At V2000 in Chelmsford, Sam walked into a tent sponsored by Wella Shockwaves. In the middle of it, not on a stage at the edge, Sasha and Sander Kleinenberg were playing three-hour sets to about four thousand people.
“I was just mesmerized by this pulsing energy of music that made me kind of go, ‘Wow, that’s really cool. What is all this about? I love it.’”
What stayed with him was the room.
“Just the unity and the energy and how everyone’s just there together just for the music on that same beat, on that same rhythm, just enjoying that pulse for that moment.”
His first time playing to a crowd was an open-deck night at Bluenotes in Lowestoft, twenty or thirty people, each DJ taking a turn. He had learnt on a mixer with no EQs.
“And I didn’t know nothing about DJing apart from the fact you had to blend a track into another track.”
So he waited for the breakdown, started the next record when the beat dropped out, and brought it in. He did not yet know about beatmatching.
“Just seeing people dance and knowing that when you put a tune on, they enjoy it and they love the tune that comes next and followed by the next tune, and they still keep dancing, and it’s just knowing that you’re onto something.”
Nobody showed him how. He watched other DJs over their shoulders, and later bought a mixer with BPM counters, which finally showed him what matching the speeds meant.
“It was a case of just trying to learn by ear.”
He has never kept what he learnt to himself.
“And if anyone ever wants to know anything about DJing that I can teach them, then I’ll teach them.”
From the early 2000s to around 2015 he was “always in the fields”, as well as festivals and clubs. One field rave stays with him. Someone was leaning on the decks and the needles were jumping all over the place, so he reached for one record.
“I just dropped Joey Beltram Energy Flash, and literally, womp, womp, womp, womp, and suddenly they’re coming through the scoops in them speakers and that, and everyone was just going mental.”
“That was probably the defining moment when I’d kind of like thought, ‘Yeah, man, let’s just do this.’”
Back then he went to the record dealer every week, without fail.
“You’d hunt for that music, and you’d kinda find something that was a bit different to what everyone else had, and you wouldn’t play the, like the radio edit or the normal version. You’d always like go for the B side or something a bit quirky about it, you know what I mean?”
Given a free choice, Sam would play the clifftops at Cromer, for the views over the sea. He would open with a track he made with his friend Stack Rack, built on a tune he first heard in 1995.
“So back in 1995, I heard a tune by Crescendo. It was called Are You Out There? And it just resonated in my body and my soul.”
“And when my friend [Stack Rack] turned around and said to me, ‘Hey man, do you wanna make some music?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, why not? Let’s go for it.’”
In the studio, Sam brought the idea: take elements of that tune, this sample and that one, and build something new from them.
His way into psytrance ran through Illuminaughty. Its production reminded him of an event he still performs at, and he wanted in.
“And then I ended up wearing, on my stilts, a butterfly costume. And a guy come up to me and asked me if I would come perform a butterfly effect with my stilts and my butterfly. And then from there on, I kind of got involved on the scene, on the underground scene and started DJing.”
The performer and the DJ were never separate. They have “always been two sides of the same Sam”.
“When you’re up on the stilts, it’s a different world because you can see everyone running around having fun and enjoying themselves, and the laughter and the smiles and the amazement is invigorating.”
With Frieda he is The Psylings. When the night is their own, he says, “you get into character and become part of the environment, not just the event.”
“You kind of become the worrier, I guess, because you’re trying to look at everything, see what happens and what doesn’t, and make sure it all runs smoothly and connects perfectly, so that everyone has a good time and the best experience they can possibly achieve.”
Sam first met Champa at an underground party in London. They stayed in touch on Twitch.
“During COVID was a very, very instrumental time in our connection because people were not allowed to socialize. So we socialized online obviously because there was no personal interaction. And this was probably what strengthened the bond between me and [Champa].”
Champa later asked him to join Enterrec.
“I’m committed to giving a more fulfilling, more enchanting production of music in my set.”
“Sounds and mixing is just what it stands for, but S and M obviously has the innuendo. But also when you spell S&M, it looks like Sam.”
“Most people think it’s kinky, but it’s not kinky. It’s sounds and mixing.”
So far his music has been made with others.
“All the music that I’ve done has always been collaborations. I look forward to learning more about music production in the future.”
What he wants to leave behind is what first pulled him in at V2000: people together on the same beat, and a floor that keeps dancing into the next tune. From up on the stilts, he says, it is the laughter and the smiles.
Asked what the Derby room should carry out when his set ends on 9 October, he keeps it short.
“A happy memory and a bass beat in the heart.”
“And if anyone ever wants to know anything about DJing that I can teach them, then I’ll teach them.”
DJ S&M plays solo at Holy Pendragon, Friday 9 October 2026, at The Hairy Dog in Derby. Tickets are on TicketTailor at tickettailor.com/events/psycentral/2228802.
