On a crisp night in April of last year, Omar McCutcheon, AKA Batu, played all night long at London's Venue MOT. Part of a series of open-to-close gigs at small clubs to coincide with the release of his debut album, Opal, his set that night was a typically thrilling run through divergent global club sounds and different tempos. When I arrived shortly after doors opened, he was patiently laying down Autonomic-style drum & bass by the likes of dBridge and Escher, as a small number of eager clubbers mingled awkwardly around the room. Later, as peak time came around, he steered dancers through a dizzying run of Latin club rhythms, abyssal electro, Baltimore club, gun-finger grime, tripped-out techno and plenty more besides—all mixed with sleight of hand.

McCutcheon is part of a school of DJs who care little for genre boundaries or specialities. He's been carving out a place for himself within the UK's club scene, and further afield, since the release of his first records almost a decade ago (and the founding of his influential label, Timedance, in 2015). In the years since, his approach to DJing has undergone significant evolution. Setting out on a journey to become more than just, as he puts it, "a producer who DJs," he stopped playing his own music in sets altogether for some time, opting to chart a path that wasn't so heavily reliant on his label or his own output.

It's thanks to that journey that McCutcheon now comfortably floats between a number of different parties and festivals on any given weekend, whether it's crafting a wormhole of psychedelic sounds at Japan's Labyrinth festival, pleasing Ibiza crowds at DC10's Circoloco party or throwing down bassline and speed garage on Dekmantel's main stage. He craves variety in his touring schedule, admitting that he'd get bored if he found himself playing too many of the same kinds of events and venues every week.

McCutcheon approaches each setting with great consideration. This includes thinking about the rhythmic elements that can neatly blend two tracks together and pondering a more existential question about why he takes planes and trains around the world on most weekends just to play music for people.

"I'm probably too much of a deep thinker for my own good sometimes," he said. "On the festival circuit––and the pressure there is to play more shows and compare yourself to others––there needs to be a meaning to it, otherwise it's completely vacuous, and it's hard to justify being involved in it all."

During our chat at McCutcheon's cosy studio space in Bristol, we covered set preparation, playing all night long and the different modes he can be found slipping into from gig to gig.

Let's begin by talking about how you first started out DJing.

I learned to DJ with vinyl in my bedroom and I got fairly confident at beatmatching. I started playing out in front of people way before I was ever booked as an artist. I was called Batu, but I was just a resident at some local club nights.

Was this after you did your music production course at Bath Spa University?

No, before, when I was about 18. I was just playing some parties with friends in Oxford close to where I grew up, and supporting artists that were playing at clubs there.

I'm guessing one of those clubs might have been The Cellar?

Yeah, The Cellar was the big one, usually for the first hour or two of the night. This was at a point where I never even dreamed of asking for any money or anything to play. I just wanted to play music in front of people and be involved in whatever way I could. Looking back now, there were a lot of advantages to learning how to play in front of people before doing it as some kind of career. When I was still at Bath Spa, in the first couple of years, I started playing a lot for Bruce, Ploy, Kit Seymour and some of our other friends. They had a night called Recall, and I started playing at that regularly.

What kind of music were you playing around that time? Was it dubstep and similar bass music?

I missed the peak period of dubstep, but I played a lot of dubstep when I was mixing at home. At that time, other music started to feel accessible enough for me to buy and play out. I'm just doing a proper memory lane trip, but there are certain tracks that are popping up in my head. I bought this [Martyn's "Mega Drive Generation"] not realising that it wasn't 140 BPM. A year or two after this came out, I started playing fairly regularly in front of people in Oxford, and I had some absolute shockers during those initial sets. All the classics, like trainwrecking in front of people to the point that they leave.

By the time I was at university, and definitely by the time people had started to know me as a producer, a lot of those big mistakes had happened and were in the past. You tend to do that stuff once and then you learn from it for the next time. For that reason, I'd say to anyone––it's not even about playing in clubs––that just playing around and in front of people can be really helpful because it changes how you DJ. By the time I came to the point of playing on CDJs in a club with good monitors and sound, I felt like I was comfortable with what I was doing technically, and then more up for taking risks as a result.

There was a time where I thought I was a producer who DJs––and I wouldn't call myself a DJ who produces now of course––but I decided that I wanted to have more of an identity as a DJ that wasn't so connected to my own productions. I stopped playing my own music out at one point. This last year was maybe the first time where I started properly playing more of my own music in sets in about four years. I'm not that fond of doing it, because it feels like a separate pursuit. With my own music, and the music on Timedance, it's important for me to find a way to present it when it feels right. That's not all the time in my sets. I'm keen not to just play it all for the sake of it, or because it's what's expected. I don't want my identity as a DJ to be reliant on that.

What sparked that desire to develop more of an identity away from your own productions?

I felt like I had more to show people than what I was producing myself or releasing on the label. Objekt was someone who, maybe around 2016, was making amazing music and was also getting booked to play in all kinds of different contexts where maybe his own productions weren't always necessarily suited. It didn't matter if he played his own music or not. I looked up to having that balance, and I consciously worked very hard at DJing at that time––and what I was representing through my studio mixes––to communicate that I had more to offer and a larger range of selections than might have been thought.

Who influenced you early on, in terms of getting into DJing?

I can probably define different eras through different DJs. When I first started focusing on what DJs were doing, Youngsta was the one for a long time. The focus he had with what he was playing, and how curated it all was, was important and influential. This is a slightly separate point, but starting out listening to a defined genre of music––dance music––and then going further by getting into Youngsta, who was playing an even more hyper-specific genre [dubstep], it left me slightly conflicted in some ways about eventually taking a more eclectic approach to my DJing. I feel like I've got to justify why I do that and make sense of it, because actually the power of one person playing one specific genre really fucking well, feels unbeatable. There's still an element of conflict there now, but Youngsta was the root of getting into DJing for me.

Ben UFO came after that, and that was the start of becoming more interested in lots of different styles of dance music. I was obsessed with the [Hessle Audio] Rinse FM show, and there was a beautiful time where I was living with people like Bruce and Ploy, and Ben had started playing our tracks on the radio. We were listening in together a lot, and Ben felt like the benchmark of being able to fit together lots of different things in a way that made total sense. To my ears, nobody had done it quite as proficiently until then.

Later on, it felt like TJ [Hertz, AKA Objekt] was a big person in pushing that momentum forward. Around that same time, I started getting into other people that were playing in other ways and had different focuses. I was listening to a lot of Swing Ting sets and starting to get obsessed with Lena Willikens' sets. DJ Nobu and Donato Dozzy as well. Stuff started to diverge a lot at that point for me. A lot of the DJs I like the most have a very convincing sound world, and they might all play differently from each other––in terms of mixing style and genre––but they have conviction in how they fit what they play together.

The CDJ setup here at your studio has been brought in especially for the purpose of this piece, and I know you only have your turntables here usually. I think a lot of people would expect someone who uses CDJs the way you do––three-deck mixing, your use of various other functions––to have a pair as their main home or studio setup. Are club gigs essentially your practice space when it comes to using CDJs?

I've never owned CDJs, and I've not had a regular practice setup––or the motivation to regularly do it––for probably the best part of five years, maybe longer. I don't say that as a point of pride, because it's good to practice when you can, but my practice has just continued in clubs. My knowledge of CDJs comes from playing in clubs. If I'm watching another DJ––maybe if I'm in a booth before or after a set––and I see someone use a function on them that I might not have tried or used so much before, I'll challenge myself to do it. There's something enjoyable about taking a risk in front of people, so all the little tricks that I've picked up over the years have happened impulsively at times when I've felt relaxed while playing. I find it difficult to mix music by myself because there are so many paths that you can go down, and when you're playing in front of people, you have this guiding light of connecting with a crowd.

Are you the kind of person that reacts a lot to what's going on in front of you then?

Earlier in my career, when I first started playing in front of people more often, I felt like reading a room was all about looking up at the crowd and judging what they like and they don't like. That can be true, but it's a reductive way of looking at it because often it's about things which are less quantifiable or intelligible. It's hard to describe, but sometimes you can just feel a certain energy building.

A lot of that is ideally about bringing people along with you, rather than reacting to others.

Exactly. Sometimes I start my gigs and within the first 20 or 30 minutes I'm testing different things. I worry that it can be a bit confusing and not that great to listen to, as if I'm stabbing in the dark and looking to pick up on something––whether that's feedback I can see, or a feeling in myself. Once you harness some kind of energy in the room, it can feel like people start to lock in more, and you're on your little journey while the people in front of you are on theirs. At the start of sets, often I don't know what I'm looking for, and that can take time and trust. Once you feel you've captured what you want, that's when everyone's on that ride together.

I expect that's especially more challenging when you're playing at a festival or on a multi-artist lineup where your set time is around 90 minutes to two hours?

It can be, but the process is often the same. One thing that gets dull during festival season, or amid big high-spectacle gigs, is people losing sight of finding that energy when they play, and focusing too much on tracks that create a very specific moment. Or playing wall-to-wall bangers that are gonna get everybody in the room with their hands in the air. That can get too prescriptive. So even if it's 5,000 people and I'm closing a festival stage, or it's 200 people and I've got all night, it still applies that I need to pick up on a certain vibe myself to find a direction to go in.

Maybe the more satisfying thing is playing the track that unexpectedly provides that big moment.

I don't mind playing tracks that people know—that feel like classics at some level—but I'm definitely trying to build a world of music that feels unfamiliar. The place you can take a crowd to with music that might not be so familiar to them feels somehow more interesting to me than one where there's a level of knowledge with everything you're playing. If I play a big festival banger, I want to do it with something that I think might surprise people in some way.

Focusing on the different kinds of venues and events that you play at, do you prepare music specifically for certain sets, or is it just a case of being organised with your general rekordbox playlists?

I prepare at different levels for different environments. One thing I'm learning is that being less prepared sometimes can work to my advantage. The amount of preparation is related to how nervous I am for a certain set. If you're nervous, you end up spending more time in rekordbox. The problem with that is, if you go into a set with too specific an idea of what you want to do, that thrill of capturing something spontaneously can be watered down. There are some gigs this year where I feel like I played well and did something interesting, but I came away from them feeling like there was an element of performance to it. I don't think DJing is a performance. Or, at least, it should sit somewhere between that and improvisation. It can end up feeling like a pre-planned live set if you prepare too much.

I can imagine going into a set like on Dekmantel's main stage this past summer drew a lot more preparation and prior thought?

[Laughs] Yeah, I definitely thought about that one a lot. I was happy with how that turned out because it was a good balance of hitting certain points and moments that meant a lot to me, without excessive preparation. There was plenty of spontaneity there as well. This year, I started thinking more about playing with the boundaries between being prepared and unprepared for gigs. The moments DJing that have been most special for me have been where I've been unprepared and just naturally locked into a good zone. Playing more all-night sets has helped with that. I did a lot of all-nighters in a short space of time earlier this year. The first few were fairly organised in terms of going into them with a structure of where I wanted to go. Towards the end of that run, I went into sets of around eight or nine hours with no idea of what was gonna happen.

Talk me through all-night sets. I've seen you play a couple now, at The Pickle Factory back in November 2019 and at Venue MOT in April 2022. Do you try not to over-prepare for them, and just rely on your own rekordbox organisation to guide you through when it comes to finding the right music?

I tend to divide them into modular blocks of different tempos or vibes. It works best when those blocks can go into any order. I definitely wouldn't want my all-night sets to be too linear or predictable in terms of starting slow and deep and then getting faster and harder. I look to build an arc that is more surprising than that, so it's almost anything but the classic way of "speeding up and getting harder right through to the end" that I want to do. When I last played the whole night in Bristol, I had this slightly ridiculous idea in my head that I wanted to play some hard drum & bass very early on, before midnight. I went faster from there and then went off into a much slower direction to build things back up over the next three hours. Sometimes I start with these self-indulgent ideas in my head, and then ask myself whether it can be done without people leaving.

Let's say you're playing a more extended set and you want to switch up the tempo, do you plan for these moments or organise your playlists in rekordbox to help you find the right combination of music for that situation?

I use the tagging function in rekordbox, and I have tags for different types of transitions. One of them is for polyrhythms. There are two for tracks with ambient intros and ambient outros, and then another for beatless rhythmic stuff, though I've been using less of that recently.

Is there a particular reason for that?

I was just using them as tools too much. Something I do is change the CDJ tempo setting to wide on one track if it has an ambient breakdown, and speed it up during that part, but then I'll have the second deck synced with it playing a track at the new tempo. If you have it all synced for that particular moment, when you start to move the tempo on one track in wide the other will follow, so when the drop comes in on the initial track, you can start to bring the new one in straight away.

It works well when transitioning from something slower to drum & bass, for example, because you'll have this techno track that comes back in with a break under it. It feels continuous, rather than a sudden sharp change. If you overuse the ambient intros and outros, you can leave yourself open to tapering off the energy in the room too much. I did one section of lots of mad musique concrète sounds when I played at Nowadays in New York and I felt like that worked well as a way of bridging the gap.

How do you manage your playlists then to stop them becoming too unwieldy? Naturally, you want to avoid the situation of standing there endlessly scrolling through loads of potential options.

For each gig I'll make a new folder with playlists within it. I have a few different tempos and vibes in there across those playlists, and then a larger main one which has everything from those playlists together. I sort the tracks in them by BPM as a default, but occasionally if I've got a gig I'm more nervous for, I might do more specific prep and make folders for intros and outros. I tend to put about ten tracks in them to choose from, so I have a more limited pool of music to ease myself in. I'll have something that I know I want to start with, and then five or six options for the next two or three tracks in there.

A playlist will be between 100 and 150 tracks for a gig, potentially more if it's a much longer set and I'm thinking about playing a broader range of tempos. On the week of a gig, I'll have a loose idea of what I want to do, which will be defined by music that I've found and downloaded recently, or just what I've been enjoying playing in the weeks before. I tend to get these pockets of music that I feel work together while I'm digging for stuff. In the last few weeks, I realised I'd amassed a lot of music from Latin America that had very Latin-influenced percussion but also a lot of very synthetic sounds on top. I've been diving into that stuff collectively in certain sections of sets. Something like that can go on for maybe a few weeks and then it might be replaced by another set of similar sounds that I've been discovering.

Everything I put into rekordbox is tagged as I go, and I might add some cue points and auto-loops to certain tracks. I usually add something in the comment field too.

What kind of comments do you add?

They're usually very descriptive. When I add tags, for example, it's not just genre, I usually do it for components too. One big thing I think about when connecting music from different places is the rhythmic elements of each track. You can make things connect together powerfully and clearly if there's some kind of continuity rhythmically. I tend to make a note of whether something is 4/4 or there's a broken kick pattern, what kind of percussion is in the track, what else? I can actually have a look at the CDJ… So, components, there's "4/4," "Ambient Intro," "Broken," "Breakbeats," "Colourful," "Deep," "Dubby," "Drum Workout," "Dubstep," "No Kicks," "Percussive," "Raw," "Steppy."

What goes into the "Raw" category?

That's more of a timbre thing, which I think is an important characteristic of a track, along with rhythm. If tracks have very defined drums, then even if the genre or rhythm changes, you can get away with it. It's all about finding a justification in my head for why I think two tracks might fit together. It could be that the rhythmic pattern is the same or that they've both got dubby basslines, both got an 808 kick, they've got the same raw timbre. There needs to be something for me though, because if there isn't, you're just off into the wilderness and I think people would maybe notice. One thing people say to me a lot is, "You covered so much ground in that set," and often I'll be thinking, "Well, it wasn't something I was meaning to do." It's not always an intention of mine, but I can only justify covering all that ground if I have a reason to put certain tracks together. It can be jarring if you're changing things up too much and too quickly.

Let's talk a little about your process of actually digging for music to play.

I never search for music with a specific upcoming gig in mind. I just try to find as much stuff as I can that I feel like I have some kind of connection with. My rekordbox library is massive as a result of that. I actually checked before this, and there are around 13,000 tracks in there. I don't know if this is completely accurate, but according to the USB history in my rekordbox, the tracks from that number that I've actually played out are around 5,000. So there's a lot of music in there that I've never actually played in a set, and then there will be other stuff of course that I've played 40 times, just rinsed. It's important to have all of that extra stuff, though, because it leaves you with room for surprises, different avenues to go down. That way, when I'm prepping for a weekend of gigs and I want to play a lot of 100 BPM tracks, I can come back to something that I downloaded six months ago and might have forgotten about or not played yet.

You mentioned that there are certain tracks that you'll have rinsed over the years. Do you ever consider actively taking stuff out of rotation for that reason?

I do. I think the tracks that I've played a lot of times end up being ones that have naturally come back into rotation over a long period because they have something about them that I feel is worth coming back to. I wouldn't say any of the stuff that I do that with though are big well-known party tracks. A lot of them end up being weird tools. I actually know what the track that I've played most over the years is, and it's probably a good indication of what I mean. You've probably heard me play it before.

[Plays Vladimir Dubyshkin - "Symphony No.9"]

Something like this, it's not a hands-in-the-air anthem, but as a DJ, you can make your own mini-anthems and certain things become synonymous with your sets. You build a connection with tracks like these, and they become embedded in your style of DJing. I bought this in 2017 and it's just kept coming back. I've been playing it again recently, and I feel like I need to stay away from it a bit so I'm not always playing the same things [laughs]. It's a good example of the tension release element that I think is the most important factor of DJing, beyond obvious things like learning how a mixer works or beatmatching. Something like this track, which is very deep and psychedelic, has so many uses and contexts where it can hold power. It can maybe work within the context of a student party because it feels like it's taking you somewhere. One thing I look to do when DJing is put people into a weird space––maybe even momentarily uncomfortable––to then pivot off and push into a new direction. That's why I've played this particular track so many times.

Do you think you have a specifically definable mixing style?

Well, there are often a lot of cuts. I don't think there is a set without those. Beyond that, I'm generally quite fast, which is maybe a bad habit. I'd like to slow down on that front a bit.

When you say fast, do you mean the length of the blend?

No, more just how long I let a track play out for. I view all of the music that I play as a tool for myself to put something wider together, rather than a piece of music that I'm showing to people. I'm happy to pitch stuff up and down massively, and I make little loops from tunes. My philosophy is about using pieces of music as layers of a wider vision. A lot of music that I really love––even dance music that holds some kind of higher importance to me––I won't actually play. I'm almost scared to play it in case I ruined it for myself in some way. I have to be discerning about the functionality of music, and if I started viewing that music that is special to me in that way, it would take some of the shine away from it. It would be like working with your partner or something. That might be why I'm not always comfortable playing my own music. If I've got to the point of finishing a piece of music that I'm proud of, I probably shouldn't put myself in a position where I can ruin it for myself by playing it at the wrong time and clearing a dance floor [laughs].

Do you feel like you have any other bad habits when you're DJing?

I look up to people who can play patiently no matter the context. You can have a room full of hyperactive people, and there's a lot of value in that situation in a DJ who is charismatic enough in the way they play and present music––who is measured about what they do––that they can bring everyone into their zone. I can do that, but maybe I don't have the confidence to do it as much as I should. I'd like to try to slot into that mode more, whereas often I'm just trying to increase the energy, or chaos and feverishness, of an environment. Sometimes I look back and think I didn't need to do that.

There are other things that I could say are bad habits, but you need stuff to go wrong––you need those imperfections––in order to learn and progress. It's not like every gig goes perfectly. There are loads where I come away with feelings that I could have done better, but that's all part of the self-discovery of the whole thing. I have regrets about shows semi-regularly.

Would you say you're quite self-critical?

I used to be really self-critical. Now my position has changed, because in the grand scheme of things of someone going out on a night to a club, the DJ is just one small part. There's a lot that you can't control as a touring DJ, and being hyper-critical can drive you mad. Maybe I've made mistakes where I've played too hard or too weird, or I've played the wrong track at the wrong time, but I'm more philosophical about it being part of the journey. I'm usually sure of what I'm doing and how what I'm playing fits into that, so I've never had to question any of that. I've been very lucky with the gigs I've had, and the profile that has developed from those. I'm sure other people have had to deal with more adversity with gigs. I often have crowds that are fairly responsive and engaged, so that hasn't been an issue.

I wanted to talk about the set recordings that you shared a few months ago, from Waterworks in London and the Return To Source party in Detroit. They present two different sides to your DJing, with the former featuring lots of faster UK music, hyperactive blends and reloads, and the latter focusing on deep, psychedelic techno. You're able to slip between these quite different styles with ease––sometimes within one set––so how has that progression come about?

I feel like I evolved over time. It wasn't a specific ambition of mine that I wanted to play lots of different slots and parties. I try to be proactive about things that I'm inquisitive about, though, so I enjoy playing a lot of different sounds and tempos. I don't believe that I can do as pure a job as someone who is a specialist of any genre, but I can make my own version of it. There's no doubt in my mind that DJ Nobu or Donato Dozzy are more deeply connected to psychedelic techno than me. I have faith that I can do a version of that world myself that has some value, which still feels dynamic and rooted in UK music, because that's where I came from—but also deep and psychedelic at the same time. That applies to something like dancehall too, or other genres. I've built these different modes that I can feel comfortable playing within as I've evolved. I actually tried to make a list of them [laughs].

Go on.

I've got "Techno Trippy," "Fast Party Sci-Fi," "Sci-Fi FWD," "Spacey Sunday," "Space House," "Batu Meets Ibiza," "Slow/Fun," "Loose," "Vocal Silly," "Percussive," "Classy UK," "Student," "Spacey Fast," "160 Party," "160 Club," "D&B," "Dubstep," "Ambient."

Talk me through the "Student" mode.

That one isn't even about education because I think a lot of young crowds who you might expect to be new to dance music are well-educated now, so maybe it's more about being less jaded [laughs]. Less experienced, had less time in clubs. It's not just about playing music that I think they might know––I'd never wanna feel that I'm being patronising––it's more about an energy where I'd maybe throw in something with a big vocal every now and then, or inject momentum with cuts and switches using the mixer. It's about maintaining a high level of energy and just trying to make it fun and playful. You can still play some weird stuff within that context.

Part of these modes––which I've just made up [laughs]––is that they're a starting point for building energy and a connection with a crowd when going into a set. If it goes well, all bets are off for which direction things might go in from there. In this setting we're talking about, there might be more chance of me playing a UK funky tune or some speed garage or a big, bosh-y house track.

"Batu Meets Ibiza" also caught my ear, and I know you've played at DC10 before, for Circoloco. Do you find gigs like that more significantly challenging or nerve-wracking than, say, DJing at a small club like The Pickle Factory, which you've played at regularly by now?

I enjoy those situations where it's a gig in Ibiza or at a club like Berghain. Having this very defined context to bounce off is actually… I don't wanna say it's easier, but it's more rewarding in some ways. Those kinds of environments aren't all about me in the way that playing all night at a small, headsy club full of people who bought a ticket because they know my DJing would be more about me. People might go into those gigs wanting me to deliver something that really surprises them. I have reservations about that, because I don't always feel like doing it, and it can go down a path that feels performative. Playing in Ibiza or something, there's a clear context there that I might not fit into, but I do what I can do to make my own version of it along the way. That can be fun and rewarding when it comes off.

You have all of these modes, but when it comes to playing lots of different styles of dance music within one set, is there an element of thrill in chasing certain blends between tracks that might not obviously go together, and working out which risks to take?

An important element of the discussion around playing multiple genres of music, or different kinds of parties, is that I try to dig for music from many different places. The result is that I find connections between stuff that wouldn't make sense if you were working within a very defined genre. If you're in a very defined box with the music you play, you can see things as different, in terms of genre, and far away from what you do. I try to avoid looking at it all that way. Wherever I am and whatever mode I'm in, I'm also trying to take stuff from outside of that context and present it too. So these descriptors, like psychedelic, party, fast, slow, there are so many approximations that allow you to recontextualise other things into any of them. The important thing for me is ensuring that I look across a wide variety of places and scenes, so I can get this cross-pollination of ideas and sounds within a set. Music that might have been built for a specific context can be completely reinterpreted when you do that.

One final question: how would you say becoming a touring DJ over the years has impacted your approach to DJing more generally?

It's abstract, but I felt like I needed to find a justification for why I do any of this. There was a point when I started touring a lot more and I thought I had to go to places with a mission to bring something different or new to people. I was probably pushing too hard to be creative all the time. It's like a living organism. As I've developed and I've learned things, I've also left things behind. Going to places like China, Mexico and Japan––where I've spent time with promoters and discovered producers and DJs––has allowed me to take inspiration back musically and feed it into what I'm doing. I've found purpose or justification for being someone who gets on a flight every weekend, and lives in this extravagant, individualistic scene, by having that experience of taking and learning from gigs, while also leaving things behind. There needs to be a motivation for being involved in this wider scene for me, and that can be what you learn or gain from travelling and meeting new people. It's always a mind-broadening experience.