If the name George Daniel rings a bell, you might be a real head. Or you were wrapped up in the cultural summer of 2025. Daniel is the drummer for The 1975 and is married to a young woman from Essex; in 2024, he founded dh2, a UK-based electronic music imprint under the independent record label Dirty Hit. Daniel has built a banging roster of artists, each on their own good run at the moment. From Kelly Lee Owens to Surusinghe, the tracks created by these transcendent artists successfully reach into those stubborn corners of the mind. In the years to come, dh2 might just have a catalog of tracks to scratch every itch.
Stepping into her own right, Kelly Lee Owens puts on a noteworthy live set, where she’s up on stage with the keys, some synths, and a mic. On a Tuesday night in the spring of 2025, an eclectic crowd of New Yorkers took a collective exhale at a Polish music hall in Brooklyn. Owens has a voice that echoes inside the body while her lyrical rhythms make all your cells dance. At the end of the show, she spoke to the audience from the stage and reminisced on how five years ago, she began creating music on the grass at the nearby McCarren Park. A magical spot on a sunny day, for all who’ve experienced it.
Now imagine you are a skeleton and all of your bones suddenly collapse into a pile, and your head sits atop unfazed by the situation. Surusinghe’s pulsating bass and acidy drums begin to rumble the ground, and slowly the rhythm and the beat begin to build you back up, one bone at a time. Locking those joints into place, starting at your feet, then your legs, hips, chest, and arms, until you’re whole. Now, dance.
On October 31st, 2025, before Surusinghe played that night at Elsewhere, she threw down a quick b2b with Kindergarten Record’s very own Ma Sha at The Lot Radio. If you’re from outta town, The Lot Radio is an online radio station that live streams 24/7 from a repurposed shipping container on an empty lot just a stone’s throw away from McCarren Park. Plenty of seats with room to dance, and always a good idea—no matter the time of day.
I’ll paint you a quick picture. There’s Surusinghe and Ma Sha mixing it up inside a packed container full of Louvre jewel thieves and the likes, and outside, one lone comrade sits on a stump and bops her head in glee. The thieves come outside to take a smoke and invite the dancing girl inside the crate. Filled with the anxiety of intruding, she declines. And now she sits here writing about it filled with unsurmountable regret.
When invited into a repurposed shipping container where one of your favorite artists is making art, go inside.
Now, about the other night! Making their way to NYC, dh2 held a label night at Public Records featuring a lineup of George Daniel, Oscar Farrell, and 2D0GS: a collective group of rippers. Public Records is quite the infamous venue in Gowanus, Brooklyn, known for its stacked programming, an alluring atrium, and in the summer time, a helluva patio. A place so cool, it even draws the bedroom pop girlies from time to time, but it’s a bit of a spectacle, I must say. Intended to be a space that encourages reconnection with nature, ourselves, and one another, its massive following has instead cultivated an environment that allows the public to dip a toe into the dance scene without actually having to immerse into it. Despite the programming being ungodly good, the music and sense of community isn’t often at the forefront of the camaraderie— meaning the majority of the crowd never looks to dance like they mean it.
Given Daniel’s discography and the lack of chill in New York these days, I had been on edge about what the energy of the room might be like, and if the people’d be dancing. As my friend and I entered the sound room, 2D0GS was cooking up their hypnotic, groovy beats, layered with these sultry yet demanding vocals that command attention; and fueling my apprehension, the crowd stood there idle like a bunch of teenagers in a music hall waiting for the main act to come on. It immediately dawned on me that this room is probably full of indie heads, many of whom may be at their first ever house show— maybe even very first club. As it goes when crossing over into new territory, no one knew how to act.
I digress. 2D0Gs, Oscar Farrell, and George Daniel all heavily ripped. And as the night went on, the crowd loosened up.
Oscar Farrell, the synth-wizard and hi-hat-rizzler, has a special place in my A1 cortex. The sounds he conjures using wires and voltage and amplifiers and filters via the invention that is the synth board is electrifying. His tracks pulsate through the body like sneakers hitting the pavement on a long run across the Queensboro Bridge. Farrell takes human emotions and experiences that are often so bottled up and blown out of proportion in our own heads and releases them. Not to mention, he has an incredible, guttural voice that swims beautifully alongside his instrumentals, solidifying his distinctive musical style.
It gets better. Nearing the top of my list of favorite artist collaborations is Oscar Farrell and musical artist, Sampha. Farrell spent two years touring with Sampha when his sophomore EP Lahai was release, and in turn, Sampha features on Farrell’s latest EP, So Far South. Together, it’s like a surfer catching a perfect wave, but in this case, it’s an infinite exchange where it’s impossible to tell who is riding the barrel and who is the ocean itself.
Last but not least, Mr. George Daniel. You’ve got it going on. I first caught a listen of Daniel’s mixes in the depths of a Soundcloud rabbit hole and was quickly addicted. Have you ever been walking the streets with your headphones on and find yourself with a straight up stank on your face? That was me for an entire 1:38:36. The man is a true taste maker and is proving it in more ways than one. It’s hard to pin down Daniel’s own mixing style per se, as I find each of his sets has a different sound to it. One thing is certain, though: he has an innate rhythm that keeps the room moving.
dh2 is just getting started at two years old. With a roster of artists this devoted to their craft, and damn good at it, it’ll be exciting to see how Daniel continues to position the label in the constantly-evolving global electronic scene.
x
Rachel
View original post on Substack
Leave a Reply