Boys Noize
Boys Noize
The bassline on “1+1+1” shifts key. According to the announcement, it runs under a fast new wave backbeat, and the straight four-on-the-floor kick is held back and brought in as a transition instead of serving as the default pulse.
That track is the first single from 7LLVSION, the new album from the German-Iraqi producer Alex Ridha, which comes out on 6 November through his own label, ONES and ZEROS. It is his first solo album in five years and, as Resident Advisor notes, his first since 2021’s +/-.
How 1+1+1 Is Programmed
The core of the track is an EBM bassline, the pulsing, sequenced low end of 1980s electronic body music. NME describes a classic EBM bassline set against an 80s-inspired drum pattern.
The top of the arrangement is busy. The FADER hears a “blistering beat rife with synth arpeggios and relentless drums”, and Consequence calls the single “a taut balance of rigid control and chaos”, with drums that boom and slice through the mix and synths that sound both nostalgic and futuristic.
The kick is the functional detail worth noticing. On most club records, a kick on every beat is the grid everything else hangs from, and it tells a floor what kind of track it is from the first bar. Holding it back means “1+1+1” runs on the new wave backbeat first, so the arrival of the four-on-the-floor becomes a transition in itself. The label frames that switch as the moment the track moves from the mosh pit to the dancefloor.
The key change matters to DJs as well. Anyone mixing harmonically has to check where “1+1+1” ends up before choosing the next record, because a bassline that moves between keys does not guarantee that the outro sits in the same key as the intro.
The announcement pitches the overall sound as fresh but analogue, caught between raw and processed.
ZEP and a Guest List Gone Wild
The voice belongs to ZEP, a Dutch artist, producer and multi-instrumentalist who came out of Rotterdam’s underground rave scene. According to the release, he built a following through his own independently run FUGAZZI parties and moved from drumming, DJing and production into singing and songwriting, fusing rap, punk, hardcore, techno and R&B. His latest project, NO ENEMIES, came out on PULSE Records.
The FADER describes his voice as shifty and personality-filled. On “1+1+1”, the label says, his tone swings with unpredictable urgency as he snarls, wails and shouts across the track.
Rolling Stone calls the single “a dance genre-hopping ode to ever-expanding guest lists”, and the lyrics allude to a guest list gone wild. The label also reads the title as a statement about the collaboration itself: two artists adding up to more than the sum of their parts.
Who Else Is on 7LLVSION
ZEP is one of several guests. The album also features Brutalismus 3000, Taichu, Maya Alkhatari and Abra, among others, according to the announcement. The full tracklist has not been published yet; NME reports that it will follow in the coming days. The album is available to pre-save now.
Brutalismus 3000 are already part of Ridha’s circle. Consequence lists them among his past collaborators, alongside Shygirl, Rico Nasty, Tame Impala, Kungs, Dylan Brady and Skrillex.
Nine Inch Noize and the Reznor Connection
7LLVSION follows the busiest stretch of Ridha’s career. After joining Nine Inch Nails as a guest on their Peel It Back Tour, he worked with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross as Nine Inch Noize, and that collaboration grew into a pair of Coachella sets and an album, as Rolling Stone reports. Consequence, which counted Nine Inch Noize among the best albums of the year so far, described it as dark, chaotic reinterpretations of Nine Inch Nails songs. NME notes that it reworked some of the band’s best-known songs, including “Closer” and “Heresy”.
Trent Reznor has explained how it started. “The creative fulfilment of working on the Challengers and Tron scores with Boys Noize led me to think that including him in the Peel It Back tour could be an interesting way to express NIN in more purely electronic terms live,” he said, as quoted by NME. “The result was so much fun for us we felt it was worth expanding and formalising in some way. On a whim, I mentioned it would be cool to play a whole set as Nine Inch Noize in the Sahara tent at Coachella.”
Those scores are the other half of the story. In 2024 Ridha made a mixed album version of Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score for Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, and according to the announcement he co-produced nearly all of the Tron: Ares soundtrack, including the single “As Alive As You Need Me To Be”.
A Long List of Credits
Ridha’s production credits run wide. The announcement lists songs made with A$AP Rocky, Bon Iver, Frank Ocean, Arca, Virgil Abloh, Lady Gaga and Brutalismus 3000, and remixes for Daft Punk, Depeche Mode, Tame Impala, The Chemical Brothers and A.G. Cook. The FADER notes his work on Frank Ocean’s “DHL”, and Rolling Stone points to Lady Gaga’s “Rain on Me”.
He scores films as well: the German hacker thriller Who Am I, Oliver Stone’s Snowden and the forthcoming Replacer, starring Halsey. He also works in duos, with Chilly Gonzales as Octave Minds and with Skrillex as Dog Blood.
The label side matters too. Alongside his older Boysnoize Records imprint, Ridha launched ONES and ZEROS in 2025 with a Boys Noize Presents ONES and ZEROS compilation, according to Resident Advisor. Releasing 7LLVSION there keeps the album in-house.
He is not the only DJ putting a major record out through their own imprint this season. Earlier this month, ElectronicMusic.News looked at how Amelie Lens brought a pop vocal into peak-time techno on Run, from her debut album on her own EXHALE label.
Dog Blood at Portola, Then the Road to November
The summer ran at the same pace. According to the announcement, it was a season of club dates and festival main stages across several continents. NME caught his set on the second day of Mad Cool this year and reported that he took over the Loop Iberdrola tent while playing opposite Teddy Swims, even without the industrial edge of Nine Inch Noize.
Before the album comes the road. Ridha starts a run of shows on 26 September at Portola in San Francisco, where he joins Skrillex as Dog Blood for their first joint set in seven years, according to Consequence. He plays CRSSD Fest in San Diego the next day.
October is mostly Europe: Switch Club in Porto on 2 October, then a ONES and ZEROS takeover at The Cause in London on 3 October, Robot Festival in Bologna, Brunch Electronik in Malaga, and further label takeovers at Mia Mao in Paris on 16 October, Nitsa in Barcelona on 23 October and Melkweg in Amsterdam on 24 October. He returns to California for Gold Bar Hangar in Alameda on 30 October.
The takeovers work as label showcases. Resident Advisor’s listings put LSDXOXO, MarcelDune and Slim Soledad on the London bill, Adame DJ, TINKERHELL and MarcelDune in Paris, and Schacke, Skee Mask, DJ Marcelle and Imox in Barcelona.
Release day itself, 6 November, finds him at Obsidian in Phoenix, followed by Ultra Music Festival in Mexico City on 7 November, EDC Orlando on 8 November and Factory Town in Miami on 14 November. After VAC Festival in Zhuhai, China, on 28 November, the dates move to Australia over New Year: Radar Festival in Perth, Beyond the Valley, Field Day in Sydney, Let Them Eat Cake in Melbourne and a final Radar Festival date in Brisbane on 2 January.
Five years after +/-, the first thing Boys Noize has shared from 7LLVSION is a track that holds its four-on-the-floor back for the transition. The rest of the album arrives on 6 November.
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