Some songs demand attention because of how hard they hit. Others pull you in because of how beautifully everything fits together.
October gave us both.
This month’s Tempo Setter 7 moves through artists who have spent more than a decade mastering their craft, producers currently shaping the next generation of bass music, and collaborations that somehow manage to combine wildly different musical identities without losing what makes each artist special.
From Flux Pavilion filling every inch of the soundstage to Excision and Space Laces turning a three-minute record into a full-blown dubstep roller coaster, these were the seven tracks that kept pulling us back in October.
As always, Tempo Setter 7 is unranked.
Well… mostly.
Because one song definitely left October as our favorite.
Flux Pavilion & Franky Nuts – “Righteous Valkyrie”
Released October 22 via Circus Records
There are producers who make a song sound loud. Then there are producers who know how to make a song sound full. Flux Pavilion belongs firmly in the second category.
Trying to explain that difference to somebody who has never touched music production can be difficult, but imagine filling an entire room with objects. If everything is thrown into the same corner, the room becomes cluttered. If every piece is positioned deliberately, however, the entire space suddenly feels complete. That is what Flux Pavilion does with sound.
Layers sit where they belong. Melodies have room to breathe. Bass occupies the weight underneath everything without swallowing the rest of the mix. Even when a Flux record becomes incredibly dense, it rarely feels like the sounds are fighting one another.
That understanding of arrangement and sound design is a huge reason why a new Flux Pavilion release still earns an immediate press of the play button from us. “Righteous Valkyrie” continues that tradition.
The collaboration pairs Flux with Dutch producer Franky Nuts, an artist who has been connected to the Circus Records ecosystem for years. Circus describes Franky as a Dutch bass producer who built his identity around combining powerful vocals, harmonies and heavy production, earning support across the scene while developing his own increasingly recognizable sound.
The pairing makes sense. Flux brings that enormous sense of space and musical architecture, while Franky Nuts adds a sharper modern edge. The result is a record that feels massive through headphones but seems purpose-built to make a proper car system or festival rig work overtime.
Franky’s evolution is worth watching, too. Releases like “Trouble,” “Show Me!” and the Katie Sky-assisted “Free Fall” demonstrate an artist moving beyond straightforward colorful dubstep into something increasingly polished and refined.
“Righteous Valkyrie” feels like another step forward. And being attached to a Flux Pavilion collaboration certainly doesn’t hurt the trajectory heading into 2027.
The track officially arrived October 22 on Circus Records.
Dillon Francis & Oaks – “Fall”
Released October 7 via Monstercat Instinct / Broke Records
You can’t really talk about “Fall” without starting with the voice.
Oaks is the electronic alias of Swedish singer-songwriter Winona Oak, whose delicate, expressive vocals immediately become the emotional center of the record. Dillon Francis gives them exactly the environment they need.
“Fall” is beautifully restrained. Rather than overwhelming the vocal with festival production from the opening seconds, Dillon allows the song to gradually develop around it. Soft melodic sections build emotional weight until those huge drums and snares finally arrive, transforming what initially feels like a mainstream vocal record into something much closer to melodic bass and future bass.
The contrast is what makes it work. Dillon has spent his career bouncing between moombahton, house, pop, trap and bass music, which sometimes makes it easy to forget just how capable he is when he decides to go heavy. “Fall” is a gentle reminder.
Recent releases have shown Dillon dipping back into the heavier side of his production toolbox, but this one approaches it from another angle. Instead of another high-energy festival weapon, he gives listeners a slower, emotionally loaded record with enough weight underneath it to still satisfy a bass crowd.
It is melodic without becoming empty. Emotional without becoming overly sentimental. Heavy without needing to beat the listener over the head.
“Fall” was simply a delight this month.
Seven Lions, Kill The Noise & MUST DIE! – “Grant Us Eyes”
Released October 23 via Ophelia Records
“Grant Us Eyes” is absolutely loaded. Not simply because there are three heavyweight producers attached to it, but because the song somehow creates an entire physical environment around the listener.
Dark stone. Cold air. Flickering candles. A corridor stretching forward before suddenly opening into something enormous and unsettling.
And it turns out that feeling is not accidental. “Grant Us Eyes” continues Seven Lions and Kill The Noise’s series inspired by the FromSoftware game Bloodborne, following 2019’s “The Blood” and 2023’s “Moonlight.” The new track even incorporates audio from Micolash, Host of the Nightmare, one of the game’s bosses.
That context makes the atmosphere make even more sense. Seven Lions has always had an exceptional ability to turn electronic music into storytelling. His melodies rarely feel like notes placed together simply because they sound pretty. They feel connected to environments, characters and emotions.
Then MUST DIE! and Kill The Noise arrive and give that world teeth. The opening half leans heavily into MUST DIE!’s influence. He has never treated himself as strictly a dubstep producer, frequently bringing hard dance into his work, and that manifests here through a blistering 160 BPM section.
It feels like running. Walls flying past. The corridor narrowing. Then everything opens.
Kill The Noise takes over the heavier side of the equation with exactly the kind of massive dubstep weight he has spent years perfecting. Few producers make a bass hit feel as physically heavy as Kill The Noise, and his influence becomes immediately recognizable as the track shifts toward its later sections.
Three very distinct musical identities somehow create one continuous universe. “Grant Us Eyes” does not just give you a song. It gives you somewhere to go.
ISOxo & Madeon – “MOLLY TALK”
Released October 9 on HARDCORE DIVA
If HARD Summer had to commission a theme song, we imagine it sounding something like “MOLLY TALK.” There is a very specific energy that ISOxo has become exceptionally good at capturing. It’s young: fashion-conscious, internet-aware, chaotic, and fun… and somehow simultaneously rooted in underground bass music. Completely capable of crossing over into pop culture.
“MOLLY TALK” might be one of the clearest examples of that skill yet.
The record appears on ISOxo’s sophomore album HARDCORE DIVA, a project that jumps freely between trap, digicore, electropunk and hard dance with very little concern for conventional genre walls. Madeon appears as a credited collaborator on “MOLLY TALK,” giving the track an especially interesting meeting point between two very different corners of electronic music.
Madeon’s melodic instincts immediately make the opening feel accessible. Then ISOxo gradually pulls everything toward his world.
About a minute in, the record begins introducing those familiar sweeping bass movements and harder trap textures, shifting what could almost pass as futuristic electronic pop into something far more suited for a bass stage. That transformation is exactly why the collaboration works.
ISOxo has become one of the artists best positioned to bridge the gap between modern youth culture and bass music. He can take sounds rooted in trap, dubstep and electronic underground culture and wrap them in something bright, current and instantly understandable.
“MOLLY TALK” feels sparkly. Futuristic and almost obnoxiously young in the best possible way.
And because of that, this might be one of the easiest records on the list to hand to somebody who says:
“I don’t really listen to EDM.”
Start here, you might convert them.
Ravenscoon & Hex Cougar – “ECHOES”
Released October 23 via Ravenscoon Sound / Create Music Group
Not every bass track needs fire cannons going off behind it. Sometimes the best thing bass music can do is give you space.
“ECHOES” comes from the side of the genre we often think of as lower-slung bass. Not necessarily lower BPM in the literal technical sense, but lower in perceived intensity. Less concerned with demanding a headbang every eight bars and more interested in allowing the listener to settle into the atmosphere.
Ravenscoon and Hex Cougar are particularly well suited for that environment. “ECHOES” is the second single from Ravenscoon’s forthcoming album SANCTUARY and combines his deep experimental-bass foundation with Hex Cougar’s melodic and trap-influenced production. The record itself blends atmospheric bass, melodic trap and trance-inspired vocal passages.
The result feels weightless. Imagine floating through clouds at night while tiny lights move around you like fireflies.
That is where “ECHOES” takes us. There is still a significant low end underneath everything, but the bass doesn’t feel like the destination. It becomes part of the environment.
That is an important distinction, because bass music has artists capable of giving you maximum pyrotechnics at 2 a.m., but it also has producers like Ravenscoon, Hex Cougar, Of The Trees and others who understand how powerful the genre can become when the music is allowed to breathe.
“ECHOES” feels less like something attacking the listener and more like something surrounding them. Sometimes that is exactly what the night needs.
HOL! feat. IANROCKS – “SHE LISTENS TO RIDDIM”
Released October 9 via HOL! / Create Music Group
There was almost no universe where this song wasn’t making the October list.
Because how often does a riddim record break outside the usual bass-music bubble and start showing up in front of people who may not even know what riddim is?
“SHE LISTENS TO RIDDIM” managed to do exactly that.
The entire idea grew around the now-familiar IANROCKS vocal about meeting a girl who listens to riddim, which began circulating through the community before the record was even officially released. By mid-September, fans were already trying to ID the unreleased HOL! track online.
HOL! then took that simple idea and somehow turned it into a character.
Almost a mythological version of the riddim girl.
The girl who understands the drops.
The girl who isn’t afraid of how raw or ridiculous this music can become.
There is something inherently funny about the concept, but the actual record underneath the meme is legitimately strong.
The hook is immediate. The rhythm is easy to latch onto. And HOL! creates the kind of simple-but-devastating riddim drop that has made his production so recognizable.
The official release arrived October 9, runs at roughly 146 BPM and is credited to HOL! featuring IANROCKS.
More importantly, the track comes during a year where HOL! has clearly crossed another threshold.
His rise from riddim favorite into a genuine upper-tier bass act continues, and the next marker is already on the calendar: HOL! will headline Red Rocks Amphitheatre on April 4, 2027.
There are certain venues where receiving your own headline date almost feels like a rite of passage.
For bass music, Red Rocks is one of them.
And a viral riddim song reaching beyond the scene while its producer prepares to headline one of electronic music’s most iconic venues?
That feels like a pretty fitting snapshot of where HOL! stands right now.
Excision & Space Laces – “True Killers”
Released October 2 via Never Say Die Records
Last, but absolutely not least.
“True Killers” was our favorite release of October.
And frankly, it may end up being one of our favorite bass records of the entire year.
There aren’t many producer pairings that carry this level of weight.
When the conversation becomes specifically about modern bass music, Excision and Space Laces have both influenced the sound of the genre in ways that extend far beyond the records carrying their names.
Excision brings scale.
Structure.
Punishing low end.
The ability to make bass music feel engineered for a stage the size of a building.
Space Laces brings some of the sharpest sound design in the genre: crunchy basses, impossibly clean transients, laser-cut drums and ideas that sound like they were pulled from a production software update nobody else has received yet.
“True Killers” sounds like both of them operating at full capacity.
The track moves through multiple distinct drops and tonal changes without ever losing momentum. One section crunches. Another punches. Another completely changes the rhythmic conversation before throwing the listener toward the next idea.
Calling it unpredictable almost undersells it.
It is a dubstep roller coaster.
Every transition feels like cresting another hill before the floor drops out underneath you again.
And the timing of the release makes the collaboration even more special.
Only weeks earlier, Excision and Space Laces had performed a featured B2B at Lost Lands 2026 on the Prehistoric Stage. Excision later described the set as the product of nearly two decades of friendship, built entirely around original music from the pair’s long history together. Excision
For newer listeners, the set was simply two elite producers going to work.
For people who remember how closely connected their names were throughout earlier eras of dubstep, it felt like a throwback.
Then “True Killers” arrived October 2 through the newly revived Never Say Die Records, giving that reunion an official record of its own.
Put this track on a festival system and you can practically see the stage before you’re anywhere near one.
Towering production.
Lasers cutting overhead.
Pyro heating your face.
And bass physically moving the air around you.
Excision’s status in the genre has been established for years.
But if there was somehow still a door separating Space Laces from being viewed as a genuine A-tier electronic artist rather than the producer’s-producer or underground favorite, 2026 feels like the year that door gets kicked down.
“True Killers” was our favorite track of October and an early contender for our favorite releases of 2026.
Seven Tracks, Seven Different Ways to Build a World
October’s list ended up having an interesting common thread.
These records don’t simply sound good.
They create space.
Flux Pavilion fills every corner of it.
Dillon Francis turns it into something intimate.
Seven Lions, Kill The Noise and MUST DIE! build an entire gothic nightmare inside it.
ISOxo and Madeon make theirs bright, youthful and chaotic.
Ravenscoon and Hex Cougar let us float through theirs.
HOL! turns a meme into a riddim universe.
And Excision and Space Laces construct something so enormous that it practically requires lasers and fire to finish the picture.
That is ultimately what keeps us coming back to electronic music.
The best producers don’t just give you sounds.
They give those sounds somewhere to exist.
And these seven records gave us seven places worth revisiting.
What October release stayed in your rotation?
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