BAMBII

Toronto-based producer and DJ, BAMBII, makes lush, exuberant electronic music that feels futuristic and transportive but that also burrows into your bones, matches the pounding of your heartbeat, reminding you of your corporeality. Her new EP, Infinity Club (released August 4th) plays with these dueling impulses between the immediate and the conceptual. It is a celebration of home and belonging not only as a physical space – the dance floor, her family's homeland of Jamaica, which she pays homage to via dancehall – but also as a state of mind.

Unsurprisingly for a DJ and producer of dance music, BAMBII thinks of the club as a home: she runs a popular club night in Toronto called JERK showcases the most exciting artists in the Caribbean diaspora and offers free jerk chicken to attendees. An extrovert through and through, she says, "I feel very fed by the people around me whether I know them closely or not. I get a lot from community and from a really good night out. It's a skill to know what it means to be with people. " The songs on Infinity Club will undoubtedly come to life as they ricochet off the walls of a dance floor. From the thumping pulse of "Body" to the melodious, warped dancehall samples on "One Touch," these tracks inspire euphoria, revelation, and movement that feels best when shared. "Music in public spaces forces an intimacy in us," she adds. "It is the last thing that, despite forces like capitalism, breaks social rules. I can go to a rave and see a 40 year old woman having a relatable experience to me that crosses social boundaries."

The titular infinity club that BAMBII evokes is conceptual, too. When working on the project, she imagined a music video of an elderly woman getting ready to go out for the night. The woman takes a long cab ride to a club and upon entering, becomes a younger version of herself. The club, and the music that represents it, is a fictional space where people become idealized versions of themselves, full of complexity and intrigue. "I want to capture the emotions you feel at night when you're out and a little fucked up and reality tilts," she says. "We can all relate to a feeling of being euphoric, being your most honest and simple and feeling a type of escape. Those moments are brief but they're real, and I want the music to sound like that. I'm attempting to capture a place that is everything and nothing at the same time."

BAMBII's experience as a DJ sparked her quest for a multiplicity of self and sound. She started DJing at 23 and had soon played at nearly every venue in Toronto. She toured Europe too, alone and with artists like pioneering rapper Myyki Blanco. As she got more involved in electronic music spaces, she observed the implicit hierarchies in scenes that were supposed to be open and accepting: for example, techno and EDM, genres dominated by white artists, were given more space and credence than footwork or jersey. She often felt tokenized and limited in scope. Too often, she was asked to speak about her identity rather than her craftsmanship. BAMBII was moved to deconstruct the rigid categorization and hierarchy that was limiting her. She invested in collaboration, cross-genre production, and all the potential for fluidity and experimentation that electronic music offers.

She wanted to make and play music that was as varied as what she grew up listening to: her mother played reggae, house, and jazz at home, she heard Bollywood music in her South Asian and Caribbean neighborhood, and she had a punk phase in high school. She also wanted to work with artists that she felt pushed the boundaries of electronic music. One such artist is Kelela who has pioneered the genre for years, and who released her meditative, ambient sophomore album Raven earlier this year. BAMBII produced the track "On The Run" on that project. She also invites many collaborators onto Infinity Club, and has a clear knack for showcasing their unique talents. Aluna's gauzy falsetto stretches beautifully across the bubbling beat of "Hooked," imbuing it with equal parts longing and intrigue. And Sydanie's ability to switch between a lackadaisical and dexterous flow makes "Sydanie's Interlude" a dynamic and compelling mid-EP track.

The spirit of fluidity and genre-blending is evident throughout this EP, which expertly meshes hyperpop, UK garage, drum'n'bass, and jungle. Inspired by her love of R&B, BAMBII also elevated melodic rather than just percussive sounds. The result is incredibly propulsive music that glints and shudders, stretching sugary hooks over grinding beats and juxtaposing dewey synths with caffeinated blips of sound. "Everyone is always trying to commodify themselves, especially on social media," she says. "When I first started, I was very focused on narrowly defining genre and thinking about music in terms of binaries. This project is the very beginning of me trying to tell more complex stories."

Dancehall shines throughout the project too. BAMBII''s family is Jamaican, and she prioritizes traveling back often. "Wicked Gyal" is one of the most compelling tracks on the project: Lady Lykez's dancehall vocals twist gracefully around the track's shiny garage beats. And on "One Touch," the distorted samples add amber-hued nostalgia and warmth to the angular synths and tripping drum'n'bass. It's a thrilling synthesis of rhythms and sounds that pulls from multiple homes to create something entirely new. "Caribbean music has influenced so much music around the world but people want to sterilize that history. Now we're in a dynamic where Black people playing it are treated as anomalies, when the anomaly should be that white people are at the forefront," she says. "On a political level, as an artist, I want to put myself and my narrative at the forefront. There's always going to be a reference back in my music to the origin point."

As much as this music is about celebrating the dancefloor as a community space, it's also about a more personal approach to finding comfort and belonging. On Infinity Club, BAMBII is making music that showcases her own complex tastes and interests rather than forcing herself to fit notions of electronic music that are too rigid and limited to satisfy her. In the process, she innovates a sound all her own. This project shows us that home can be a dream and an ambition, a place we dream of and sculpt for ourselves and then invite our peers into, too.