The Upbeats

The Upbeats are Jeremy Glenn and Dylan Jones, a drum and bass production duo from Wellington, New Zealand. Their work brings detailed, forceful club music together with a willingness to slow down, leave space, and build tracks around voices and atmosphere.

Their partnership with Noisia produced the 2015 Dead Limit EP on VISION. That connection also provides a route into their later catalogue: the same label released Not Forever in 2021, an album conceived as a connected listening experience rather than a collection of peak-time DJ tools.

Speaking to UKF about that record, the pair described wanting to make music they enjoyed hearing themselves. Most of its tracks sit around 170 BPM, but quarter-time and half-time rhythms change the perceived pace. The album's opening track, Horizon, began with Glenn sketching an extended intro in Istanbul airport on his way home from a tour. Intended to reset the mood after another DJ's set, it remained an intro for about two years before finding its place on the album. It is a useful glimpse of the thought behind their dancefloor impact.