28/05/2026
It’s been nonstop for Charlie Sparks over the past decade. “I didn’t know what a DJ was until I turned 18,” he tells us. Now aged 28, the London-born artist is one of the best-loved DJs and producers in his generation of techno-adjacent rave music specialists, dealing in a sound he sums up as “hard and happy”.
While there’s a precision-engineered element to his architectural approach, it leaves clubbers anything but cold, drawing the euphoria out of hard and fast frameworks. Finding balance has always been an important part of his life, as someone who grew up between cultures in London and Tokyo.
First making a name for himself in 2019, an industrious period of producing in lockdown saw numerous releases land across the ensuing two years. His sound got more playful and energetic, while still keeping its hard-edged focus on pushing the dancefloor into a frenzy. And as the world reopened, his touring schedule went crazy, with relentless weekends of globe-trotting around esteemed clubs and festivals.
A side effect of the flight-club-another-flight-another-club-after-party lifestyle, though, is that producing music took a backseat for a while. The balance that had defined his life fell a little out of shape. That changed last year when he got his head down in the studio and began to evolve his sound again.
He’s now putting out his fullest artistic statement to date with debut album ‘Power Up’ coming out via ELEKTRA on May 29. The 10-track LP sees the label founder sounding refreshed and revitalised, released against a backdrop of personal struggles, the challenges of navigating a music career, and a reinvigorated thirst for artistic evolution. He’s feeling energised, as the accompanying mix attests to.
