2014 should have been a year of rejoicing for Kode9. Hyperdub, the record label he founded in 2004, was turning 10. A year-long series of shows spanning the globe and a four-part compilation celebrating the label’s wide-ranging vision—dubstep, house, techno, footwork, and ambient—were announced as celebrations. But then in late April things took a turn for the worst. Chicago's DJ Rashad, one of the most recognizable faces of the city's footwork sound, and a key Hyperdub artist, unexpectedly died at the age of 34 of an accidental drug overdose. Less than six months later, tragedy struck again. In October 2014, 44-year-old Stephen Samuel Gordon, known as the spaceape, passed away in London after a long battle with a rare form of cancer. A poet and MC, Gordon was Kode9’s core collaborator and the pair had been inseparable from each other’s music for the past decade. The deaths left Kode9 angry, and he retreated from the world.

A year on, Kode9—the alias of Glasgow-born, London-based producer Steve Goodman—is in New York on a short promotional tour for Nothing, his third album, but first as a solo artist (he released two with Gordon). We meet at his hotel on the Lower East Side. It’s the tail end of summer and he is wearing dark shorts and a t-shirt and shoes adorned with digital camouflage patterns, a visual motif he wears a lot. As we stand outside the hotel for a cigarette before retiring to the smoke-free courtyard, he puts on dark-tinted glasses—the same pair he wears in press photographs—as if he’s trying to blend into the background. Since the start of his artistic career, Goodman has tried to remain visually elusive. It’s not so much about mystery as a reluctance to create a reliable public image—he often covers his face in photos, for example. In person, however, he is anything but aloof: he listens attentively and speaks frankly.

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This is the first time Goodman is talking to the press since Gordon’s passing. “When the cold wind of death decides to blow through your area, it tends to leave a trail of zeros,” he says of the past year, his Scottish roots still evident in his voice, lending it a melodic tone. He gathers his thoughts before continuing, “and they change your perspective on things. Make you realize what matters, what needs to be gotten rid of.” Another pause. “There's a bit of a reset.”