For twenty years, Chris Lake has walked the tightrope between underground credibility and international success, occupying an area few artists attain, and even fewer maintain.
In 2025, the pressures of legacy challenged the home music celebrity like by no means earlier than. Lake spent the yr refining his sound whereas entering into a brand new artistic period by the discharge of Chemistry, his long-awaited debut album.
“Chemistry was the fruits of years of experimenting behind the scenes, however it additionally opened up an entire new lane for me creatively,” Lake shared in an unique interview with EDM.com. “I really feel like I’m simply getting began on no matter this subsequent chapter goes to be.”
However after dropping the album in July and embarking on a sprawling tour, Lake mentioned “the noise bought loud in each course.” With years spent working on the highest stage, the problem wasn’t sustaining relevance, however defending the instincts that bought him there.
“I needed to get higher at stepping again, shutting out the strain and simply listening to myself once more,” Lake remembers. “Inspiration exhibits up after I’m not chasing it. A quiet room, a stroll or messing round within the studio with no agenda often will get me again in the proper headspace. Defending the spark turned a non-negotiable.”
The depth of 2025 was amplified by Lake’s determination to self-fund Chemistry, including monetary stakes to an already weak artistic second.
“Placing the whole lot on the road creatively and financially is a distinct type of strain,” he explains. “There have been moments the place I puzzled if I used to be being silly. However independence felt like the one sincere method to make the album I wished to make. Each determination went by me and the crew, not a boardroom. In the long run, that freedom formed the music in methods a conventional setup by no means may.”
Even twenty years right into a profession most artists can solely dream of, sustaining stamina, focus and fervour is rarely easy. Touring, studio work and fixed public presence finally converge, and 2025 made that actuality unavoidable.
“Burnout positively creeps in,” admits Lake, who was not too long ago named by EDM.com as one in every of 2025’s finest music producers. “The album cycle alone is sufficient to fry anybody’s mind.”
As a substitute of resisting, he’s discovered to deal with disconnection as a part of the artistic course of.
“When [burnout] occurs, I cease forcing concepts. If I’m disconnected, I let myself be disconnected,” he mentioned. “Weirdly sufficient, that’s often what pulls me again. The minute I take the strain off, curiosity comes again, and all of a sudden I’m itching to make one thing once more.”
Even in moments of fatigue, it’s the human connection that retains Lake going. After years on competition levels and membership nights worldwide, he says it’s the moments of real human connection that proceed to gas his artistic drive.
“Listening to how the music lands, seeing the emotion in actual time, having these conversations, that’s the stuff that hits me within the chest,” he mentioned. “It jogs my memory that this isn’t simply information on a tough drive. It’s connection. It’s neighborhood. These moments make all of the chaos price it.”
That perspective has reshaped how Lake defines success. The urgency that after drove him has softened, changed by a give attention to authenticity and endurance.
“Within the early days, the whole lot felt like a dash, chasing the following launch, the following chart place, the following second,” he explains. “Now it feels extra like constructing a physique of labor. What issues is whether or not the music feels sincere and whether or not the exhibits create one thing significant. The hype issues much less. Longevity issues extra.”
Lake’s method to music manufacturing has advanced in tandem. In comparison with the artist he was a decade in the past, he leans extra into his instincts and fewer into technical concerns.
“I belief myself extra,” Lake mentioned. “I used to overthink the technical facet of the whole lot, the combo, the association, the construction. Now I comply with emotion first and let the technical stuff assist it. Chemistry was the largest expression of that. It’s extra layered, extra expressive and extra weak than something I may have made a decade in the past.”
One among 2025’s most defining challenges, he says, wasn’t an absence of assets, however an overabundance of them. The proliferation of manufacturing instruments launched new artistic friction.
“Limitless choices positively make issues tougher. The trick is studying when to cease,” Lake explains. “When you perceive what strikes you, it will get simpler to tune out the noise. And even with all the brand new instruments – AI, limitless plugins, no matter comes subsequent – humanity will at all times be the half that issues. A device will help you generate concepts, however it might probably’t offer you style, intention or emotion. That’s the place the long run will draw its line.”
Credit score: Mike Kim2025 was a banner yr for Lake as an artist, however it additionally marked a bona fide breakout for his imprint, Black Guide Data, which was named the most effective label in EDM.com‘s listing of the yr’s prime trade leaders. Black Guide’s releases mirrored a philosophy Lake has lengthy held, even because the trade evolves.
At a time when many labels battle to steadiness creative originality with the pressures of a market pushed by immediacy and virality, Lake mentioned Black Guide’s ethos has remained constant.
“Black Guide has at all times been about backing artists who’ve their very own voice, not those chasing no matter’s sizzling. This yr was no totally different,” he mentioned. “I need to shield the tradition of taking dangers and making stuff that feels alive. The market will at all times push towards predictability, however you may’t construct an actual legacy by enjoying it protected. I’d slightly assist one thing distinctive and assist it discover its lane than feed right into a development cycle.”
Straddling the worlds of each artist and label boss, Lake has a singular vantage level of the place dance music is headed, and what it dangers dropping alongside the way in which. He believes the long-term well being of the scene will depend on labels reclaiming their position as cultural stewards slightly than content material pipelines.
“Labels have to take extra possibilities once more,” he defined. “We’ve gotten too comfy with formulation and knowledge. The scene grows when folks again concepts that really feel contemporary and dangerous. We’d like extra mentorship, extra collaboration and extra space for artists to search out their voice with out being pushed into containers.”
Trying forward, Lake is much less taken with predicting the following development than with the tempo at which dance music strikes. Observing shifts within the trade in addition to its know-how and crowd dynamics, he hopes for a return to intentionality in 2026.
“I hope we get again to valuing depth over pace. Not each thought must be constructed for virality,” Lake mentioned. “Actual innovation will come from artists who aren’t afraid to decelerate, suppose in another way, and make music that resonates past the algorithm. If we are able to maintain onto the humanity and the neighborhood on the core of this tradition, the innovation will care for itself.”
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