Alex Dolby's new 'Inner Circles' project shines a light a more dubby, experimental side to his sonic palette

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After decades operating across techno’s darker and more functional edges, ‘Inner Circles’ feels markedly more introspective and fluid in tone. What sparked the shift towards these dub, ambient and IDM-rooted explorations on this record?

Functional techno has super specific rules and boundaries—I’ve loved it and I still do. But at some point, you just need a breath of fresh air. The inspiration for this record came from wanting more fluidity: I wanted the tracks to move freely, without the pressure of having to 'work' on a dancefloor at 4 AM. That’s why I leaned into dub, ambient, and IDM. It gave me the freedom to focus on textures and vibes, exploring a deepness that doesn't always need a heavy kick drum to be felt.

There’s a strong sense of movement throughout the project, where tracks dissolve between glitched abstraction, rhythmic tension and spacious dub textures rather than settling into one fixed identity. How do you approach maintaining coherence across such varied sonic territory?

I think the coherence comes naturally from the way I work in the studio. I used a specific palette of sounds and gear for this project, so even if one track is ambient and another has more rhythmic tension, they still speak the same sonic language.

Your productions have always carried a distinctive analogue weight and dystopian atmosphere, but tracks like ‘Dry Drivers’ and ‘Orbit’ introduce a more fragmented, almost unstable digital energy. Were you consciously exploring the friction between human emotion and machine processing here?

That’s exactly it. For me, it’s about blending my past—that classic analogue weight I've always used—with new technologies that can push boundaries and go where humans simply can't.

Pieces such as ‘Shades’ lean into a more classic dub techno language, while ‘Immaginary Boy’ and ‘Sediment’ strip things back into something far rawer and more reduced. Do you see these contrasting approaches as separate creative mindsets, or different sides of the same artistic vocabulary?

To me, they are definitely different facets of the same vocabulary, but always with the ultimate goal of minimizing.

Having released music on labels like Bedrock, Global Underground and your own Affekt Recordings, how has your relationship with releasing music evolved over the years, particularly in an era where electronic music consumption has become increasingly fast and disposable?

To be completely honest, I think the music world today has become a giant jungle full of garbage. Big labels nowadays care way more about an artist's media hype and social media presence than the actual music, and vice versa. Music is no longer the main focus.

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Your work has consistently balanced club functionality with cinematic depth and detailed sound design. When creating a project like ‘Inner Circles’, are you imagining physical spaces and dancefloors, or are these tracks shaped more as solitary listening experiences?

Unlike many who feel they have to make music just to stay relevant in the current market, I don’t follow trends. I just create whatever comes to me artistically at a specific moment in my life. This album is a reflection of that freedom—it's a mental, deep experience. Then, what happens during my DJ sets is a completely different story. Every club and every night has its own life and follows no logic at all. I don't plan it out based on the record; the dancefloor is an unpredictable animal that you just have to live in the moment.

Beyond production, Affekt Club became an important institution within Italy’s underground techno landscape before closing in 2020. Looking back now, what do you feel that chapter represented for both your own artistic development and the wider Italian scene at the time?

Affekt Club wasn't just a venue; it was a community, a family. In a time when the scene was already starting to become too commercial, we created a dark room where people could just lose themselves in the music. For me, that place was a testing ground. I could test my unreleased tracks, observe how people reacted to certain frequencies, and share the booth with international artists who inspired me. It gave me a deep understanding of what underground music really means. It’s a closed chapter, but the energy we generated there is still alive in everything I do, including this new album.

After more than twenty years immersed in electronic music, what continues to challenge or excite you creatively today, and where do you feel your sound is heading following ‘Inner Circles’?

After more than twenty years, the biggest challenge is always to avoid repeating myself. It’s very easy to find a formula that works and just stick to it, but that kills creativity. What excites me today is the constant search for something new….. Thank u for having me .. big love to all.

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https://sequenzialshift.bandcamp.com/album/inner-circles

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