Ones to Watch: Sloucho

In our Ones To Watch series, we highlight innovative producers pushing boundaries in dance music culture while carving out their own space.

Irish DJ and producer Sloucho is building far more than tracks. Through melancholic pop, rap collaborations, leftfield electronics and immersive world-building, the OUCH™ founder is carving out one of the most conceptually ambitious projects in Ireland’s underground right now.

Once rooted in percussive bass music, Sloucho’s sound has evolved into something a bit more far-reaching. His new sound blends hyperpop, emo digi-pop, rap and experimental electronic production, all while championing emerging Irish rappers and singers.

Broken Spirit is a five-part singles project unfolding monthly throughout 2026 encapsulating the reality of being an artist in this day and age.

Building OUCH™

Sloucho’s OUCH™ project and Broken Spirit era explores themes of identity, technology, virality and artistic exploitation while championing a new wave of Irish underground creativity.

His soul purpose is to understand himself and the world through music, but all of that is hindered because his world is full of corporate CEOs who want to exploit him for his art. “It’s analogous to basically everything I'm experiencing in my life – just trying to deal with the industry and make art.”

The Sloucho character is at the centre of OUCH™, but he loves to bring emerging Irish talent into it, too. “I love collaborating,” he says. “And I really love having people come into my world if they're up for it.”

That world stretches across music, visuals, gaming, lore and recurring characters. Sloucho describes the project less like a traditional artist project and more “like a comic book character or something that has its own arc.”

Championing Irish Creativity

Collaboration sits at the core of the project, and Sloucho’s worked with just about every emerging artist in Ireland, Curtisy, Ahmed, With Love, Lil Skag, Emby, Vaticanjail, Spooklet, Rory Sweeney and Gemma Dunleavy to name a few. Sloucho sees his studio as a space where artists can step outside their established identities and experiment freely.

“I really like the idea of making a song with [an artist] that hasn't been done before,” he says. “I’m able to draw something different out of them.”

That approach has positioned him at the centre of a new wave of Irish artists, many are so steeped with authenticity and creativity they’re making waves way beyond Ireland’s borders.

Broken Spirit and raging against the algorithm

Sloucho’s Broken Spirit era is a direct response to the realities of modern music consumption.

He tells me it began as “like 30 songs that was produced in an intense period of no holds barred production.” Over time, those ideas evolved into a more focused body of work, released as five monthly singles rather than a traditional EP.

In April, he released ‘All Night’, a certified hyper-pop banger that channels vulnerable, catchy lyricism through slowed-down emo cloud-pop and digitised vocals.

“‘All Night’ explores a co-dependent relationship built on projection rather than truth, and the tension that arises from closeness without connection,” the press release states. “Where desire is driven by illusion, and authenticity erodes as love becomes something performed rather than genuinely experienced.”

In May, Sloucho followed up with two singles: ‘Wondering’ and ‘Catfished V2’ with Crutch. While ‘All Night’ could sit comfortably in the US charts, these last two are extremely Irish. In a world where Irish rappers historically Americanised their accents, Crutch raps in his thick Irish one, ensuring Irish identity is front-centre and unapologetic.

Beyond the music itself, Sloucho is also experimenting with entirely new ways of releasing music.

For Broken Spirit, he hosted listening parties across Ireland, selling NFC cards that unlock access to an exclusive website hosting the tracks — a direct-to-fan alternative designed to push back against algorithmic culture and streaming fatigue.

Sloucho says the traditional release model no longer makes sense.

“It would be kind of remiss of me to be like, the music is enough because it's actually not, unfortunately,” he says. “Having good music isn't enough.”

Instead, he’s interested in how artists survive in an attention economy dominated by metrics and algorithmic manipulation.

“The importance on virality is crazy at the moment,” he says.

Gaming the System

Sloucho speaks candidly about the pressures artists now face to compete inside algorithmic systems increasingly shaped by manufactured virality and marketing manipulation.

“If this is the current landscape, then we have to make something that makes sense to people in two seconds,” he says. At the same time, he remains fascinated by the challenge of understanding and navigating those systems.

“It’s kind of the new set of rules that you have to operate under, so in a way, it’s a bit exciting, even though it’s kind of scary and weird.”

That tension between artistic integrity and visibility is at the centre of Broken Spirit. “The fear is that in your pursuit of finally “making it”, you alienate the people that fucked with you at the start,” he says.

Looking Beyond Music

Sloucho’s ambitions extend way beyond releasing tracks. Alongside the Broken Spirit rollout, he’s created a video game set inside the same universe as the music. He sees it as an extension of OUCH™ so people engage with the lore and immerse themselves in Sloucho’s world.

Despite the frustrations of modern music culture, Sloucho remains optimistic about the possibilities of independent artistry. In a way, it’s more gamified than ever before, and he’s determined to defeat the final algorithm boss, not for any reason other than to continue doing what he loves.

“I want to perform,” he says. “I want to share music. I want people to listen to my music.”

That’s why Broken Spirit feels like part of a huge puzzle that Sloucho’s revealing piece by piece.

For all his latest news, updates and events, follow Sloucho on Instagram.