Tommy Villiers

Tommy Villiers (born Thomas George Villiers) is a United Kingdom–based producer and DJ working across drum and bass and jungle-adjacent styles, with a practice that also touches liquid funk, breakbeat, dubstep and bass music. He is originally from Saffron Walden and is based in Manchester.

Villiers studied at the Royal Northern College of Music. He co‑founded the bands See Thru Hands and Porij before moving deeper into electronic production. He began producing drum and bass and uploading tracks to SoundCloud, then in mid‑2020 formed the duo Piri & Tommy with Sophie “Piri” McBurnie. Villiers produced the duo’s early singles — including the viral track “Soft Spot” — and the mixtape froge.mp3. Outside the duo he has released solo singles and remixes, and holds writing/production credits with artists such as MJ Cole.

As a producer Villiers combines live instrumental skill with electronic programming: he plays guitar and trumpet, and that multi‑instrumental background informs his arrangements and recorded layers. His productions use vocal-led arrangements, tight processed vocal chops and spacious reverbs alongside programmed breakbeats. On tracks like “Soft Spot” the drums sit on shuffled, liquid‑tinged breaks while smooth sub‑bass and melodic guitar/trumpet‑style lines carry the top end; those are concrete features you can hear across his output.

On bass design and drum work Villiers favors clean low‑end and delineated mids rather than heavily distorted neuro textures. He often places emphasis on a rounded sub-bass foundation with percussion and break edits given room to breathe, and his mixes lean toward clarity for vocals and melodic instruments. Where heavier dancefloor weight appears it is usually through controlled low‑frequency choices and rhythmic variation rather than dense saturation.

Villiers’s role in the scene is both behind the boards and in performance. He produced Piri & Tommy’s formative releases and the froge.mp3 mixtape, which helped the duo reach wider audiences; he has also issued solo material and remixes under his own name. His credited studio work with MJ Cole documents a direct creative link to UK garage and R&B‑adjacent production practices, and his band background (See Thru Hands, Porij) shows a route from live instrumentation into electronic songwriting and production.

Concrete influences and connections include his RNCM training and his collaboration history — notably the Piri & Tommy partnership with Sophie McBurnie and the production/writing credit with MJ Cole. Those facts point to a practice that sits between formal musical training, live‑instrument experience and contemporary UK bass production techniques.

Villiers continues to release solo singles and remixes, to DJ, and to work in production and writing roles; his recorded fingerprints are recognisable for their vocal focus, live‑instrument textures and clean, break‑based drum programming rather than sheer maximalism.