The story behind how Sub Focus got signed is almost too good — a friend handed a CD:R of his tracks to Andy C, the head of Ram Records and drum & bass royalty, while drunk at a show in 2003, and it somehow worked. Nicolaas Douwma, the self-taught producer behind the name, had been teaching himself production off software manuals since he was thirteen, after hearing “Incredible” by M-Beat and General Levy and deciding that was the sound he wanted to make.
His actual recording debut came that same year on Frequency, a Ram offshoot, and by 2005 he'd signed to Ram Records proper — “X-Ray” went to No. 1 on the UK Dance Chart and put him on the map inside the scene. The mainstream breakthrough took longer: Torus, his 2013 album, cracked the UK Top 20 and produced several genuine crossover hits.
He's kept working outside strict drum & bass since then too, teaming with Rudimental on “Trouble” and Chase & Status on “Flashing Lights” — but Ram Records, more than two decades after that drunk handoff, is still where his catalog lives.