On a bright April morning, Errol beams in from his and Alex Rita’s home in Deptford, South London. “I’m a bit discombobulated,” he says with a bleary-eyed smile. Since the start of 2026, Errol, Alex and the Touching Bass crew have been celebrating their ten-year anniversary. They’re currently in the throes of what Errol describes as a “stupidly ambitious” self-produced world tour (TB10), having just returned from a successful party with Berlin-based soundsystem and label, SHUSH. “It's wild to have these connections all over the world,” he says.

The year-long celebration began in Accra and Lagos in January, followed by this multi-city European leg, which includes an upcoming date at the Barbican on May 3, where they’ll unite two giants of soulful electronic music from each side of the Atlantic – Theo Parrish and Dego. This, all while being young parents to a two-year-old son. “To be fair, he’s now a seasoned travelling vet,” Errol says. “He's been to every single continent by the age of two and a half, which is insane.” 

Touching Bass is a “London-based musical movement”, a term that attempts to encompass their sprawling creative output, including an award-nominated record label, club night, concert series, staple NTS Radio show and curatorial studio. It came into being in 2016 at a pivotal moment for UK music, with London’s jazz scene coming into focus. Errol and Alex carved themselves a niche at this time by leaning into joyful sounds across the Black soulful spectrum and tapping the capital’s rich vein of underground culture for inspiration.

“Plastic People was a huge one – even though we only really caught the tail end of it, it had already become this kind of mythic space,” says Errol. “Boy Better Know, Eglo Records, Jazz Re:freshed, Ruff Sqwad, Brownswood – they were all really important reference points. Listening to NTS, Vibes FM, Venture FM and Josey Rebelle on Rinse, going to Wu-Lu’s Brixton house parties. It was about pulling all those threads together and asking what it would look like if we built something that held all of that at once.”

The emergence of Touching Bass over the last ten years is best summed up by Sly & The Family Stone: it’s a family affair. “We play We Out Here [festival] every year,” Errol continues. “While playing, we hand the baby over. It's really soothing when you get a moment, look over, and he's being passed around the various aunties and uncles on the side, just dancing. When I started Touching Bass, the blueprint was my Caribbean family's house parties. Those were 100 per cent multi-generational, with elders and youths in the same place. It feels like it's come full circle.”

But the lifestyle is not without its challenges. “Sorry I’m late…” Alex says as she steps into the room. “Our son just spilled water on my laptop!” Originally from Copenhagen, Alex moved to London in 2015, having been part of a collective throwing parties back in Denmark. “I landed right in the middle of the early London jazz scene,” she says. “I met Errol through a mutual friend from a MogaDisco party.” It was a serendipitous connection that set the blueprint for how Touching Bass would come to operate. “Often I’ll meet someone and think, ‘You need to meet this other person so you guys can create magic together.’ That kind of work happens a lot with the label now.”

You can feel a younger generation coming through now too – maybe shaped in some way by what we’ve done – taking the spirit and pushing it somewhere else entirely

A prime example of this in action is with Carli Adams, who first spoke with Errol when she interviewed him for her university dissertation eight years ago – she’s now Label and Community Manager. Likewise, DJ and producer Shy One is an old friend who was there when Touching Bass first got off the ground – they’ve just dropped her album Mali, arguably the standout UK electronic release of 2026 so far.

“We’re now in this middle phase of an intergenerational relay,” Errol reflects. “When we first started out, we were looking backwards a lot to understand what came before us. Now, we’re slowly becoming part of that chain ourselves. People like Dego, Theo Parrish and Ron Trent reaching out and saying they rate what we’re doing, that means a lot. You can feel a younger generation coming through now too – maybe shaped in some way by what we’ve done – taking the spirit and pushing it somewhere else entirely. And that feels right.”

But, despite these successes, financial realities have brought their fair share of stress and anxiety. “There’s the reality of living in London,” says Alex. “Even though from the outside it looks like Touching Bass is flying around the world doing all this stuff, financially it's really hard. You might not actually make any money on tour – sometimes you just have expenses covered. Then when you come home it’s like ‘oh, OK, back to square one’. It’s a privilege and I’m not complaining. But it’s hard.”

Still, the pair are optimistic when discussing what the future could hold. They’ve long dreamt of a physical space – somewhere for the creative community around Touching Bass to get together and connect without the pressure of London’s hyper-productivity. “We just need that one person with the bag to say, ‘I believe in you’. So if you’re out there!” Alex laughs.

In the immediate future, their focus is on reshaping the nature of their dances, leaning into daytime spaces that welcome everyone. Alex also references the intergenerational environment she experienced growing up with Caribbean family, where “the uncles and aunties and everyone is together”, something they tested at their Notting Hill Carnival event last year. “Everyone came with buggies, and there were so many we literally ran out of space.” Their upcoming edition in August will feature a dedicated buggy section to accommodate this growing community of “babies and bass”.

So, with the stage set for the tour’s standout Barbican show – and dates in North America, Asia and Australia forthcoming – 2026 is truly one big house party to celebrate it all. “I'm just incredibly grateful for everyone who has made the tour possible,” says Errol. “We've really been feeling the love. It's a special feeling to travel to all these disparate places and walk in thinking, ‘This feels like Touching Bass. This feels like home.’”