Anais is Hospital Records’ newest Women In Drum & Bass mentee. We spoke to the DJ about her budding career as well as the missing female names on festival line-ups

Anais playing a set in Manchester last year

Image: Amelia Workman

Missile's favourite songs, produced by female drum and bass artists

Hospital Records, home to High Contrast and Flava D, has produced some of the drum and bass scene’s biggest DJs. The London based record label, founded in 1996 by Chris Goss, aims to combat the gender divide within the music genre with its Women In Drum & Bass Production Mentorship scheme. This year’s mentee is 21-year-old Anais, a Bristol-based, high-energy DJ with experimental tunes and a can-do attitude. Anais’ precursors include Viridity and Stay-C, who have both gone on to perform at Hospitality in the Woods.

Anais is currently in her second year of the Music and Audio Technology course at the dBs Institute of Sound & Digital Technologies in Bristol. In addition to teaching herself how to use the music production software Ableton, Anais learns about sound on film and TV and the science behind music production on her degree course. “I don’t fucking balance it,” the DJ exclaimed when asked about managing her university course, personal life and career. Living in a drum and bass hotspot has allowed Anais to DJ at small venues, giving her the practice she needs for when the bigger opportunities start to roll in. “My first set was in Blue Mountain, room two from 10-11pm. The decks weren’t working so I cried the whole set, but I knew from that point onwards, things were only going to get better.”

Anais DJing alongside best friend Anton, founder of Invicta Audio

Video: Anais

As Hospital Records’ newest Women In Drum & Bass mentee, Anais is supported by the label’s different departments and receives help with anything she feels like she “needs to improve or change”. She is taught about how best to promote her music by professionals and has been given opportunities to visit the London studio to “be a fly on the wall” while the label’s biggest producers are having a session, including Whiney, one of their youngest ever signings. Anais explains that she “had a meeting with the events team, told them my aims, ideas and what I wanted to work towards, and then they make it happen”.

Her achievements have not been by chance, in order to become known by the label she attended their Women In Drum & Bass Sonic Surgery event in 2021, which gathers female-identifying producers for a day of panel talks and workshops. She said, “I wanted to show my face and speak to the women there, I think I made a good impression. You never know who you’re going to end up chatting to, they could change your life.” Anais believes this is one of the reasons her application to the scheme stood out amongst the rest.

Anais hours before her first set for an Eastern Promise event back in March last year

Image: Soul Media UK

The young DJ has a residency at Wide Eyes Bristol, has played in Brighton and London and is set for a summer of festivals across the country. Anais’ DJ career started at 16+ raves with her friend Anton Bailey, who founded the drum and bass label Invicta Audio. “He used to rock up with his little controller and play sets, I watched what he was doing and thought ‘oh my god that’s sick, I want to do that’.” She began mixing with a DDJ-SB2 controller and admits that she wasn’t the best, “I really question the types of music I used to mix.” After spending some time learning how to mix, Anais wanted to progress and learn how to produce. Having garage DJ girlfriend Izzy Fielding, AKA, Oppidian, on hand to help teach Anais the production software Ableton meant that it wasn’t long before she was releasing her own music. “If lockdown hadn’t happened, I would never have put more time into production. I kind of just went for it.”

Trying to break into drum and bass is difficult enough without being a woman. Vick Bain, former CEO of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, reported in her 2019 study that the drum and bass genre had the lowest percentage of women signed to record labels at just 5%, compared with the classical music genre, in which 30% of artists were women. Hospital Records have only three women signed to its label, compared with 33 men. Anais puts this lack of diversity down to the sheer imbalance of fans. “It goes to show that women just aren’t that into drum and bass.”

Anais isn’t wrong; you only have to attend one Printworks event, or even an underground squat rave, to see that the crowd is dominated by men. Anais discussed her Instagram analytics, explaining that her followers and interactions are 80% men. She adds, “I don’t let anything hold me back, especially not being a woman. I’m still seeing all-male line-ups which is so frustrating because there are so many amazing female DJs trying to break onto the scene.” Bain’s report lists the barriers faced by women and suggests that factors including the motherhood penalty, lack of role models and confidence contribute to the divide we see in drum and bass.

Not only are female drum and bass DJs under-represented, they also face harassment from male fans. Fellow DJ Lexi, AKA T-Lex, “gets hounded by blokes”, Anais says. Lexi was playing at a garage event recently and was followed by a lone man, begging to get backstage and forcing her to drink his drink. A 2021 study by Midia Research, Tunecore, and Tunecore’s parent company Believe, concluded that almost two thirds of the female musicians surveyed worldwide cited sexual harassment or objectification as a major challenge they face. 

A small crowd of drum and bass fans stood outside Printworks at the Critical Sound XX - 20 Years of Underground Sonics event

Image: Mollie Marshall

Anais’ sound reflects her creative and inquisitive mind; it is experimental and does not limit itself to speeds or genres. The DJ talks a lot about finding her niche, something which she believes is important on her journey to success. Her niche is that she doesn’t have one, “I like to throw everything in my sets. So, half time, jungle, ragga, a bit of jump up, a bit of minimal and a bit of four by four as well.” Anais isn’t afraid of making mistakes with her mixes, admitting that “sometimes things don’t work out, I just keep practicing until they do.” It’s no surprise that Anais’ biggest musical inspiration is Chase & Status, a drum and bass trio whose sound is heavily influenced by the music of Jamaica. Their song “Eastern Jam” features a sample from Bollywood song "Silsila Ye Chaahat Ka" by Shreya Ghoshal and Nusrat Badr, much like Anais’ song “Onion” which samples a similar Indian music sound.

Two years of lockdown saw a rapid increase in bedroom DJs sharing their mixes on TikTok and Soundcloud in an attempt to get their sound noticed. Anais saw the increase in competition with newbie female DJs and encourages them to stay consistent. “It’s about consistency. Things are always changing but I think self-promotion on Instagram and TikTok is key,” she adds. “Find your niche and work out how you can stand out. Don’t just mix, learn to produce because that’ll set you apart from the rest.” It wasn’t long ago that Anais was a newbie and now she’s mixing with her drum and bass idols. “I absolutely love Euphonique. I was making a tune with her the other day. I was telling her that it was only five years ago that I wanted to be just like her and here I am now," she says. "She was the reason I believed that I could make it as a woman in the drum and bass scene.”

You can catch Anais this summer at some of the country’s biggest drum and bass festivals including Hospitality in The Woods and Electric Woodlands. Listen to Anais’ latest EP below and find her on Instagram at @anaisjan.

Anais' latest EP titled "Badgyal", featuring Natty D and Madrush MC