Pessimist

Pessimist is the alias of Kristian Jabs, a Bristol producer making drum and bass since his mid-teens. Emerging in the early 2010s, he helped catalyse a minimalist turn in the genre, stripping halftime rhythm down to skeletal kicks, sub-bass, and dread-filled space rather than detail. His self-titled 2017 album on Blackest Ever Black bridged that lineage with techno and industrial atmospheres, with further releases on AD 93, UVB-76, and his own imprints. As a member of the loose collective Ruffhouse alongside Vega and Cooper, he has pushed halftime drum and bass toward austere, low-slung tempos, building a catalogue defined by dark, minimal tension.