Blawan is up next in our Ask the Experts series, following on from The Orb’s Alex Paterson, whose answers we published last week. Moby and Daedelus’ responses will drop soon.

Blawan, real name Jamie Roberts, marked 2018 with the release of his debut album, Wet Will Always Dry, an eight-track affair of industrial techno beats. As with much of his recent work, the album landed on his own Ternesc imprint.

Born in Barnsley, UK, Roberts came to prominence with his 2010 debut on Hessle Audio before signing to R&S Records with 2011’s Bohla EP; since then, he’s released across the board of inky-black rippling minimalism, jubilant two-step vocal cuts, and savant grooving techno, supplementing his appearances as Blawan on Joy Orbison’s Hinge Finger, Black Sun, and Clone’s Basement Series with releases on Shifted’s Avian and Trilogy Tapes under his other aliases, Kilner and Bored Young Adults respectively. Roberts’ discography also includes various collaborations: he’s joined forces with Arthur Cayzer (a.k.a. Pariah) for the rough-edged, hardware-only Karenn project while working intermittently alongside Surgeon as Trade and The Analogue Cops. All of these provide “some extra bandwidth for the range of experimentation needed to complement his work as Blawan.” 

Now having relocated to Berlin Roberts has turned his studio setup into an analog production laboratory and established himself as one of the more notable artists to rediscover modular synthesis as a means for mining avant-garde rhythmic sounds.

Roberts will now step forward to answer your questions. Whether it be production, DJing, label management or anything else, all questions should be sent to asktheexperts@xlr8r.com with “Blawan” as the subject line. We’ll pass them along to Roberts who will then select his favorites, and soon we’ll publish his answers.

You can catch Blawan at this year’s Dockyard Festival 2018 at Amsterdam Dance Event, where he will be performing on October 20 alongside Apollonia, Skream, Robert Hood, and more. More information can be found here.