What is deep drum & bass?

Deep drum & bass runs at the usual 170 BPM but pulls everything back. Sparse, machine-like rhythms, deep sub-bass with little to no wobble, cool glassy pads, and a lot of negative space. Dancefloor in pulse, introspective in mood.

Most of it traces to Autonomic, the project dBridge (Darren White) built with Instra:mental (Alex Green and Damon Kirkham) around a 2009 podcast series and the 2010 Fabriclive 50 mix. They pared the breakbeats and bass pressure down to highlight space and sound design, and the short-lived Autonomic label put out a run of twelves behind it.

Deep drum & bass shares its roots with halftime.