novaglitch, Bassment, Jaynie and dozens more, but this October sees BRAIN’s biggest release yet – his debut album, Prisma.

Written over the course of three turbulent years, Prisma is a sonic exploration of personal transformation and reflection. The 13-track project is a journey through BRAIN’s musical influences, woven together by the extreme emotions that come with sacrificing everything to follow your dreams – Juan relocated from Bogotá to London in 2023 with the hope of building a UK scene rooted in the sound of Latin American D&B.

“I sold everything I own to follow my dream and to come here to start from zero,” he says. The vinyl has already sold out on pre-order, and Juan hopes to use this momentum to bring artists from Columbia over to the UK to share their music and sound.

“I want to stay here to make things better for my friends,” he says. “There are so many talented artists in Columbia, people I really respect, and I really want to support them.”

Check out BRAIN’s debut album Prisma on Beatport and Spotify.