Keeping It Raw: Robyn Chaos, Therapy Sessions, and over 20 Years of Underground Resistance
“We are not the cool kids”, says Robyn Chaos, “and I like that because we can go underground”. And underground is, for Robyn, who is a DJ, agent, promoter, and producer, the heart of d’n’b music. It is her motivation for founding the party series Therapy Sessions.
Being famous and big was never her top priority: “If that is what you want, just fucking play house”. Robyn is there for the grimy underground dance music blended with metal. Just the sound she was introduced to in the late ‘90s in London, when she was invited to the Metalheadz Sunday Sessions at Blue Note. “It was only three pounds, I finished at two in the morning, it was really cool”, she remembers. And that was how she got into dark d’n’b. Today, her name carries iconic status in the d’n’b scene, especially in the darkstep movement. DJing worldwide under her brand Therapy Sessions, Robyn is not only a producer, vocalist and songwriter, but shows great experience and talent as promoter and agent. With her agency Anger Management, she stands as a guiding force in the dark d’n’b scene, representing massive artists like Audio, Limewax, Katharsys, Donny, and Counterstrike.
However, after the formative and shining years of London’s dark d’n’b scene in the 1990s, Robyn soon experienced the scene’s development away from the underground as the sound became more popular. “I heard people constantly say like ‘I love to play that in my set but I can’t because it’s too hard’”, Robyn tells me when we speak about her motivation to start Therapy Sessions. While today there are manifold subgenres with greater flexibility between them, at that time, music was viewed far more binary. In the late ‘90s, everyone was trying to conform to the mainstream d’n’b that developed from jungle, techstep and darksided d’n’b to jump-up — a sound that didn’t fit into Robyn’s aesthetic of scattered basslines, raw drums, and smacking synths. So she created a space for that. In 2002, Robyn and Dylan founded Therapy Sessions, a party space where everyone can play what they want. And it worked: Therapy Sessions is a worldwide global dark d’n’b brand, soon celebrating its 25th birthday, and extending to the label Therapy Sessions Recordings. Recent releases include the Gargantua EP from Noisesmith, supported by all heavy hitters across the dark, heavy and neuro spectrum. The most recent release was System Error/Scandium 21 from Section 63, Peter Kurten and Aor J.
We first met at a session in Stuttgart, sharing the same passion for playing raw, hard music as we please. A therapeutic effect for me, as it is for many female and minoritised DJs, because sound policing is real. Therapy Sessions is free from that. It has been a one-woman brand since Dylan has stepped away in 2008, however, Robyn smiles, “guys from the outside still seem to enjoy telling me what my brand is.” It’s not hard for me to guess what these guys say: The typical Therapy sound should be dark, hard, and fast. From my own experience in the scene, I have met many men who are eager to play as hard as possible. “I find that to be quite empty”, Robyn admits. “You can be hard, but also have depth, have meaning, have nuance.” And once you listen to Robyn’s and Fortitude’s Broadmoor Blues, you hear how right that is.
Forthcoming Releases : Rawbreaker feat. Offish “Crash and Burn” (01.03.26) & Release from Artheist, Maza, and Forgiven Soul (TBA)
When I tell her about a guy telling me to cut the vocals from my set because they weren’t hard enough, she laughs: “I love playing something with vocals, like Up All Night by John B, with Wall of Death by Forbidden Society & Katharsys which is really hard. You can change the whole vibe of a track by mixing it with something unexpected.” To her, creativity matters more than theory. Instead of playing a whole set on the same key, (“which sounds crap”), she seeks for what complements each other.
Creativity under Threat in the Age of Hyperdigitalism
Today, this creativity is under threat. Social media and its algorithms demand for ever-new content, creating an overabundance of music. “Not only does this lead to a certain superficiality, but it also robs quality”, Robyn explains. I share my observations from the past decade: short-form content flooding our brains, eroding our attention spans, and the music adapts – intros are cut out, tracks are fast-paced, and DJing becomes a penetration of drops.
“But it’s not the first time that this happens”, says Robyn. “It’s a cycle: sound becomes really fast and loses meaning. People get bored of that, the sound becomes unpopular, goes underground for a bit, and finally people bring it up again.” The Therapy sound also evolves over time. Robyn had to learn to accept that and to stay inclusive. She makes it clear: “A subculture belongs to everybody.” And in that respect, the UK d’n’b scene was indeed prone to gatekeeping and rarely recognises international achievements for a while. Robyn, a Black woman, is pretty aware of that: “For a music that is foundationally based on Black music, we have very little Black representation. Everything after the old-school jump-up has become quite white – and middle-class.”
An Undertone of Masculinity and Competitiveness in the scene
When you look at the lineups of big d’n’b events, you mostly see white dudes. In 2015, the dark and hardcore event PRSPCT XL let just one woman play the warm-up, followed by 41 men. Ten years later, the proportion of women has at least risen to ten per cent. At Hospitality in 2017, over 250 DJs played – only two of them were women. Hospitality, a show run by a large British record label, even writes that d’n’b is a male-dominated genre when it comes to artists: “But take one look at the crowd at any Hospitality and – have you noticed? – girls like drum and bass too”.
Clearly, women, non-binary, trans people and other minoritised groups have always been part of the scene, even holding important but often unseen positions, such as bartending and organising. But that is not enough: we want to be behind the decks and in the studio. It is too easy to say that there are simply not enough of us to book. The issue is more complex. As stated, the UK d’n’b scene grew more mainstream in the mid ‘90s, which attracted more white and wealthier people. This led to a monetisation of Black cultural elements under capitalism. And those who had access to studios, production sites, and snobby event structures were mostly white, rich men. Kemistry and Storm, two of the very few women who made it through in the mid ‘90s, made sure not to tell the organisers that they were female. They reported an undertone of masculinity and competitiveness in the scene.
But hasn’t that changed in 2026?
Well, not really. Robyn speaks of a silent backlash against ethnic and gender minorities in the d’n’b scene. She remembers that after the #MeToo-Movement in 2017, promoters made sure to have a gender balance within lineups, so as not to be called out sexist. “But they don’t include the people sustainably“, Robyn says. “Those who bring you into the scene in the first place, realise that it is hard work, and then, they cut you out.“ She feels structural barriers, as she does not seem to fit into a box: “A Brown woman who is into darker stuff is still an anomaly to people in the mainstream.” And if you do not fit into what people perceive they can sell you, they don’t sell you at all – this is her observation. She is probably right: Women, non-binary and trans people report being marketed through their gender category and being objectified because of it. Big and profit-oriented events are particularly prone to this.
Robyn has had the same experience: “What people tried to benefit of me for a very long time was being female.” While she has nothing against showing strong empowered woman sexuality, it is the vacant sexuality through the superficial male gaze that bothers her. “I would’t want to be merely an image, without depth”. She also points out that discussions about participation in d’n’b often centre on gender, but should also be about race and class: “There are multiple strands of inequality to be addressed.” However, Robyn does not lose hope in the scene and focuses on the underground instead. She is sure that the underground will take such political issues seriously and end up supporting minoritised people.
So respect the culture, keep your values, and stay underground.
Instagram: @robynchaosdj @therapysessionsdnb // Website: https://therapysessionsrecordings.bandcamp.com
Upcoming Therapy Sessions Spring 2026: Poznan 13.02 // Aarau 28.2 // Budapest 14.03 // More TBA Please check instagram and socials for further events and info!
