As Paradox, Alaska, one half of Mixrace and a long-running collaborator with Seba, Nucleus, and others, Dev Pandaya's catalogue spans 3 decades, 10 albums, and roughly 200 12-inch releases that move through Moving Shadow, Reinforced, Good Looking, Hospital, Metalheadz, and his own Paradox Music. His live performances still revolve around old hardware, most famously a Commodore Amiga 1200 and an Akai sampler. His setup is precarious, tactile, and personal. On Friday, May 8, 2026, Control Club brings one of these unique Paradox live performances, with ctrl X Ellen Recordings hosting Doc Scott, Paradox, Brusten, and Ellen.
In 1990, Pandaya formed Mixrace with DJ Trax, emerging from the hardcore and breakbeat rave years. They were teenagers making music on computers, sending demos to labels like Moving Shadow, Ram, and Suburban Base, without fully understanding that their accelerated hip-hop and hardcore experiments were helping to form a new language. Their first vinyl releases arrived on Moving Shadow in 1992.
By the mid-90s, the Paradox and Alaska aliases had separated into two temperaments. Alaska explored ambient jungle and deep atmospheres, appearing through labels such as Good Looking, Renegade Recordings, Vibez, 720 Degrees and Nexus. Through these releases, Paradox took the funk break apart, refusing the quantised aggression that would later dominate parts of drum'n' bass.
The Musician as Outsider, released in 2000 on Reinforced, announced Paradox as a long-form thinker. What They Don't Know, released in 2002, pushed this further with the track "Drumfunk", effectively naming a new, Paradox-specific subgenre.
Pandya's commitment to vinyl is another integral part of the project. Recent Paradox Music releases and reissues have kept the catalogue in motion, from Streetbeat / Drum Throne and Desolator / Kampala to digital restorations of older material. Wax Breaks, his 2016 collection of raw breakbeats prepared for mixing and sampling, underlined the generosity and obsession behind the method.
With Seba, Pandya has built one of drum n' bass's most durable dialogues. Their 2025 Metalheadz release Cypher / Orlean marked the launch of the METASP series and brought the pair back to the label more than five years after their previous collaborative Metalheadz appearance. Later that year, In the Air / Come with Me appeared on their own Seba & Paradox imprint, extending the partnership outside Metalheadz. In 2026, that thread continued with further METASP activity and a special 200th vinyl release on Paradox Music. Furthermore, Bill Laswell helped connect him to Herbie Hancock, whose response to Pandya's programming was reportedly that "the boy could swing". Richard D. James personally invited him to perform alongside Aphex Twin.
There is also a political edge to Paradox. Pandya has made no secret of his anger over Brexit, and his recent biography notes a trip to Kyiv to perform for President Zelensky's United24 charity, while air-raid sirens were part of daily life.
Paradox represents the breakbeat's internal argument, its capacity to splinter without losing swing. Together with Doc Scott, they map a lineage in which drum n' bass still finds new stress points inside the same classic breaks.
