Phentix

Phentix grew up around his family’s record shop in Linz, Austria, with drums, guitar, and plenty of vinyl within reach. That background helps explain the funk in his drum and bass: however detailed the production becomes, he wants the track to keep its feel.

Mefjus introduced him to Xtrah, leading to Hoax on Cyberfunk’s Matriarch EP in 2015. The following year, his own Pitch Black EP gave him five tracks to develop that connection between technical bass music and groove.

Further collaborations include Onset with IMANU, then known as Signal, and Wrong Door with Monty, both through Critical Music. Those partnerships sit alongside his work with Flexout Audio, where Loophole / Side Hustle arrived in July 2024. The label describes the pair as rollers that cross between deep minimal and jump-up, a useful example of why his music benefits from more than one tag.

Phentix has spoken about stepping back from a bass sound to check whether the track still has a vibe. He cites Break’s rougher, soulful records as a reminder that immaculate engineering is not the whole job. That attention to rhythm gives his technical work its human pulse.