Magnetic Magazine sat down with Ground16 to mark the release of his Breaking Through EP, the first record on SEVEN's new a.2aum sublabel. In a refreshingly honest conversation with Will Vance, he talks about the soft skills behind DJing, dealing with rejection and comparison, and why keeping music separate from financial pressure has kept it a passion.
Released on 5 June 2026, Breaking Through introduces a.2aum as a home for broken rhythm, ambient detail and warm spatial texture. Across Eroded Mind, Breaking Through Jazz, Endless Fight and a Pink Concrete remix of Endless Fight, the EP moves through electro, acid lines, broken drums, soft synth work and funk-rooted percussion, drawing on house, jazz, funk, Detroit influence and UK-leaning club pressure. Ground16's wider catalogue already takes in labels like Neo Violence and Sofa Movements, with appearances at Paloma Bar and the Montreux Jazz Festival.
- A1Eroded Mind4:43
- A2Breakin Through5:16
- B1Endless Fight5:51
- B2Endless Fight (Pink Concrete Remix)5:49
The soft skills nobody warns you about
Asked what surprised him most, Ground16 is quick to point past the music itself. "The music is almost the easy part," he says. "What caught me off guard was how much of it is talking to people and building real relationships: reaching out to labels, promoters, shops, and other artists without being pushy or fake. It is especially hard when you are a small name, because you end up handling pretty much everything yourself, social media included."
Patience, he adds, is part of the deal: "a lot of it moves slowly, and you have to be okay with that."
On resilience, rejection and comparison
One of the most candid threads is how he stays steady in a scene where burnout and comparison are everywhere. For Ground16, the answer is structural. "Honestly, the biggest thing for me is that I do not depend on music financially. I have a day job alongside it, so I am not making tracks to pay rent, and that takes a huge amount of pressure off."
That separation, he explains, is what keeps the work joyful. "Having that separation lets me step away from the pressure, burnout, rejection, and constant comparison, and it helps me keep music as a passion rather than something I have to grind at. I can focus on if I am making stuff I actually like."
Trusting your own taste
It also underpins his confidence when his sound is not what is trending. "Staying true to my own thing matters to me more than any trend," he says. "I would rather make something slightly off to the side that feels like me than something that fits what is popular this month." He describes his output as "pretty eclectic, usually with a dub feel underneath," and has made peace with the fact that it will not be for everyone: "If a few people connect with it, that is enough."
Reading the room
Ground16 is refreshingly unwilling to overclaim. On whether cultural awareness has ever changed a night, he says plainly that he does not play out that much and will not pretend otherwise, but he is clear that reading a room is a craft he is still learning. "A set that works in one place can completely miss somewhere else, and a lot of that comes down to paying attention to who is actually in front of you instead of running your plan. I am still very much learning that side of it."
How taste evolves
His relationship with taste, he says, has pulled in two directions at once. "On one hand, I have gotten pickier about what I like," he explains, paying "way more attention to how a track is mixed and produced than I used to." At the same time his listening has widened: "genre-wise, my taste has opened right up. I listen to a huge range: soul, funk, jazz, hip hop, and rock." He calls it a contradiction he is happy with, being more particular about what moves him and more open across genres at the same time.
Humility and listening
He closes on the value of simply paying attention. "You learn way more by turning up curious and actually listening than by acting like you already know it all." For an artist launching a sublabel built on taste, texture and careful curation, it is a fitting note to end on.
Read the full interview, Ground16 Talks Breaking Through EP And The Soft Skills Behind DJing, by Will Vance on Magnetic Magazine. Breaking Through is out now on a.2aum.