Eprom

An influential figure in the American bass music scene, Eprom makes inventive, expertly engineered tracks which can be maximalist and aggressive yet spacious and hypnotic. Always difficult to classify, his earliest releases were most adjacent to glitch-hop and dubstep, incorporating sub-bass frequencies and silence for emphasis. His style evolved with his 2012 full-length Metahuman, which featured aquatic textures, 8-bit synths, and trap-influenced beat programming. He followed it up with 2013's Halflife. Eprom formed the duo SHADES with experimental drum'n'bass producer Alix Perez, and explored acid breaks with another frequent collaborator, G Jones. His dystopian-themed third full-length, Syntheism, appeared in 2023, and he unveiled previously unreleased material with 2025's Tracks from the Vault EP. Alexander Dennis (Eprom) grew up in Vermont and started making electronic music after becoming a fan of industrial bands like Nine Inch Nails, and hearing the techno-heavy soundtrack to the movie Hackers. He experimented by making acid techno using the program Rebirth, then recording it onto cassette and using a turntable to scratch over it. He moved to Santa Cruz, California when he was 18, and started throwing drum'n'bass parties. Though he initially made drum'n'bass himself, he eventually gravitated toward music with lower tempos, particularly left-field hip-hop beatmakers like DJ Shadow and Prefuse 73. After hearing Vex'd in 2006, he began making music influenced by dubstep, which he appreciated because it was slow and spacious, yet he was able to fill his tracks with intricately detailed sounds. Following a few early EPs, he landed on Warp in 2010, when his track "Hendt" appeared on a split single with Eskmo. The Humanoid EP marked his first release on Dutch label Rwina Records, followed by Pipe Dream in 2011. The 2012 single "Regis Chillbin," backed by a Machinedrum remix, became an underground hit, and Eprom issued the restrained yet vivid full-length Metahuman, which was comparable to Rustie's aquacrunk style. His second album Halflife arrived a year later, and its first track, "Center of the Sun," was released as a single in 2014, with breakcore producer Bong-Ra providing a remix. Eprom collaborated with Foreign Beggars on the song "Modus." In 2015, Eprom and Alix Perez began releasing music together as SHADES. Their self-titled EP, issued by Alpha Pup, took influence from footwork, rave, and jungle. Eprom additionally released "Crawled Eagle," a collaboration with Barclay Crenshaw (aka Claude VonStroke). Eprom's 2016 EP Samurai included the first of many collaborations with G Jones. 2017 saw two solo EPs, Pineapple and Drone Warfare, as well as the G Jones collaboration Acid Disk, which added acid techno to both producers' hybrid of styles. Eprom guested on the Claude VonStroke track "Grenade" in 2018, and he issued "Humanoid 2.0" with Zeke Beats. SHADES continued releasing EPs, and their first full-length, In Praise of Darkness, was issued by Deadbeats. Remaining on the label, Eprom released the intense, apocalyptic AIKON EP in 2019. Eprom, by this point based in Portland, Oregon, released the singles "Secret Technique" and "FleshNet" in 2020, as well as a remix of Zeds Dead's "Ether." "Dangerous Sound" appeared in 2021. G Jones and Eprom issued Acid Disk 2, another EP of mutated rave tracks, in 2022. The second SHADES album, From a Vein, included appearances by the Gaslamp Killer and MC GQ. Eprom's third album, Syntheism, arrived in 2023, leaning closer to Squarepusher-inspired drill'n'bass and IDM. The downtempo track "Trust" appeared, following in 2024 by the more breakcore-like "The Search." Eprom released the four-song EP Tracks from the Vault in 2025, and SHADES returned with the EP The Lower World. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi