Two hours of indie-dance inflected progressive from Nichols+Roark…
Nichols+Roark are a London-based DJ and production duo whose sound sits between progressive house, indie dance and melodic techno.
Friends for more than 25 years, their music draws on a shared club history shaped by nights at venues and parties including Renaissance in Nottingham and Ibiza. Their releases have landed on labels including The Soundgarden, Mango Alley and Renaissance, while their 2019 track “Magnificent Creatures” was featured on Nick Warren’s Balance Presents The Soundgarden.
Recent years have also seen the duo develop Shift, their own label platform. Its official launch at Crane Faralda during ADE marks the next major step, with Shift Season 1 set to introduce a hand-picked roster of artists and new material in one of the pair’s favourite cities.
On this Balance Selections, the duo draw on their combined tastes for a two-hour mix featuring tracks from Mano Le Tough, Kamilo Sanclemente, Paul Hazendonk and more. The result is a hazy, hypnotic journey into the spacey fringes where indie dance meets progressive house.
Tracklist
1. Russian Linesman – The Lodge of Whispers {Loki Recordings}
2. Hotmode – Nights {Nightcolours}
3. Fractal Architect – Past Is Prologue {Cinematique}
4. Sascha Funke – MZ (Mano Le Tough Remix) {Turbo Recordings}
5. Christopher Ivor – Mirrors {Alafair Two}
6. Engelbert – Endless Autumn {3RD Act}
7. CANVI – Can’t Hide (Valdovinos Sunrise Remix) {TEN IBIZA RECORDS}
8. Sistersweet – Back To Spring (Poli-Poli Remix) {LUCHiSVETA}
9. Kamilo Sanclemente – Amethyst (Deepness Remix) {Voodoo & Prayers}
10. Paul Hazendonk – Angels Calling {Cinematique}
11. Cimboldo – Fifth Hour {Sommersville Records}
12. Sagia – Sunken City (E.F.G. Remix) {Natura Viva}
13. Anatolian Sessions, Huri – Infial (ELIF & Predex Remix) {Harabe}
14. RÜFÜS DU SOL – Devotion (Luke Alessi Remix) {Rose Avenue}
15. QuiQui – Impermanence {MNL}
16. Budakid – Lovin’ Sun (Guy J Remix) {Flores}
17. Nichols & Roark ft. Zoka – Loyou (Extended Version) {Renaissance}
18. Mattim – Locked In {District Rec}
19. Space Food, Kinky Sound – Avalon (Kiko Remix) {Ritual}
20. Nichols & Roark – Transform {Shift}
21. Âme ft. RY X – Love Is The Dance (Ivory Remix) {Innervisions}
22. Ron Flatter – Chimeycho {Pour La Vie}
23. GHEIST, BATU, MALHO – Way Out {Embassy One}
24. Fractal Architect – Zephyr {Cinematique}
Name: Nichols+Roark
Location: London
Alias/Producer name: Nichols+Roark
Labels affiliated with:Musik Records; Droid 9 SA; and plenty more to come!
ROARK: Michael Jackson and Prince were always on the Sony Walkman or Philips ghetto blaster, and Roxette featured more times than I care to admit! Music was always there, and those big pop records were probably an early lesson in how much a melody, vocal or hook can stay with you.
NICHOLS: Synthpop and 80s music were a big part of my childhood, alongside whatever my dad was into, which could be anything from Talk Talk to Deep Purple. That mix probably explains why I have never thought about music in particularly strict genre terms.
My first proper gig was OMD at Preston Guild Hall when I was about 13. I was the youngest person there by about 20 years, but seeing electronic music performed live at that age definitely left a mark.
Looking back, we both had a strong connection to melody and synthesised music long before either of us discovered clubs properly. The routes were slightly different, but there is probably a straight line from those early records to some of the more melodic and synth-led elements in Nichols+Roark today.
NICHOLS: I was into synthpop from a very young age through a friend’s older sister, but my dad was a guitarist and also played me things like Black Box and Adamski ‘Killer‘, which started pulling me towards a more club-orientated sound.
I had a Yamaha keyboard from about the age of 10 with a record function, so I would sit there for hours making eight-bar loops. Ironically, that is still probably my favourite part of the production process!
I enjoyed early clubbing and caught the back end of the rave scene, but the real turning point was Cream: Oaky in the Courtyard and Sasha in the Annexe.
Then seeing Sasha and Digweed B2B at Space in Ibiza turned it into a lifelong obsession. Somebody said it was Sasha’s birthday and he kept coming over to the bar between mixes. The music was mind-blowing. It felt like a proper duel, three records each, back and forth for hours.
I can still remember them playing Riva ‘Stringer‘, which was a Dannii Minogue remix, and PQM ‘You Are Sleeping‘. That was when electronic music became much more than individual tracks, and I saw how DJ’s could build a story over hours and completely change the meaning of a record through where and when it was played.
ROARK: Id already found rave and drum & bass as a teenager, but the real lightbulb moment came when I went to the Winter Music Conference in Miami aged 18 with the Metalheadz crew.
My best friend at the time was Keaton from D&B duo Usual Suspects, so somehow at a ridiculously young age I found myself in the inner circle with people like Goldie, Grooverider, Fabio, Randall, Kemistry & Storm.
Being around that world had a huge impact on me. These weren’t just DJs playing records I loved; they were building a scene, a culture and careers around electronic music.
Seeing it from the inside gave me a huge passion for it and, more importantly, the inspiration to actually do something in music myself.
That was really where Darkside Promotions was born and my journey promoting drum & bass in Leeds began. Leeds was an incredible melting pot musically, and over the next few years my horizons expanded pretty quickly.
I found myself straddling different scenes and genres, both as a promoter and just as an obsessive electronic music fan.
Eventually I left drum & bass behind and Ibiza became the soundtrack to what came next. Space Terrace, Pacha and DC10 opened up a completely different side of electronic music to me.
The intensity I’d loved in drum & bass was replaced by something deeper and more patient: longer sets, slower builds and DJs creating a journey over hours.
So Nichols and I arrived at electronic music from quite different directions. He was sitting at a Yamaha keyboard making eight-bar loops while I was disappearing into drum & bass culture and promoting parties in Leeds.
Ibiza was probably where those two musical paths eventually started to converge.
ROARK: My earliest proper clubbing memory was Tazzmania at The Rhythm Station in Aldershot in 1994. I looked about 12 years old, so I still have no idea how I got past the bouncers.
It was hardcore and breaks, and I was glued to the dancefloor from dusk until dawn. I remember the intensity of it as much as the individual records: the sound, the energy and this feeling that you had stepped into a completely different world.
NICHOLS: I was still at college when I first started going out. Park Hall in Chorley was one of the first places, with Stu Allan on the decks playing proper rave music, a mixture of hardcore and piano house.
My dad picked us up and I remember watching my beloved Everton the following day feeling completely frazzled. I loved the energy and the sense of community, although I didn’t actually love all of the music. My first trip to Ibiza at 17 changed that.
Those early experiences probably taught us both that club music is about far more than what a track sounds like on its own. The room, the people, the sound system and where the DJ places a record can completely transform it.”
NICHOLS: Martin Gore of Depeche Mode and Vince Clarke, who left Depeche Mode to form Yazoo and then Erasure, were massive early influences. That combination of electronic production, melody and proper songwriting still resonates with me.
Other favourites and influences spanning lots of genres include Sasha, Solomun, Gabriel Ananda, Jimi Jules, James Harcourt, Hans Zimmer and Billy Corgan.
ROARK: disappeared into the drum & bass scene for a few years before discovering Ibiza with Nichols in 1999, which opened up another musical world. We both love Joy Division and New Order, particularly that evolution from one into the other.
The Renaissance nights were aming with Dave Seaman and Danny Howells holding court and they are still both huge influences today. One vivid memory of Dave Seaman dropping Andy Ling ‘Fixation‘ at Pacha always sticks in the memory.
Nichols went to 5 consecutive Burning Man’s and worked on programming the acts for Carl Cox‘s Playground stage whilst playing multiple sunrise sets solo and as one half of Soul Of Noise with Matt Tanner which demanded a different type of programming – playing harder music during the darkness and then more melodic, ethereal tracks as the sun came up and the world restarted again.
Hernan and Nick’s recent B2B sets have been inspirational with the seamless track selection and mixing and their ability to build and build is an amazing experience. Solomun +1 sets have also been a regular staple in the calendar particularly where he plays with Dixon or Ame.
The soundtrack to Drive also completely blew us away. That synth-heavy, cinematic sound really connected with both of us and has influenced some of the synthpop material we have written and released with a club feel. We still love the Vangelis soundtrack for the original Blade Runner, the synths sounds so haunting and emotive.
More generally, we are drawn to artists who create a recognisable world around their music rather than simply chasing a current sound. We are increasingly interested in records that reward repeated listening. There is so much music designed for instant consumption now; we would rather make something that still reveals something on the fifth or tenth listen.”
There are so many new projects to work on and lots of promos to go through every week that it leaves surprisingly little time for discovering albums, which is a shame because we both grew up listening to music that way.
The last one Nichols can remember buying was Black Marble‘s first album. They are a synth-wave act that sits somewhere between Depeche Mode, New Order and Kraftwerk, so there are lots of reference points in there that immediately connect with the music we grew up with. A friend recommended them.
Albums ask something different of you from the way we consume so much electronic music now. There is an arc and a mood, and the order of the tracks matters. In some ways that is quite similar to what we love about a long DJ set: the individual records matter, but so does the journey between them.
Our studio is based around Logic Pro. Diva is probably our favourite soft synth, and Kickstart 2, the Dada Life Collection and Soundtoys seem to make their way onto just about every track.
On the hardware side we have a MiniBrute, Korg MS2000, Roland MC-505, which is still hours of fun, and a Roland JX-03. We monitor on Focal and Genelec speakers and use a RØDE mic. We have actually used less hardware recently as the workflow has become more software-based, but we would like to start integrating more of it again.
There is something about physically interacting with an instrument that can take you somewhere slightly less predictable.
The way we work as a duo is probably as important as the equipment. One of us can disappear down a production rabbit hole and the other can immediately ask whether the idea is actually making the record better.
A lot of our tracks end up somewhere neither of us would necessarily have reached on our own.
We DJ using USBs / macs with no vinyl at present. You can carry more music and be more create digitally.
A remix on Manual drops in the next few weeks, and the first VA on our new label SHIFT is also on the horizon, with tracks from N1NJA, Seizmic, Sonickraft and Willis.
SHIFT is a big focus for us. We wanted to create something that goes beyond simply putting individual records out into an increasingly crowded release schedule. The idea is to build a proper ecosystem around artists, releases, collaborations and events, and to create more continuity than the usual release-and-move-on model.
On the Nichols+Roark side, we also have a lot of unsigned music that we are currently pushing out to labels.
There is probably more finished and nearly finished material sitting on the hard drive than at any previous point, and it covers quite a wide range of the sounds we are interested in rather than repeating the same record over and over again.
It feels like a very active period for us creatively.
Next up we have our regular SHIFT Mixer at Timber Loft in Shoreditch, London, followed by our label launch at the iconic Crane Faralda during ADE.
The SHIFT Mixer is deliberately a little different from a conventional club night. It gives us a regular space to bring artists and people around the label together, test music and build a community around what we are doing rather than everything existing purely online.
The Crane Faralda event during ADE is the next big step. Launching the label there feels like a pretty special way to introduce SHIFT properly, and it brings together the label, artists and live side of what we are building.
For Nichols+Roark, we love rooms where there is enough time to establish some trust with the crowd and take the set somewhere. We would always rather create a journey than feel we have to deliver a new ‘moment’ every few minutes.
We had been storing up tracks for the last couple of months because we wanted the Balance mix to feel considered rather than simply being a collection of whatever happened to be in our current playlist. We also wanted to include a few of our own records if they fitted naturally.
We mixed it live on the Alpha Theta XDJ-AZ and then ran it through Logic. There were a lot of late nights spent listening to music and trying different combinations before we actually recorded it. The selection probably took considerably longer than the mix itself.
The challenge with a podcast is trying to condense the sort of journey you might normally build over a longer club set into a much shorter window without making it feel rushed.
We wanted it to sound like Nichols+Roark rather than a promo reel: melodic, progressive, occasionally a little unexpected, and with enough space for the tracks to breathe.
Including some of our own music also gave us a chance to show where the project is heading, rather than only representing what we have already released.
ROARK: It is one of those tracks that has really found its place in the set. There is enough character in it to stand out, but it still gives you room to work with what comes before and afterwards.
NICHOLS: ‘Domino‘ has recently crept back into the mix. Some records just refuse to disappear, and this is one of them. You can leave it alone for years, play it again and immediately understand why it became such an enduring club record in the first place.
Nick Warren played it at Balance in 2025 and it was also played again at the festival this year, which made it a particularly special record for us.
Nick has supported and signed both our Nichols+Roark music and Nichols’ solo material, and he has been a huge influence over the years. So hearing him connect with one of our own records, particularly in the context of Balance, gave the track another layer of meaning for us.
It is also a good representation of what we try to do musically: something that works in a club but still has enough melody, atmosphere and emotion to exist beyond that moment.
It is completely bonkers, which is precisely why we love it. There are plenty of beautifully produced, tasteful records we could choose, but sometimes you want a track that makes you wonder what on earth is going on.
‘Avalon‘ has that slightly unhinged quality that can completely change the energy of a set. Music should occasionally surprise you, make you laugh or make you turn around and ask somebody what you are listening to. This does all three.
We actually watched The Rip together recently and enjoyed it much more than we thought we would.
It is hard to get Nichols away from apocalyptic sci-fi, so he is nominating the latest 28 Years Later film. Give him the collapse of civilisation and he is generally interested.
ROARK: Project Hail Mary. Apparently we are not doing much to challenge the sci-fi stereotype between us.
ROARK: Ozark. Dark, beautifully made and one of those shows where almost every decision seems to make the situation worse, which makes it impossible to stop watching.
NICHOLS: Better Call Saul and/or Breaking Bad. Both are effectively on repeat. The writing, pacing and character development are difficult to beat, although there is a reasonable chance he has now watched them enough times to qualify as a supporting cast member!
ROARK: Es Racó d’Artà, Mallorca. It is where I go when I need a proper digital detox: nature, space, calm and, importantly, donkeys. It is almost the complete opposite of club and touring life, which is probably why it works.
NICHOLS:I really love the west side of Koh Phangan. It has that properly chilled Buddhist, hippy, yoga atmosphere, away from the chaos but, crucially, not so far away that you can’t find the chaos again when you want it.
We spend a lot of time around music, screens, travel and late nights, so both answers probably say something about needing somewhere that forces the pace down occasionally.”
