The grief is never-ending, but so is the love. Weightless and trance-locked, that’s the pulse behind Genesys, a shape-shifting cultural engine/collective founded by CSM students in 2022. What started as an exchange between artists, DJs, and theorists has mutated into a ritual economy where the body becomes a myth: it’s part rave, part ritual, part speculative fiction. 

Genesys has ignited underground movements across the UK, Japan, China, and South Korea, curating parties and collaborations that have redefined the scene, featuring artists such as Yung Sherman, Varg2TM, and Thaiboy Digital. In 2025, Genesys went viral for engineering the Ultimate Raving Championship—a chaotic merger of cage fighting and underground hardcore, like UFC on ketamine, or Berghain as a blood sport—absurd, extreme, and unapologetically posthuman. 

Now, founders Anam McLean and Rain Müller converge as genesys1.0, an audiovisual duo signed to Swedish label YEAR001 (home to Varg2TM, Malibu, and incubator of Bladee’s legacy). Their debut EP abyssal core—out June 27th—channels UK hard trance and post-hardcore through a lens shaped by late-90s Japanese arthouse, rhythm games, biomech manga, and JRPG metaphysics. Think Hideaki Anno spiraling through a trance tunnel and Tsutomu Nihei’s cathedral ruins rendered in kick drums. The result is a visceral trance-state staging of future mythologies. genesys1.0 is building a realm where swag, violence, sound, and storytelling intersect.

We spoke with Anam and Rain to get inside the world of Genesys—how it started, where it’s going, and what it all means.

How did the energy of your first Genesys parties grow into what we hear on your debut EP with YEAR001? ‍

We aimed to channel the euphoria of every Genesys event since the beginning. The tracklist reflects the shift in musical energy throughout the course of a night, starting slow, introducing a rhythm, then the darkness, and finally the light at the end of the tunnel, the sunrise.

‍What parts of the early days did you hold on to, and what did you change to get here? Your EP fuses UK hard trance, post-hardcore, and speculative fiction. What does ‘genre’ mean to you in 2025?‍

We definitely hold on to the early days of celebrating a unique blend of genres, fandoms, and cultures into what we believe is the heart of the UK underground dance scene. We played a lot more deconstructed club, baile, hard techno in the beginning, whereas now we champion “English” genres such as makina and UK hardcore. Other than that we’ve mostly been the same, always about the most aggressive yet transcendental sounds, catastrophic euphoria: Eucatastrophic. In terms of our music, we want to blur these genres we love so much, create what could sound as if it were a “memory” of these genres, similar to what William Bevan (Burial) talks about. 

What role does storytelling play in your approach to clubbing? 

We believe storytelling is a fundamental aspect of art, or at least it should be. Without a story or message, there’s nothing to pass on, or care about. Raves are communal gatherings, euphoric rituals. It’s better to dance for something than dance without. We want to prove that raves are an artform, art you experience through dance, through tracklists, through set design, etc.

‍The arcology in your lore is set thousands of years in the future. How do you approach writing or designing a timeline that is so distant?

Worldbuilding is something that comes natural for us so it’s hard for me to explain how we do it haha. For the longest time we’ve been inspired by anime and video games and how they have such rich universes and mechanisms. In terms of the chronological distance, it isn’t a barrier the way you might think it is. Cultures hundreds of years ago or even thousands of years ago still share so much of what we have. I feel there’s an idea that humans can change fundamentally over such a time span, but I believe we will always retain our vital essence.

What did working with YEAR001 bring out in you musically or ideologically? 

With YEAR0001, they really allowed us to tap into what lies at the heart of the Genesys project and what it sounds like, just by giving us the total freedom to explore it. The sound produced itself, like it became clearer to us once we’d finished every track, and it’s weird because it kind of sounds like nothing we had ever produced before this project.

‍Did you feel like you were joining a new family or expanding the Genesys multiverse into theirs?‍

Honestly, it felt like a perfect fit. We’d grown up listening to their artists, immersed in their world, the image they’ve built- and it’s safe to say they’ve inspired us greatly.

‍How did the UFC-rave concept come to life? ‍

Both raving and combat place you in a primordial state of consciousness, a primal euphoria. We thought that combining the two would stimulate such an ancient part of the brain and become the ultimate form of deep entertainment.

Did you view it more as performance art, subculture collision or a whole new sport?‍

I’d say all three, and more. Total Sonic Knockout as we call it, is effectively a new martial art, fighting with a live soundtrack, lasers and strobes changes the way that combat occurs, we drew heavy inspiration from African martial arts where music dictates the pacing and energy of the fight, such as Nigerian Dambe fighting and Senegalese làmb wrestling. The whole event felt like it amplified the community aspect of a rave, having everyone gathered round, cheering for their mate in the ring, people were super engaged. 

‍Your crowd is full of creatives. What makes London the right city for what you’re building?

London is the central node of the universe. Growing up here, whilst unorthodox and slightly traumatic, has been the greatest blessing, This city is our mother, and Genesys is our way to give back to her, to foster the creation of new culture for the dynamic, sentient macro-organism that is London, to create a space for the gathering and collaboration of the hundreds of the earth’s creative elite that UAL churns out every year lol

‍Fashion plays a big role in your events. Is style just surface in your world, or part of the storytelling?‍

We still don't really understand what fashion means. We grew up cosplaying and I think that had a big impact on our perception of the purpose of clothing. Swag is one of the most outward ways to communicate worldbuilding. 

What does a Genesys garment do, beyond how it looks?‍

We try to always integrate technological functions beyond simple wearability. For example, on our most recent product, the Abyssal Core EP vest, an NFC chip is sewn into the base of the neck, which is loaded with a password protected hyperlink to the Abyssal Core EP. So this garment functions as swag, event ticket, and literally a physical copy of the album. We like the idea of making art a physical experience again.

‍Genesys feels like a prototype for a new kind of cultural institution. What do you think the future of creativity looks like?

It feels like a lot of artists have forgotten that they are artists, that their art is more than just “content”, more than just the next insane IG photoshoot to sit and rot on their profile. What’s the goal of these video shoots? What’s the goal of that track? Why did they spend hundreds of pounds renting equipment? Just to outpace their peers? There isn’t a storyline here, just contests of technical skill. The future of art may look bleak from this perspective, but we believe the more we build on our narratives, universes, mechanisms and personal philosophies, the more we’ll inspire others to do so.

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