Main Phase: The Dane Who Mastered British Speed Garage

The funniest, most revealing fact about Main Phase is that most people assume he is British. He is not. He is from Copenhagen, and he learned UK garage the way a teenager in the 2000s would, by running home from school to catch the right show on Rinse FM, a sea and a culture away from the basements that invented the sound. A decade later he is one of the most respected speed garage producers anywhere, co-runs a tastemaking label with one of the genre's biggest UK names, and is busy dragging his own city onto the bass-music map. His is the clearest proof that UK garage has outgrown the UK. This is a working DJ and producer's guide to who Main Phase is, how a Danish outsider mastered a British genre, and why it matters. His real name is Adam Schierbeck, and the facts below were checked against current sources in August 2026.

Main Phase at a glance

• Real name: Adam Emil Schierbeck, a producer and DJ from Copenhagen, Denmark.
• The sound: dark, two-step-flavoured UK garage and forward-thinking speed garage and bassline.
• The label: co-founder, with Interplanetary Criminal, of ATW Records.
• The breakout: a viral Keep Hush set for the London label ec2a in early 2022.
• The catalogue: releases across the UK bass network, including ec2a, Shall Not Fade, Dansu Discs and many more, since his 2020 debut.
• Radio: a broadcaster on the legendary UK station Rinse FM.
• 2026 releases: "Twizted" with Interplanetary Criminal opening the ATW044 compilation in May, the Attenuation EP with Talons for Tempa in June, and the two-tracker SAGA004 for Copenhagen's Fable Records in July.
• Autumn 2026: a Warehouse Project date in Manchester on 10 October as part of Interplanetary Criminal's takeover, plus shows in Washington DC and Dublin.

Who is Main Phase?

Behind the name is Adam Schierbeck, born and raised in Copenhagen. His route into UK garage is the heart of the story, because he did not have the culture around him. There were no pirate stations rattling out of London tower blocks, no older siblings passing down tape packs. What he had was the internet, and he used it: he has described running home from school to catch sessions on Rinse FM, the London station that has carried underground UK music for decades. He fell in love with a sound from a place he was not, and learned it from the outside in.

That distance turned out to be a strange advantage. With no local scene to conform to, Schierbeck absorbed UK garage as a devoted student, and the result is a command of the genre so complete that British listeners routinely assume he is one of their own. He is the rare outsider who learned a regional music so well he could pass for a native, then started adding to it.

The long road in: vinyl at fourteen and a leap of faith

The depth of the obsession is worth spelling out, because none of this happened overnight. In a feature with UKF, Schierbeck described starting to collect garage vinyl at fourteen and racing home from school for the Youngsta sessions on Rinse, teaching himself the culture through mix CDs and ripped radio archives without ever setting foot in the raves that spawned them. Before Main Phase existed he spent the best part of fifteen years making music across a spread of genres, which is why the project arrived sounding finished rather than promising.

The leap came with fatherhood, of all things. Rather than shelving the music when his child was born, he quit the day job and went full time, betting that structure and family life would sharpen the studio hours rather than shrink them. The bet paid off quickly. His early Warehouse Rave EPs landed just weeks before his first ever UK booking, a seated, socially distanced event at Leeds' Old Red Bus Station in the strange post-lockdown window, about as unglamorous a British debut as it is possible to imagine. From there the release sheet filled out fast, taking in ec2a, the Instinct white-label series, Hardline Sounds and more, and by 2024 he had a single called "Grindin'" out on Locked On, the label that released the foundational UK garage records he grew up studying. For a Copenhagen kid who learned the genre off YouTube rips, a Locked On catalogue number is about as heavy as symbolism gets.

The sound: dark two-step and speed garage

Main Phase is known for a dark, rolling, two-step flow and a deep grasp of speed garage and bassline, the faster, bass-heavier wings of the UK garage family. His productions pair club-ready, peak-time energy with genuine roots in UK bass culture, and they sit comfortably next to the genre's British originators rather than as a tribute act. The 2026 Attenuation EP, made with Talons for the storied dubstep label Tempa, showed the range, moving through dubstep space, heavyweight low end and speed garage swing.

It is technical, knowledgeable music made by someone who clearly studied the source material closely, which is exactly why it lands. In a revival that can tip into nostalgia, Main Phase pushes the sound forward, part of the same modern surge that has seen speed garage downloads explode and the whole UK garage world come roaring back. If the sub-genre labels are blurring for you at this point, our explainer on UK garage versus speed garage versus bassline untangles exactly where his lane sits.

In the studio: spontaneity over ceremony

For all the studied knowledge, his actual process is loose. Talking to the Danish magazine Passive/Aggressive, Schierbeck admitted that the carefully planned studio days often produce nothing at all, while a finished track can appear in an hour late at night when he is not trying. That spontaneity is audible in the music, which always feels played rather than assembled, and it explains how he keeps up a release rate that spans garage, jungle, dubstep and grime without the quality dipping.

The other engine is the feedback loop with Interplanetary Criminal. The two have spent years sending works in progress back and forth, and Schierbeck has named the Manchester producer, along with Soundbwoy Killah, among the biggest influences on how he builds a track. His DJ sets run on the same fuel. Asked by 10 Magazine for his set formula ahead of a huge open-air Boiler Room in London in 2024, on a bill shared with Skream and Giggs, he kept it simple: dubs from himself and his mates, old records against new ones, and a couple of vinyl pulls when the setup allows. That is a pirate-radio ethos applied to a modern touring career, and it is why no two Main Phase sets feel alike.

How a Copenhagen kid mastered a British genre

This is the angle worth sitting with. Main Phase is what the internet did to regional music. A sound that was once impossibly local, born in specific London clubs and pirate frequencies, became learnable by a kid in Denmark with a stream and an obsession, and he learned it well enough to lead. His breakthrough came in early 2022 with a Keep Hush set for the London label ec2a that went viral, the kind of online moment that, fittingly, was itself a product of the same internet that taught him the music in the first place.

It says something hopeful about where dance music is. The gatekeeping that once made scenes exclusive has given way to a world where the most devoted student, wherever they are, can become a defining voice. Main Phase did not dilute UK garage by taking it abroad. He honoured it, mastered it, and earned the respect of the people who made it, which is a very different and much rarer thing than appropriation.

ATW Records and Interplanetary Criminal

The proof of that respect is who he works with. Main Phase co-founded ATW Records, short for All The Wicked, with Interplanetary Criminal, one of the biggest names in the modern UK garage revival, and the friendship behind it is a great scene story. The pair had been talking online for years before Main Phase booked Interplanetary Criminal to play his party at the Copenhagen club Bakken, originally a lo-fi house and techno night. Interplanetary Criminal started dropping garage, Main Phase jumped on to play back to back, and they ended up going all night. ATW grew out of that, conceived as a platform to give UK garage up-and-comers a leg up, and a monthly Balamii radio show digging into deep-cut UKG, 2-step and speed garage.

A label whose whole purpose is to platform newcomers, co-run by an outsider who was once a newcomer himself, is the kind of generous, scene-building project that keeps a genre healthy. It also places Main Phase right at the centre of the revival rather than on its fringes. The commercial results back the idealism, too: the wider story of how ATW's catalogue performed against the major labels is told in our round-up of 2026's strongest UK garage records, and the short version is that the newcomers' label more than holds its own.

All The Wicked: the label gets its own film

In February 2026 the ATW story reached the point where someone made a film about it. The mini-documentary All The Wicked, directed by Finn James and covered by Clash, follows the label's first international tour, cutting between the founders' home bases of Manchester and Copenhagen before crossing the Atlantic for a North American run that swings from warehouse parties to big-room club shows.

It is a short watch and worth your time, partly for the music and partly for what it captures structurally: two producers from different countries running a UK garage label as a genuinely transnational operation, with a community ethos intact at every stop. Documentaries used to be what heritage acts got at the end of the story. That this scene is producing them in real time tells you how aware everyone is that something worth recording is happening.

Putting Copenhagen on the bass map

The final piece is what he is doing with the influence. Rather than simply joining the UK scene, Main Phase has set about building one at home, part of a new generation turning Copenhagen, better known for fast, trance-inflected techno, towards UK-indebted garage, jungle and bass. He has put it plainly, saying he wants his city "put on the map for its bass music." That ambition, to take what he learned from afar and seed it locally, completes the loop. The kid who imported a sound through a laptop is now exporting a scene.

The local commitment runs deeper than a soundbite. He has told Danish press he wants Copenhagen to become a city where people go out to hear a specific sound rather than simply to lose a weekend, and he acts on it: alongside the Main Phase project he has produced jungle with Copenhagen collaborators under the First Touch alias, and in July 2026 he handed a release to Fable Records, the Copenhagen club label run by ELOQ that wraps its catalogue in fantasy lore. His entry, SAGA004, arrived on 17 July 2026 with two cuts, the sunlit "Sunpetal" and the moodier "Moonleaf", following releases from samgood, DJ Sprinter and gau7t. A producer with his international profile choosing to feed a small hometown imprint is exactly how a city gets put on the map, one catalogue number at a time.

2026: Attenuation EP, Rinse residency and global shows

In 2026 Main Phase is fully established. He keeps feeding ATW Records, including "Twizted", their joint track that opens the ATW044 compilation (May 2026) with Interplanetary Criminal, and headlined a large outdoor ATW takeover alongside him; he holds a broadcaster slot on Rinse FM, the very station that first taught him the music; and his touring takes in clubs and festivals across Europe and beyond, including Boiler Room appearances and a celebrated 2023 back to back with Interplanetary Criminal at Boiler Room Festival Berlin. For an artist who started as a long-distance fan, becoming a Rinse FM selector is about as full-circle as a career gets.

The release column for the year reads like a tour of UK bass history. The Attenuation EP with Talons landed on Tempa on 19 June 2026 as catalogue TEMPA131, planting a speed garage flag on the label that codified dubstep. A month later came the Fable Records two-tracker for his home city. Add "Twizted" and the ATW compilation work and you have three releases in three months on three completely different kinds of label: the heritage institution, the hometown upstart and his own imprint. Very few producers in any genre cover that much ground in a single summer without their identity smudging. His never does.

Autumn 2026: the Warehouse Project and beyond

The diary for the rest of 2026 has one headline booking. On 10 October Main Phase plays Depot Mayfield in Manchester as part of Interplanetary Criminal's takeover at the Warehouse Project, a multi-room, seven-till-four bill that also features Joy O, Anz, HAAi, DJ Seinfeld and Bakey. It is one of the biggest shows Interplanetary Criminal has ever headlined, and having Main Phase in the room for it is the Bakken story scaled up by several orders of magnitude: the two friends who once went back to back all night in a small Copenhagen club now doing it in front of thousands. Our Warehouse Project 2026 guide has the full season context.

Around it sit the kind of dates that show his range: listings at the time of writing include a Washington DC club show on 19 September and Dublin's Wigwam on 2 October, with more European and UK dates filling in through the season. If you want my honest recommendation, catch him in the smallest room you can. The big-stage sets are excellent, but the dark, rolling selection style he built his name on breathes best at close quarters.

Essential Main Phase listening

The best entry points capture his journey. The viral Keep Hush set for ec2a is where the wider world caught on, a perfect showcase of his dark, rolling garage selection. His releases across ec2a, Shall Not Fade and the wider UK bass label network show the production craft, and his recent ATW Records output with Interplanetary Criminal is the most current statement. For the curatorial side, the ATW Records catalogue and radio show map the sound he and Interplanetary Criminal are building.

For the 2026 material, start with "Twizted" for the peak-time face, then the Attenuation EP with Talons for the deepest, most exploratory end of his range, and SAGA004 for the melodic, homegrown side. Reach back to "Grindin'" on Locked On to hear how naturally his swing sits on a heritage garage label, and to the early Warehouse Rave EPs to hear how fully formed the project was from the start. He also holds the number six spot in our best UK garage DJs and producers of 2026 list, where the case for his bass design being the finest in the field is made properly.

Why Main Phase matters

Main Phase matters because he redraws the boundaries of what UK garage even is. He proves the genre is no longer bound to its birthplace, that a devoted outsider can master it, earn the respect of its originators and push it forward, and that the internet has turned the most local of scenes into a global conversation. Add a label built to lift up newcomers and a mission to grow a bass scene in his own city, and Main Phase is not just a great speed garage producer. He is evidence of how healthy, open and far-reaching the UK garage revival has become.

FAQ

What is Main Phase's real name?

Adam Emil Schierbeck. He is a producer and DJ from Copenhagen, Denmark, who specialises in UK garage, speed garage and bassline.

Is Main Phase from the UK?

No. He is from Copenhagen, Denmark, but his command of UK garage is so complete that many listeners assume he is British. He learned the sound partly by listening to London's Rinse FM growing up, and now broadcasts on the station himself.

What is ATW Records?

A label co-founded by Main Phase and Interplanetary Criminal to platform up-and-coming UK garage and speed garage artists, with a monthly radio show. It grew out of their friendship after Main Phase booked Interplanetary Criminal to play in Copenhagen, and a 2026 mini-documentary, All The Wicked, follows the label's first international tour.

What kind of music does Main Phase make?

Dark, two-step-leaning UK garage plus forward-thinking speed garage and bassline, pairing peak-time club energy with deep roots in UK bass culture.

How did Main Phase break through?

A viral Keep Hush set for the London label ec2a in early 2022 brought him wider attention, on top of a steady run of releases across the UK bass label network.

What has Main Phase released in 2026?

Fresh ATW Records music with Interplanetary Criminal, including "Twizted", their joint track that opens the ATW044 compilation (May 2026), plus the Attenuation EP with Talons for Tempa (June 2026) and the SAGA004 two-tracker on Copenhagen's Fable Records (July 2026), alongside continued radio work on Rinse FM.

Where can I see Main Phase live in 2026?

The standout autumn date is the Warehouse Project in Manchester on 10 October 2026, part of Interplanetary Criminal's takeover at Depot Mayfield. Listings also include Washington DC on 19 September and Dublin's Wigwam on 2 October, with further club and festival dates across Europe.

Sources

• Resident Advisor and UKF biographies and features on Main Phase (Adam Schierbeck), his vinyl-collecting start, early Warehouse Rave EPs, Leeds debut and the ec2a Keep Hush breakthrough
• DJ Mag on Copenhagen's bass-fuelled garage scene and Main Phase's ambitions for the city; Passive/Aggressive interview on his process and Copenhagen projects; Rinse FM show pages
• Mixmag, Balamii, 10 Magazine and END. features on Interplanetary Criminal, the founding of ATW Records and his 2024 open-air London Boiler Room; Clash and Skiddle on the All The Wicked mini-documentary (February 2026)
• ATW Records, Beatport and Songstats for 2026 releases including "Twizted" with Interplanetary Criminal and the ATW outdoor takeover; Bandcamp for SAGA004 on Fable Records (17 July 2026); Boiler Room recordings of his sets including the Berlin back to back with Interplanetary Criminal
• Beatport and label pages (ec2a, Shall Not Fade, Tempa, Locked On) for release history; The Ransom Note and The Warehouse Project on the 10 October 2026 Depot Mayfield takeover; Songkick listings for autumn 2026 dates

This guide is part of House of MNEEMO's ongoing coverage of the electronic and club music scene, written by London-based DJ and producer MNEEMO, with millions of streams to his name and a party series running through some of London's best clubs.