SB-Unit makes his debut on Crossings with ‘We Will Dance Again’, joined by remixes from Francesco Mami and Reboot on a release shaped around the tension, patience, and forward motion of the dance floor.
Photo credit: The lead image for this feature is a digital photo illustration created using generative AI, based on original press photography.
The original moves between weighty low-end, melody, and a dark but uplifting atmosphere, while Francesco Mami takes the track toward an old-school deep-house direction and Reboot pares it back to a minimalist, repetitive rhythmic core.
In this conversation, SB-Unit, Francesco Mami, Reboot, and Leith discuss ‘We Will Dance Again’, long-form club music, artistic instinct, independent labels, and the parts of club culture they believe need protecting.
EG: Hi Salvo, Francesco, Frank, and Leith, welcome to Electronic Groove. Before we get into the music, where are each of you today, and what kind of moment are we catching you in?
SB-Unit: Thankis for the invite. I’m based in London and have just moved to the south of the city, so I’m still finishing setting up my new home.
Francesco: Somewhere between finding a bit of peace in the studio and juggling music, life, and everything in between.
Reboot: It’s Monday morning, and I’m sitting in a hotel in Bari. I played a show yesterday, and now I’ve got some time to kill. So this is what artists do in those glamorous hours between gigs: catch up on interviews.
Leith: Hello EG, and thank you for having us back. I’m in London, somewhere between the day job and the studio, which is probably the most honest description of how Crossings has always been run: with a lot of love, around full lives.
It’s a special moment for the label. Welcoming SB-Unit for his first EP on Crossings, with Francesco and Frank on remix duties, is exactly the kind of release this platform was built for: friends and like-minded artists from different cities and scenes, crossing paths through music.
EG: Salvo, growing up between Naples and London, means absorbing two cities with very strong identities of their own. Away from genres and scenes, what did each place teach you about how you listen to music and understand a dance floor?
SB-Unit: The music of Naples has always been a foundation of what I do. I started with house music and gradually moved towards techno and minimal. Moving to London also allowed me to explore and develop the style I have today.
EG: Salvo, ‘We Will Dance Again’ is a title that can carry very different meanings depending on who hears it. What did those words mean to you personally when they first became connected to the track?
SB-Unit: This project began during and continued after COVID, as I felt a real need to go to a club, dance, and do what I love: play music.
EG: Leith, from an A&R perspective, what makes you stop and pay attention to a record today? Is it something you can identify immediately, or are the most interesting decisions often based on an instinct that is difficult to explain?
Leith: Both, but instinct always comes first. With the records that end up on Crossings, I usually know within the first minute or two. Not because they hit hard immediately, but because there is a spark, a melody, or a tension that makes me want to hear where it goes next. That part is difficult to explain, and I’ve learned not to over-explain it.
Then comes the more considered part. Melody has always been the common denominator of every Crossings release, and beyond that I look for originality, sonic spatial balance, versatility, and ingenuity. Does the record have its own identity? Does it leave room to breathe? Could it work at different moments of the night? After that, it goes through the ultimate test: the dance floor.
The artist matters just as much as the music. We love to support underground heroes, locally and globally, and a big part of what we do is discovering new artists and giving them a platform. I sometimes think of Crossings a bit like Clairefontaine, the French football academy: we find young talent, give them their first opportunity, and then support them, with the help of the more established artists in our community, as they take the next steps in their careers. Over the years we have supported dozens of new artists, and we are very proud to see many of them grow into established artists touring around the world. If you look at the names across our catalogue, you will recognise many talents, such as Bondarev, Joep Mencke and Parallells, who started their journey with a first release on Crossings.
With ‘We Will Dance Again,’ the instinct was immediate. The original is dark yet uplifting, and it took me straight back to a certain London sound of the 2000s and early 2010s: deep, physical and unhurried, the kind of record you would hear in a room like The End on West Central Street. Salvo mentioned that the project was born from a real need to go to a club, dance, and play music again. You can hear that need in the record, and that is exactly what made me stop and listen.
EG: Francesco, you and Salvo already have an established creative relationship. When you know another artist’s instincts well, what becomes more interesting: understanding exactly what they intended, or finding the part of their music they might not have recognized themselves?
Francesco: I think the strength of our relationship is really in its longevity, both musically and personally. I met Salvo more than fifteen years ago, and since then we have constantly shared music, ideas, and experiences. We have been releasing music together since 2018, and over the years we have had many different projects connecting us, always with a lot of satisfaction.
Working with him means we don’t have to spend time translating what we are thinking or finding a common language before we can actually make music. We already understand each other’s instincts.
So for me, it is less about understanding exactly what he intended and more about seeing where the music can take us. We can move very quickly because the musical language is already there. The groove is almost instinctively in sync, and that leaves space for things to happen that neither of us had planned.
“Instinct always comes first”
EG: Frank, reduction can be deceptive. Taking elements away often makes every remaining decision more exposed. When you approach a remix through repetition and restraint, how do you know when something has enough movement to keep a dance floor locked without adding more?
Reboot: I think that’s really the broader question of when a track is finished and how far you need to push it. For me, a lot of that comes down to experience and feel. If the foundation is strong, you usually don’t need much to keep it alive, just a little variation here and there. But I’m also guilty of wanting to add one more sound, and I have to catch myself and say, “Okay, stop. Stay focused.”
With a remix, I usually pick out whichever elements really grab me. That might just be a bassline, a melody, or a vocal. Then I build a new track around those elements, while trying to stay connected to the feeling of the original.
EG: All three of you come from traditions where records are allowed to breathe, and DJs are given time to build something. In an era increasingly driven by immediate impact, shorter attention spans, and constant visibility, has patience become one of underground music’s most important qualities?
SB-Unit: I don’t usually think in those terms when I’m playing or building a track. For me, the most important thing in both production and mixing is that the music tells a story and captures the emotions of the people on the dance floor. I don’t start by asking whether a track should have more space or be more densely layered; it simply needs to be built properly and have structure.
Francesco: For me, patience is very connected to what a club is.
Going to a club can feel like a small adventure. Even if you have been to the same place many times, you never really know what that room is going to create with different DJs, different music, and different people.
When you explore a new place, you don’t want to rush through it. You want to stay there long enough to actually experience it. I feel the same about a dance floor. A club is not only about jumping as high as you can. Sometimes the best part is simply being there, moving with everyone else and allowing the music to build its own momentum.
That is why I still love records that take their time. They give the DJ and the people on the dance floor the space to discover something together, rather than asking for an immediate reaction.
I think patience has become even more important now, precisely because there is so much pressure for everything to happen immediately.
Reboot: I think the reward is always greater when you’ve had to give something to get there, even if that just means staying with the tension until that moment of release. That’s a big part of what makes a night on the dance floor special.
But patience is a much broader issue than music. When I look at our kids growing up with social media, I worry they’re learning that everything should be available instantly. There’s very little room left for anticipation. The kind of electronic music we’re talking about needs that room. You have to give it time to unfold, because the journey is part of what makes the payoff feel so good.
EG: Salvo, years behind the decks inevitably change the way you make records. When you are producing now, how much are you imagining an actual room, a particular hour of the night, or the physical reaction of people in front of you?
SB-Unit: I follow the track’s feel and emotion, connecting with that particular moment in the night or the atmosphere on the dance floor. From there, I can take the production in the direction that feeling leads me.
EG: Francesco, your career has included extended sets and spaces where storytelling matters as much as individual records. What do you think a DJ can communicate over several hours that simply cannot be expressed in a shorter set?
Francesco: For me, one of the most interesting things about playing for several hours is that you actually become part of the club.
You are not just arriving, playing for 60 or 90 minutes, having a drink with the promoter and leaving. You arrive earlier. You see what is happening in the room, you hear who is playing before you, you watch the place fill up. With an all-night-long set, sometimes you are there while the club is still waking up.
Growing up on the Romagna Riviera and playing so many all-night sets in different rooms and clubs, I know that feeling very well. You get much more connected to the place and to the people. And then you have time to explore. You can change direction, slow things down, move through different energies, even try something that might not make sense in a shorter set.
You can take a few steps back, go forward again, make a mistake and recover from it.
That freedom is also very important to me as a producer. I like testing music in the club before it is even finished. You learn very quickly what a track is actually doing when you hear it in the right environment.
So for me, storytelling is not necessarily having a story planned in advance. It is having enough time to discover it while you are playing.
EG: Frank, Frankfurt club culture and places like Omen were formative for you. After everything you have experienced since those early years, what can a club still do to you today that surprises you?
Reboot: What still gets me is seeing young people putting so much love, attention to detail, and hard work into keeping this culture alive. In a business that’s become so driven by money, meeting people who are just getting started and doing it out of pure enthusiasm is a beautiful thing. Every time, I think, “Yes, this spirit is still alive.” That gives me hope and genuinely warms my heart.
EG: Leith, independent labels increasingly have to balance artistic identity with a music ecosystem driven by speed, metrics, and constant releases. What do you think a label like Crossings needs to protect in order to remain culturally meaningful rather than simply productive?
Leith: Its ethos, above everything else. From the start, Aymen and I agreed that Crossings would never be business-oriented. We are very serious about what we do, but the label exists to discover, reveal, and support local heroes and talents of tomorrow, not to feed an algorithm.
In practice, that means protecting a few simple things. Time: we release a handful of records a year, so every release gets the attention it deserves, and we can say no to good music that doesn’t fit. People: the community around the label, the artists, remixers, DJs, and friends who share music and grow together, matters more than any metric. And identity: melody, space and sonic balance, and visual artwork we create ourselves, so that every release feels like part of the same story.
Frank said something earlier that really resonates with me: in a business so driven by money, meeting young people who are doing it out of pure enthusiasm is what keeps the spirit alive. That is exactly who a label like ours should exist for. If a label starts measuring itself only in streams and output, it becomes productive but forgettable. This EP is the opposite of that. As Francesco said, when artists know each other this well, the musical language is already there. Here you have three artists who know and respect each other, one idea, and three honest readings of it. That is what keeps a label culturally meaningful.
“Patience has become even more important now, precisely because there is so much pressure for everything to happen immediately”
EG: Salvo, running Polluted Records has also put you on the other side of the equation, listening to music as someone responsible for giving it a home. Has becoming a label operator made you more demanding with your own music, or perhaps taught you to trust instinct more?
SB-Unit: I can distinguish between the styles I choose for releases on my label and the music I make myself. I enjoy and understand the sounds I want to release on my label, but when I make music, I just do my own thing. I don’t follow styles rigidly or make copycat music for other DJs. I develop my sound by experimenting and exploring my outboard synths, drum machines, and effects. My instincts tell me where to go.
EG: For all three of you, there is a lot of conversation today about technology, algorithms, content, and the changing economics around electronic music. Strip all of that away for a moment: what is one thing club culture absolutely cannot afford to lose?
SB-Unit: The underground spirit of our scene is about keeping it real. Commerciality is the killer.
Francesco: I’ve been asking myself this quite a lot recently. What is it that I really love about going to a club, and what would I hate to see disappear?
For me, it is the collective, almost instinctive experience of dancing in time with the music. There is something very special about a group of people finding the same rhythm and moving together. For a few hours, it creates this temporary society where people who may have nothing else in common are suddenly connected, communicating without really needing to communicate.
It doesn’t really matter whether it happens in a small club or at a huge festival. In a bigger space, it might happen in smaller clusters, but the feeling is still there. Everyone is connected by the same groove, the same pulse, the same music.
I find something almost utopian in that. It is a temporary, almost anarchic society created simply by people being together, listening and moving to the same music.
That, for me, is one of the most unique things about club culture, and I hope we never lose it.
And in a way, this EP is also an example of that spirit. I met Salvo at an after-party, and over the years our relationship developed through music, conversations, projects, and remixes. I also crossed paths with Frank many years ago, and around five or six years ago we started remixing each other’s music for Rhythm Cult. From there, we had the opportunity to talk more, share experiences, and call each other for projects and remixes. Frank has remixed several of my tracks beautifully, and those collaborations have meant a lot to me. Salvo and I speak on the phone almost every day.
So this EP is, in its own way, a reflection of that same thing. People coming from different places and different relationships, finding each other through music and creating something together.
That connection is probably one of the things I valu