Who the Hell is Mono Black

Let us introduce you to Mono Black. He grew up listening to Flux Pavilion, Modestep, and Skrillex, before changing lanes to hip-hop for a while. This scene is where he really learned the ropes and got into producing, sampling from random €1 vinyls and picking out tunes in his favourite record shops. And when you discover he’s from Antwerp, a city with a vibrant underground scene full of undiscovered gems, things will start to click. 

Mono Black makes music for the underground, for the people with a passion. When you listen to his tracks, you’ll notice that it’s different from the typical Belgian sound the country got famous for in the bass scene. And that’s because Mono Black doesn’t necessarily want to conform to the mainstream. He makes the music he wants. And if people like it, then that’s a plus. Spoiler alert: people do like it, because he’s only released three tracks ever, and one of those just got a premiere on our YouTube channel. Time for a chat. 

You just released your first ever EP, and it’s already getting supported by UKF. Congratulations!

Yeah, it’s absolutely amazing! If you had told my younger self, I wouldn’t have believed you. It’s a massive sign that my music is being appreciated, both by listeners and by bigger people in the music industry. I still see myself as the average bedroom producer, so it’s nice to get that validation. 

Can you tell me more about the process behind the EP?

Funnily enough, ‘Thoughtseize’ was a track that I never intended to release, and I was literally about to delete it when Blanko (Abyssal’s label manager) heard it and told me he wanted to sign it. I made it out of a Shades sample pack, where I took some samples, threw them in my DAW, mangled them around, and thought, this is so unhinged, I’m just going to leave it like that. And then who knows, later I can use it. It has been collecting dust on my hard drive for three years, but here we are. For the ‘Duress’, the other track, I experimented with sounds on my physical synths, and I had a lot of fun with it. I had to give myself a deadline for that one, because I have a hard time finishing my tracks. I think that’s the biggest problem for most producers. Everyone has a thousand projects, but only ten finished ones.  I think that’s a mix of imposter syndrome and just listening to it over and over again.

What’s the story behind this EP?

This was a bit of a challenge for myself, I went out of my comfort zone. Blanko challenged me a lot with this.  I have a lot of projects that sound very epic and big and very offbeat. It’s not something you can play during a set, it’s made for people listening to weird electronic music for the journey. With this EP I couldn’t tap into that sound, but I didn’t mind. It was a nice challenge to see how far I could push myself while working within the constraints of a limited time frame.

Where did it all start for you, production-wise? 

Way back, I started making hip-hop and trap music when I was 16. I slowly transitioned to using more electronic and leftfield sounds which ultimately led me to dubstep, more specifically 140. It’s just fun, I like it. It’s a bit nerdy, to put it that way. You can just geek out on samples. You can stare at your synths for an hour, change sounds around, and be like, oh, I like this, what’s this? I think the geeky aspect of electronic music is that it’s so fun that you keep doing it. I’m a person who, if I find something interesting, I can really lose myself in it for months, 24/7.  When I started producing, I was looking at tutorials non-stop, and was watching interviews with artists that I liked. And then I just practiced all of that new knowledge over and over. It’s such a good feeling to be able to control all of that now. Now I can say, I want to make this type of tune, and just go on and do it. 

I remember getting into dubstep when I was 14 or 15. I was really into the brostep movement of Flux Pavilion, Skrillex, Modestep, all those artists. Then, when I started producing a few years later, I dabbled a lot between hip-hop and dubstep, and then I got to know Ivy Lab. I thought they were sick, they had everything. A bit of hip-hop, half-time… And then I started watching videos like Against the Clock by Fact magazine, where the artists have fifteen minutes to make a whole beat. That’s actually how I ended up discovering Alix Perez. I also remember watching Rhythm Roulette, where hip-hop producers would go and pick up some records from a store and make a beat out of it. I thought that was insane. 

Watching these videos forced me to think about making my own sounds, my own beats, my own snares. Before this, I just sampled everything, because I was into hip-hop. So I started making my own stuff. It was very difficult, and at first I was really bad at it, but now that I’m completely sober, I feel like I got a better ear for it. 

How did going completely sober change you as a producer? 

I can separate the good from the bad way better now. Back in the day I thought everything I made was decent… Now that I’ve listened to a lot of genres, done a deep dive into them, I can tell that there are artists who really care about their album, their EP’s. Shades, EPROM and Alix Perez, worked on their album for a long time. It’s a solid piece of work that is very much in harmony. They have varied a lot, experimented a lot. The sound selection is top notch. Everything is coherent. If you look at another EP, another up-and-coming drum & bass producer or dubstep producer… A lot of these sounds, I feel like I’ve heard a hundred thousand times. The sound might fit in DJ-sets, but it doesn’t get to me like Shades does for example. I don’t know, it’s not that the more mainstream stuff is bad, because music is subjective anyway, but you can sometimes feel that an artist has worked hard on it for themselves, and not just to make a song that does well on dancefloors or radios, and that’s what I like. 

When I go to events or sets of artists that I really want to see, I really pay attention to the details and how the artist reacts and interacts with the audience. Some artists are very introverted and are very busy with what they do. They’re in the zone. Some are very good with the crowd, which is also nice. But I think the best in electronic music, and you see it far too little, is the visual aspect. It gets forgotten a lot, I think. Don’t get me wrong, you can’t always do a sick visual show, but that’s something that I would love to get into. Create a visual show, so you can see what’s going on in the artist’s head.

You said that you look at what the DJs do behind the decks when you’re out at an event. What are the things that you noticed and how has that influenced you?

When the artist enjoys playing their set, then that always translates to the audience. I’ve already noticed that when I play, I prepare only half my set so that I can improvise the other half, and I usually have the most fun in that second half. Every time I play, people say, “You played really well, you were really enjoying it,” and that’s proof to me that if you enjoy what you’re doing, other people will automatically join in. 

To give you another example, I remember being at Rampage in 2024, and Automhate & Dr. Ushūu were playing. I didn’t know anything about them, but I decided to give it a go. Those guys were literally jumping from joy behind the decks, so the whole crowd was hyped. I thought it was the best set of the whole evening, just because of how enthusiastic they were. It makes such a big difference. Some artists have been in it for a long time, and it’s really just business for them, so they’re less in it with the crowd. But that enthusiasm behind the decks is unbeatable in my eyes. I also notice that when I do it myself, I have a lot of fun. Interaction and enthusiasm is everything, and obviously knowing what you’re doing. 

Another example is Machinedrum, he’s the reason I do electronic music. His albums Vapor City and Vapor City Archives have shaped my entire musical identity. I saw a live set of his new album, 3FOR82 in Ghent last year, where he added all the effects while the song was playing. The guy had a lot of fun, he had good visuals behind him, it was amazing. At the end of the set, he said, “I’m going to play unreleased stuff for half an hour.” Everyone was dancing. Everyone was so excited. There were around 80 people, but it didn’t matter. If the artist is having fun, then the whole crowd has fun. 

That’s a good thing to take away from your experiences at gigs! Do you have any final thoughts? 
The UKF premiere gives me a lot of confidence in what I do. I feel like I want to do more now, and I want to finish the stuff that’s in progress, I want to make a body of work out of it. I’m thinking of releasing a few EPs before I make an album, because an album takes a lot of work. I’m also looking forward to working with a few other Belgian artists, like KRANKk and DMTR. FFaux as well, that guy is insane. I just want to collaborate with them and see how we can create something cool together. They’re not that well known, so that makes it so much more fun for me. Because it’s not with the goal of building a career. It’s purely for having fun, creating unique things. I’m also working on a track with Lavance. He sent me an insane Ivy Lab-type beat, and I can’t wait to work on it more. It’s the kind of track that’s never going to be released, but that doesn’t matter – I like it. For now, I’m all for creating stuff together, and I’m looking forward to more of that in the near future.