Ivy Lab: A Farewell Tour (Asheville)

After more than 10 years, Ivy Lab is bringing their collaboration to a close. Gove Kidao and Jay Fogel will perform a run of final shows and release the last music from the project throughout 2026 before moving on to new musical ventures.

In a statement posted on social media today, the duo said:

“After more than 10 years spreading our wings through a wild and varied array of leftfield beats, we’ve decided to call time on our flagship project and look ahead to new adventures in sound. 2026 will be our last year of operation.”

Kidao and Fogel came together as Ivy Lab in 2013, having already carved out strong presences in drum & bass as Sabre and Stray respectively. On early releases they were also joined by Laurence Reading, aka Halogenix, and released music on Critical Recordings. The focus for Ivy Lab was a more freeform approach to bass weight music, moving beyond the boundaries of drum & bass to explore a wider range of tempos and intensities, not least half-time, hip-hop–informed beats. In 2015, Ivy Lab felt the need to create a space in which to move freely with this new direction, launching their label Twenty Twenty London with an expansive double-pack album that showcased the range they were manifesting in the studio.

Over time, Ivy Lab has grown to encompass a powerful, idiosyncratic strain of hybrid club music spread across a vast archive of EPs and albums, while Twenty Twenty London has become a prominent hub for emergent talent creating beats outside the dominant genre lines of modern electronic music.

Kidao and Fogel have sensed the right moment to call time on Ivy Lab, having achieved more than they could have imagined at the start of the project. Both artists will continue to release music individually as Stray and Sabre. Meanwhile, Twenty Twenty London will continue to nurture the community of artists orbiting the label and grow as an essential platform for new music.

Ending a creative endeavour at the right time can be just as important as starting one. Ivy Lab bow out with intention, savouring every last show and drawing a line under their fully realised vision for modernist bass weight that refused to be boxed in.