On June 26th, Southpoint dropped its Catalyst Sampler, a compilation that puts five emerging artists — JNG & TOM LECHEF, BUTCHABOI, No Boundariez, Olivar, and Mango — on the same release and signals where the label’s attention is sitting right now: UK garage, bass music, and rave-focused club sounds built by producers still working their way up.
Two of those artists, TOM LECHEF and BUTCHABOI, are at notably different points emotionally and practically, yet both are asking the same underlying question: how do you keep doing this without it hollowing you out?
TOM LECHEF’s contribution is „Do It Like That,“ a collaboration with JNG. The South West UK producer has been shaping a sound he calls 138 — fast 4×4 motion, dark garage swing, house drive, and bass-led underground pressure. It’s a focused, rave-direct approach that has already pulled radio support from BBC Introducing, KISS FM, and BBC 1Xtra. For him, the Southpoint placement lands at a moment when 2026 is already looking like a year of releases, radio momentum, and a sharpening sense of identity within the underground.
BUTCHABOI brings „Rhythm Is Taking Control,“ a track that pulls organ speed garage, piano house, and UK club energy into the sampler’s broader frame. It leans into melody, pace, and movement, and sits comfortably within the compilation’s old-school rave influence while still feeling built for current dancefloors. Her perspective on the craft, at least right now, is less about career architecture and more about protecting the curiosity that made her start in the first place.
What’s striking about both artists is how openly they talk about the gap between visibility and actual financial stability. TOM LECHEF is direct: streams don’t pay the bills. He holds a full-time job alongside his music, and he’s clear that the job limits both his headspace and the time he can put into the project. His long-term goal is to reach a point where that trade-off no longer exists — consistent releases, growing shows, enough income to support family life — but he’s under no illusion that momentum alone gets you there. „You really have to treat it as a business and make smart decisions,“ he says, adding that the problems tend to start when artists chase trends that don’t actually feel like them.
He also pushes back on the culture of assumed success. Sold-out shows and strong streaming numbers can look like financial health from the outside, and he thinks more transparency is needed, because that gap between appearance and reality is something a lot of up-and-coming artists are quietly navigating without much guidance.
BUTCHABOI’s concerns run parallel but arrive from a different angle. As bookings increased and recognition grew, she found DJing shifting from personal expression into something tied to career progression. The pressure that comes with that shift — the algorithms, the metrics, the next viral moment — is exactly what she says she has to actively step away from when burnout sets in. Her reset involves going back to being a listener: digging for new tracks, exploring jazz and R&B, even going out to raves as a punter rather than a performer. „It reminds me that DJing is about making a connection with the listeners rather than technical skill alone,“ she says.
That instinct — to return to the feeling that started everything — is something she frames not as a luxury but as a survival mechanism. Protecting the joy and curiosity that brought her to DJing in the first place is, in her view, what keeps an artist viable over time. It’s a different kind of sustainability argument to TOM LECHEF’s business-minded framing, but both are pointing at the same problem: the structures around electronic music don’t make longevity easy, and the artists who last are the ones who figure out, on their own terms, how to stay grounded in why they started.
The Catalyst Sampler gives both of them a platform at a moment when those questions feel live. Southpoint’s focus on fresh names across UK garage and bass-driven club music means the compilation is less a showcase of established artists and more a snapshot of producers still building — which makes the honesty in both interviews feel entirely appropriate to where they are.
Sources: Magnetic Magazine, Magnetic Magazine
