"The reason we can't put a genre on what we do," suggests Tommaso Wallwork, "is that we're London producers being influenced by the world. We absorb it all like a sponge." From gqom to grime, dembow to funky, Jersey club to Dutch bubbling, the building blocks of UK club now come from around the world. No label defines this shift as clearly as Nervous Horizon.

Founded in 2015 by two Italian-born Londoners, Nervous Horizon has been at the vanguard of every recent stylistic shift in the capital's bass scene. Early inspiration came from the vibrant, hard-hitting club hybrids of the post-Night Slugs era, drawing on the tough percussive energy of grime and UK funky in particular. In the short space of time since, the label has developed a distinct sound of its own: playfully experimental but resolutely functional, folding in elements of gqom, reggaeton or Dutch bubbling (to name a few), sourced from a global roster of artists but readymade for London basements. Where some labels might attempt a land grab, Nervous Horizon also takes care to pay tribute to stylistic innovators, platforming artists who risk being written out of the conversation.

The label is based in a warehouse on the banks of the Lea River in East London, across from the Olympic Stadium. At one end of their studio is a huge custom-built workstation full of production gear. A long shelf along the side wall displays every vinyl release so far, from early 12-inches by cofounders Wallwork and TSVI to the label debut from Lithuanian hard drum enthusiast DJ JM. On the opposite wall, a red Chinese tassel hangs above a computer.

Tommaso Wallwork and Guglielmo Barzacchini grew up just 20 minutes away from each other in the Tuscan towns of Pisa and Pontedera, though they never met until they moved to the UK. Their families gave them "a very philosophical upbringing and made us think about things from day one," says Wallwork, whose mother is a Buddhist. Barzacchini's parents, even more unusually in Italy, had converted to Hinduism. I perch on a sofa while Wallwork and Barzacchini talk me through their story so far, the former steering the conversation in a freeform, fidgety manner that reveals his auto-didactic nature (he's brought his own notes, just in case he forgets anything), the latter chipping in with qualifiers and contradictions, playing the older brother. Both of them finish each other's sentences. Transcribing their conversation is, shall we say, challenging.

Before moving to the UK, Barzacchini was a fan of minimal DJs like Ricardo Villalobos and Marco Carola. When he moved to London and got a job in an Italian restaurant, he found himself exposed to dubstep, grime and UK funky via the portable radio blaring Rinse FM in the kitchen. Wallwork, who's half English, had got to know the UK club continuum as a teenager, learning to DJ with his cousins in East London and recording sets to tape in their graffiti-covered bedroom. At 18 he followed them to Manchester, where they were studying at university. His plan was simply to make tunes.

"The first thing I did when I got to Manchester was buy a MIDI keyboard," he remembers. "Since [Barzacchini and I] have been in England we've never spent a day without making music. There's never been anything else in the back of our minds."

The pair finally met a couple of years later, waiting in the queue for fabric. Barzacchini remembers making fun of Wallwork's earplugs. "All my friends were taking the piss out of him," he laughs. They didn't meet again for another year, but soon after they hatched a plan to throw parties and start a label, working alongside the friend who had introduced them to each other, Federico Ciampolini. At the time Barzacchini was living in Ciampolini's flat in East London, "sleeping together in the same bed like classic Italian immigrants," he laughs. Although no longer involved in the creative side, Ciampolini gave Nervous Horizon its name and still has the all-important job of organising the accounts.

After an inaugural loft party on Brick Lane in 2012, Nervous Horizon found a more permanent base in Hackney Wick, the industrial area-turned-artists' quarter that had just been transformed by the London Olympics. Wallwork and Barzacchini stumbled on Red Gate Studios, a warehouse where they could throw huge parties with no restrictions. "The first gig we got was because the resident DJ took too much MDMA and didn't know what was going on," recalls Wallwork, "so we jumped on for two hours, people went mental and we became the residents."

As per community rules, the pair had to move into the warehouse in order to take the gig. Again, they bunked together to save moneyÃ¢â‚¬â€a living situation made more complicated when they built their audio workstation. Barzacchini would sometimes come home late from the restaurant to find that someone was using his bedroom as a studio; he'd be left hovering outside in his bath towel, waiting for Wallwork to finish the session so he could get into bed. "Every label says they're a family," jokes Wallwork, "but how many have spent seven years together non-stop, or shared a bed? A lot of people in the music industry fall out, but we're all so close that it's impossible. We make it work in the same way you make a family workÃ¢â‚¬â€because it needs to work."

The Red Gate parties boosted their reputation, though "maybe only 20 percent of people came for Nervous Horizon," says Barzacchini. But on nights where 1,000 people roamed Hackney Wick in search of that cool warehouse party they'd heard about, two relatively unknown DJs got to hone their skills and test-drive their own productions in front of a big crowd. In this period they each released their first records: TSVI with a vivid, '80s-inspired mini-album on B.YRSLF Division, and Wallwork with a heavy club EP on Infinite Machine in collaboration with his regular production partner RZR. The turning point for Nervous Horizon came after a chance encounter with Scratcha DVA, when Wallwork spent 12 hours partying with him at an NTS Radio event. The Rinse DJ had been playing their tracks on the radio and advised them to press any future productions to vinyl: these were legitimate club monsters.

Getting the nod from Scratcha "gave me a massive confidence boost," says Barzacchini, whose Set You Free EP became the label's second release in 2015, right after Wallwork and RZR inaugurated the label with their own Don't Panic EP. The first wave of Nervous Horizon releases were heavily indebted to grime, which was then enjoying a club-focused revival via a new generation of producers like Lloyd SB and Lokane. Those two London-based artists provided the next two 12-inches, which were picked up by DJs including Teki Latex, Madam X and Kode9. At the same time, Wallwork and Barzacchini's DJ sets were Petri dishes for the emergent Nervous Horizon sound, allowing them to imagine new hybrids of grime, Jersey club, ballroom and, in particular, UK funkyÃ¢â‚¬â€a decade-old style that sounded vital again within their percussion-driven universe. That experimentation was pushed even further at Acid Fantasy, sweaty parties in Dalston basement clubs where they teamed up with DJs Akito and Loom to lay out a joint vision of a globally-sourced, locally-minded sound.

The next stylistic turn came when Moleskin, grime producer and founder of Goon Club Allstars, introduced them to the menacing sound of gqom. "He came round and played us DJ Lag and it was like a life-changing moment," remembers Wallwork. They began absorbing Durban tracks into their sets, but rather than simply borrowing elements of gqom for their own productions, they decided to pay tribute to the originators. "Our ethos is that if we've been inspired by it then we need to somehow have a relationship with the founders, the OGs of the genre," explains Wallwork. "A lot of producers will find something on SoundCloud, rip it off and then never mention where they got it." With the ease of digital releases, it doesn't cost much to give credit to the pioneers. Nervous Horizon has also tried to be a platform for its influences, releasing tracks by Miss Devana, an Eindhoven producer who provided inspiration through her drum arrangements in the Dutch bubbling style, Tribal Brothers, a pair of UK funky producers co-signed by Marcus Nasty, and Durban gqom crew Da Soul Boyz.

"We're not necessarily all about karma," says Wallwork, "but it is about what feels right and wrong. We didn't want to be releasing stuff that sounded like gqom before gqom itself had blown up."

These diverse streams have slowly converged into something like a signature sound. On their third label compilation, released late last year, their myriad influences are reinterpreted by a world map of producers: Tzusing, Chevel, DJ JM, object blue and DJ Plead. None of these artists are originally from London, but their productions reflect a vibrant feedback loop of club culture, with the UK as a transit hub for a multiplicity of styles. The latest batch of releases have been the label's most successful to date. DJ JM, a Copenhagen-based architect originally from Lithuania, is the brains behind last year's irresistible No Days Off EP. "The first four tracks he ever made were played non-stop by us," marvels Barzacchini. "He makes these intricate melody lines with just the percussionÃ¢â‚¬â€the structure is simple but it's functional and ready to play." Melbourne's DJ Plead also provided Nervous Horizon with some of the most recognisable dance floor bangers of 2019. The hard-hitting drum patterns of his Pleats Plead EP, inspired by the Lebanese dabke he grew up with at family weddings, made their way into sets by Ben UFO, Joy O and Martyn.

Then there's what they refer to as "the album"Ã¢â‚¬â€TSVI's debut full-length, Inner Worlds, which got an extra boost when Aphex Twin played the kooky lead track "Whirl," a riot of disjointed drums and martial arts grunts. Alongside DJ Plead's record, Inner Worlds points to a growing connection with the rhythms of North Africa and the Middle East. That's partly down to the duo's girlfriends, who have "always had their opinion on the labelÃ¢â‚¬â€it's like a family restaurant," jokes Wallwork. His partner Celine Angbeletchy is the Italian-Ivorian DJ and producer Ehua; she's preparing her first release for Nervous Horizon this year. Suleika Muller is a photographer and graphic designer who steered the look of Inner Worlds; she also DJs as Aya Azma. With its outernational rhythms and subtly spiritual narrative, Inner Worlds paved the way for deeper experimentation on the label. The next album will be more leftfield, Barzacchini promises, designed for home listening. "It feels like we've been taken more seriously since the album," he says. "People have been going back to the catalogue and discovering stuff they didn't know before."

As the label's fifth anniversary approaches, there's much more in the pipeline: releases from Ehua and DJ JM, a birthday party in March at Mick's Garage in London, and another Wallwork EP. "The thing I have in mind is absorbing everything that we've releasedÃ¢â‚¬â€I'm very influenced by Guglielmo, Plead and JM," says Wallwork. Meanwhile Barzacchini has been exploring more functional club music via a new alias, releasing an EP on Whities under the name Anunaku, and is currently in the studio with object blue. Their diverging rolesÃ¢â‚¬â€Wallwork in studio sessions, Barzacchini more often out DJingÃ¢â‚¬â€and differing tastes help to ensure some creative friction, "so we don't go into monovision when working on each project," says Wallwork. "Duality is our strong point." That sense of complementary opposition feels fundamental to the label's success. No longer two outsiders drawn to the pulse of the UK underground, Nervous Horizon is evolving into an outward-facing operation: the sound of London turning its ears to the rest of the world.

Label Of The Month mix

TSVI & Wallwork lay down the sound of Nervous Horizon.

Tracklist /
Ehua - Meteora
TSVI - No Flute
Missdevana - Third Eye
Wallwork - Hacienda
TSVI - Labyrinth
Missdevana - Chakra
Dj Plead - Shoulder Pop
DJ JM - Healthy Beat
Wallwork - Tilt
Dj Plead - Medium Balance
Fis T - 250 mph
Wallwork - Destiny
LR Groove - 1st Step
TSVI & Lorenzo BITW - Storm
Da Soul Boyz - Nightmare (Step Down)
TSVI & DJ JM - Aziza
DJ JM - Bar Bell
Bear Bones & Lay Low - Voces de Humo (Dj Plead rmx)
TSVI - AssamÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Children
Wallwork & RZR - Parrot Honey
Lloyd SB - Boida Flare
Wallwork - Havoc
Second Storey - Sludge 3D
Dj Plead - Ruby
TSVI - Tabla loop edit
TSVI - Hossam
TSVI & Wallwork - Jaguar
Object Blue & TSVI - ?????
Tzusing & TSVI - 24hr
Object Blue & TSVI - ?????
Chevel & Wallwork - Carbon12
Wallwork - Fault Lines
Object Blue & TSVI - ?????
Wallwork - Hard Funk
TSVI & Seven Orbits - ?????