There’s a reason bass music hits unlike any other genre in electronic music. Behind the earth-shaking drops and face-melting wubs lies a complex range of emotion.
That feeling becomes a visceral experience built on the interplay between aggression and restraint, between tension and release. It’s not just the loud music and deep cutting vibrations. It’s the anticipation that builds before the drop and the shockwave of energy that comes the moment it lands.
For the rising bass producer Phrva, that duality isn’t just a feeling, but the foundation for every track he creates. Known for his deep, experimental sound, emotion doesn’t just resonate through his music. It is his music. And, at his core, he isn’t chasing trends or forcing complexity, he’s building from instinct and letting feeling guide his every move.
With his latest release, Collected featuring Don Jamal and Rakjay, Phrva has not only hit a career milestone with his Deadbeats debut but showcases a sound flowing with raw emotion, unfiltered bass, and an infectious swagger.
“It feels great,” he exclaimed in an interview with The Daily Frequency, regarding his debut with the iconic Zeds Dead imprint.
“Deadbeats is one of a few labels that I think is currently doing a great job not only pushing artists’ music but helping to develop them as well. Releasing with the label has been a goal of mine since starting the project, so it’s great to be working with them.”
Perfectly capturing the energy of Rakjay’s commanding vocals, Phrva didn’t just channel feeling into sound, but by through collaborating with Don Jamal, highlighted his genre-bending style.
“Working with Don was super smooth. We only passed it back and forth about two times before it was done. We both tend towards these simple but impactful sounds, so it felt like a no-brainer of a collaboration. Once the instrumental was done, Don and I both knew that we needed an original vocal (we had been playing it out with PFTD on top for a while), and Rakjay also absolutely crushed it on his parts. We reached out and had the full song back within a week, and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.”
Blending UK grime with headkockin’ bass music, the end result is an absolute banger of a tune. When asked what inspired the hard-hitting collab, the answer was easy.
“Pretty simple, it was exactly that! We wanted something simple, hard-hitting, and to the point that gives enough room for Rakjay to do his thing on top while still letting the track push forward,” Phrva explained.
Of course, the simplistic yet powerful nature of Collected isn’t new to Phrva. It’s a formula that’s become essential to his sound.
“At the most basic level, it’s all about tension and release. There’s a sense of uncertainty in the intro and break where we can somewhat tell what’s going to happen, but also don’t know how exactly it’ll happen. I really like to accentuate that even more in the second break with more atmosphere and tense layers. However, what’s most important is that once everything kicks in, it feels like a party.”
It was that vision that first launched Phrva into the spotlight. Transforming hits from Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter into heavy-hitting bass anthems, he not only emerged as a viral sensation but as one of the promising new talents in bass music.
“I’d say the common factor for my remixes is a strong vocal or melodic idea, whether that be something new like Espresso and Lunch or something that’s proven to be a classic like Lose Control or I Remember.”
What sets Phrva apart is an unapologetic authenticity. Channeling emotion into his expression, his music is a reflection of who he is and what he feels. Even his remixes of other artists are an extension of himself.
“Usually, I’m remixing songs that I’ve already been listening to a bunch and want to integrate into my sets somehow!”
But at the core of it all is a foundation of simplicity over complexity. In other words, less is more.
“The core of my sound is all about not overthinking things, and that’s what I try to make my decisions around. Does it sound good? Great, it’s staying in the song. This probably leads to things being somewhat simple, for lack of a better word, but I have a tendency to overcomplicate, and I find this helps me to keep things grounded and impactful throughout. All great music, whether it be dubstep, pop, metal, whatever, has good songwriting, so I try to focus on that first and then let the sonics land where they land.”
Despite his focus on not overthinking the vibe, Phrva doesn’t shy away from pushing boundaries. Blending everything from hip-hop to experimental bass, dubstep, and more, his sound design is both innovative and ever-evolving.
And of course, with versatility like Phrva’s, the influences run just as wide as the sound.
“I think as artists we get subconsciously influenced by whatever we listen to on the regular haha. When I first started making Phrva tunes, I was really inspired by more minimal tracks from people like Visages, Ternion Sound, Alix Perez, and EPROM,” he shared. “While I still look to that as a core part of the sound, I’m also very much inspired by the things that artists like LYNY, Claybrook, Criso, Taiki Nulight, the whole Overview crew out in Bristol, and even heavier acts like Modal Nodes & Annix are doing. At the end of the day, I just try to have a diverse musical diet so that I always have some fresh inspiration to pull from.”
After unleashing a wave of viral flips and hard-hitting IDs, it wasn’t long before some of the biggest names in bass music started to take notice. In 2024, Phrva hit the road with Tape B and officially debuted his live show.
“Shoutout Tape B for real, that was a great tour. He and his team put a lot of intention into making sure us openers had good production and sound and were never nerfed in any way. You could tell the difference it made in how the people coming to the show enjoyed the night, too!”
It wasn’t just the fact that he was on tour with an artist like Tape B, but for the first time got to see a crowd react to his music.
“Those shows really helped me to polish my live performances and also to gain experience in what makes a track work live. I found the whole thing really affirming since I do play a significant amount of my own music in my sets, and it always seemed to be received very well. Looking forward to getting back out on the road with him for some dates later this year!”
That journey led to two of his biggest milestones yet, with Lightning in a Bottle and Shambhala both serving as full-circle moments in his career.
“Both of those performances were really dreams come true, I’d had both on the bucket list for a minute. LiB ended up not just being the one performance but really the entire weekend. From hopping up with my friends Low Poly & Tape B for a few tunes each, playing an impromptu b2b with FLY, and then playing the main set on Sunday, that weekend couldn’t have really been any better.”
But Shambhala? That one hit deep.
“I just got back from Shambhala, and what’s there to say that hasn’t been said before? I really think it’s one of the best festivals out there. It was the first camping festival I had ever been to back in 2015, and I was so stoked to see that it still has that same magic and community ten years later. Playing the AMP on Thursday was an absolutely incredible experience, and I hope that I’m able to come back to the fest, as well as Lightning in a Bottle, for many years to come.”
With a Deadbeats EP on the way and more shows on the horizon, Phrva is quickly emerging as a force to be reckoned with who shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
“I believe the next thing coming up is a desire burns: act II – my team and I really went all out for this one, I’m super excited for everyone to see it. I’ll also be dropping my full EP with Deadbeats this Fall, and will be back on the road with both Tape B and Deathpact, as well as hitting some of my own headline pop-up stops (more to come on that).”