Doctor P and Flux Pavilion vs. the Algorithm: Why Fun is Dubstep's Secret Weapon

What if the key to electronic music production lies in a single, forgotten word: fun?

Flux Pavilion and Doctor P are bringing mischief back to the music, and they're not playing by the numbers. After two decades of collaboration, the British dubstep pioneers are finally releasing an album, which serves as both a time capsule of their teenage jams and a middle finger to the data-driven dourness creeping into today's scene.

Wobble meets whimsy in the duo's self-titled album, due out March 27th to align with their long-awaited return to Miami's storied Ultra Music Festival. A technicolor burst of bass-heavy brilliance, it shrugs off the shackles of streaming metrics to prioritize one core principle: fun.

The album smiles and snarls, fighting back against the Spotifyfication of dubstep. Speaking with Flux Pavilion and Doctor P, whose real names are Josh Steele and Shaun Brockhurst respectively, it's clear they've tapped into a creative vein that's as refreshing as it is rebellious—a throwback to the genre's wilder, less self-conscious days.

Dubstep is far from dying, despite its detractors continuing to waste their breath arguing otherwise. In fact, it's evolving, according to Steele and Brockhurst, two mates who still love the game as much as they did when they were blowing out cheap speakers in their parents' basements 23 years ago.

Not-so-subtle nods to their past anchor the album's ethos: this isn't just who they are now, but who they've always been. That depth comes through in their sound design, a fascinating exercise in irreverent storytelling that weaves both drama and humor without tipping into parody. It's a balancing act they've honed despite industry pressures to pick a lane—serious or silly.

We caught up with the influential founders of Circus Records to discuss the creative direction of their new album, and how they channeled their past to recapture the spontaneity and wild spirit of early dubstep. Fans can pre-order Doctor P & Flux Pavilion here ahead of its release Thursday, March 27th.

EDM.com: You mentioned that this album encapsulates not just who you are now, but who you've been your entire lives. What's a moment from your early years that directly influenced a track on this album?

Doctor P: One of the first tracks we wrote for the album was "Turbo Time." When Josh sent me the original demo I was instantly reminded of a song called "Plain Chocolate" that we made together when we were teenagers. The funky saxophone riff is very similar and it made me smile when I heard it. I think that moment of remembering "Plain Chocolate" probably caused me to start taking more influence from our early music together.

Flux Pavilion: At that point in the album writing process we were just writing lots of simple demos and we had no idea what the album would end up becoming.

EDM.com: You’ve been working together for over 20 years. If you had to pick one track on the album that perfectly embodies the essence of Flux Pavilion and Doctor P—past, present and future—which one would it be and why?

Doctor P: I think "Feel Good Ltd" is quite a good representation of us, even though it doesn't necessarily sound exactly like anything we’ve done before. It’s packed full of sounds and grooves that feel very us and it came together relatively quickly and easily, which is always a sign that a song has arrived quite organically.

Flux Pavilion: The fact that it has a self-indulgent guitar solo really makes it stand out as a completely uncompromising Flux Pavilion and Doctor P track.

EDM.com: In a time when so much of electronic music is driven by data and algorithms, how do you maintain that spontaneity and a sense of fun in your creative process?

Doctor P: We decided very early on in the process of writing the album that we should deliberately avoid any and all thoughts about making music specifically to target streaming, radio, et cetera. We wanted to capture the sort of creative process that came naturally in a time when the commercial performance of the tracks didn’t matter and we were just focussed on being creative and having fun with the music.

Flux Pavilion: Fun is the key here. Every song was written around that context. If we weren't having fun, it didn’t make the cut. If we enjoy it, we felt like that's the closest thing to guaranteeing that our fans would enjoy it too. That's all that mattered.

EDM.com: Do you think electronic music, and especially dubstep, takes itself too seriously today? Has that sense of playfulness been lost, with so much emphasis on algorithm-friendly music, AI, streaming metrics and branded storytelling?

Flux Pavilion: I think the fun and chaos of circa-2010 dubstep has definitely evolved away over time. I think the fading of lighthearted fun and silliness in dubstep aligns with society and music in general becoming more serious.

Doctor P: We wanted to bring back some fun to the music but not in a comedic way. The artwork is a good visual representation of our goals with the music. On the surface it’s colorful and fun but when you look closer, there’s more going on that you may have originally realized.

EDM.com: Could AI ever capture the chaotic magic of two friends in a studio bouncing ideas off each other?

Doctor P: One thing I kept coming back to over the course of writing the album and especially when I was drawing all the artwork was the idea of "AI could never." In a time when everyone seems to be obsessed with AI I wanted to create something that could only be made by human hands and brains.

EDM.com: You mention wanting to capture both drama and humor in the album. How do you craft those contrasts in your sound design? Is there a specific production technique that you lean on to create that push-and-pull?

Flux Pavilion: I think the fun elements happen fairly organically. We’re not making comedy music but humor always seems to find its way into the music somehow. The drama is more deliberate as it can be a tricky thing to craft.

Doctor P: You’re basically trying to control people's emotions with noise, which is a strange art form to perfect. Luckily Josh is extremely good at capturing emotions in sound, so the dramatic parts of the album came together more successfully than I think they do when I make music alone.

EDM.com: Your message behind this album is about embracing both the serious and the silly in music. Has there ever been a time when the industry pressured you to be just one or the other? How did you navigate that?

Doctor P: Back in the early days of my career when I went from a bedroom producer to a "real" producer and touring DJ, there was a sudden feeling that the music was more serious and important than before because peoples' jobs were suddenly on the line. That took away some of the fun of the music for a while but I eventually learned to move past it and recapture the original feeling of the music.

Flux Pavilion: I feel like this could probably be another interview all on its own. We’ve been around a while now and the tapestry of the industry has changed so much, let alone our personal goals. Though I think deep down we've both stuck to this general attitude of serious and silly all at once.

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EDM.com: Every artist has a moment where they take a creative risk that makes them nervous. What’s the riskiest decision you made on this album, and how did it pay off?

Doctor P: "Hot Piss" is not a piece of music that I would not have created for anything other than this album. I don't think either me or Josh would be bold enough to make a song like that on our own, but we both kept encouraging each other to keep going with the weirdness and we ended up with a very strange but interesting song as a result.

Flux Pavilion: We started by making completely atonal noises as an experiment to see if we could create a coherent piece of music from pure chaos.

EDM.com: Dubstep has gone through many cycles: its explosive rise in South London, the American brostep wave, today's 140 resurgence. Where do you see the genre heading now?

Doctor P: People have been regularly telling me dubstep is dying since about 2010 but at this point in time I think we can be pretty confident it's not going to die anytime soon. I think dubstep will continue to evolve as all music does. Dubstep has become more than just one genre.

Flux Pavilion: It’s really a whole category of bass music that loosely fits under one umbrella term so I'm sure it will continue to branch out more and more. As long as people are making good music it will always continue to exist.

EDM.com: If this album is a full-circle moment, what's the next evolution for Flux Pavilion and Doctor P?

Doctor P: I feel personally like this album is a bit of a reset. A few of the half finished songs I had lying around have ended up on the album so everything I’m going to release after has been created from scratch very recently. Working on so much music with Josh has also been quite an interesting learning experience so I feel like I’ve learned a few new things, which will probably influence the music I'm working on now.

Flux Pavilion: Next step for me is finish up a couple of remixes I’ve promised and then get Fluxiverse Volume 3 together. We’re just working with our team to get a Doctor P and Flux Pavilion tour sorted. I think we’ll be talking about that properly very, very soon.

EDM.com: Tell us about your big Ultra Music Festival performance on March 30th. Are there any innovative ways you're planning on entwining the album in your set, or any special moments for which attendees should keep an eye out?

Doctor P: I've had the Ultra set in the back of my mind for a while so I’ve been stowing away ideas every time I do a DJ set. We haven’t meticulously planned the set but we've both got some interesting mixes to pull out. I don’t like planning sets in too much detail as it’s more fun to read the crowd and play off their reactions.

Flux Pavilion: Doctor P and Flux Pavilion b2b sets are a part of Ultra folklore. I can’t wait to get out there and write this next chapter!

Follow Flux Pavilion:

X: x.com/Fluxpavilion
Instagram: instagram.com/fluxpavilion
TikTok: tiktok.com/@fluxpavilionofficial
Facebook: facebook.com/fluxpavilion
Spotify: spoti.fi/37dBZ1f

Follow Doctor P:

X: x.com/doctorpcircus
Instagram: instagram.com/doctorpcircus
Facebook: facebook.com/doctorpcircus
Spotify: spoti.fi/2J6euyv