Current Value

Berlin-based Tim Eliot, widely recognized under the alias Current Value, has driven drum'n'bass innovation forward from the closing years of the 1990s onward. Across more than twelve albums plus roughly one hundred singles and EPs, along with duo activity in Machine Code and involvement in the supergroup Underhill, he has honed a singular strain of dark, experimental drum'n'bass built on exacting, clinical rhythms set into intricate, non-linear structures. His entry came via Panacea's Position Chrome imprint with the 1998 album Frequency Hunt; subsequent work after the comparatively streamlined Beyond Digits in 2001 introduced broader melodic and expansive layers without sacrificing intensity. Numerous abrasive outings followed on Tech Itch and Future Sickness, interspersed with excursions into dubstep and crossbreed, before neurofunk-leaning productions such as the 2016 album Biocellulose broadened his reach inside the drum'n'bass community.

Piano instruction in the classical tradition began for Eliot at age six, while his initial forays into electronic production occurred in the first half of the 1990s. The year 1998 saw three singles plus Frequency Hunt issued on Position Chrome, together with the track “Falling Into It” appearing on Don Q Records. His second album, Seeds of Mutation, surfaced in 1999 and was succeeded by In a Far Future in 2000. The 2001 release Beyond Digits, issued through Klangkrieg, signaled a modest shift toward greater approachability. A 2002 techno project under the name Curve #146 preceded singles such as “Herd Instinct” in 2003 and “Into the Light” in 2005, both emphasizing weightier breaks alongside melodic content. An ongoing flood of material continued across Tech Itch, Trouble on Vinyl, Evol Intent, and additional outlets, capped in 2007 by the mixed CD Therapy Session Vol. 6. The stark fifth album 2012: The Day of Silence emerged on Tech Freak Recordings—formed jointly by Tech Itch and Dylan’s Freak Recordings—in 2009. Back to the Machine followed on Subsistenz in 2010, while the Donny collaboration Revolt & Riot appeared on Guerilla Recordings in 2011. Barcode Recordings put out the science-themed Quantum Physics in 2012, and Subsistenz released Stay on This Planet the next year.

Parallel to his solo output, Eliot joined two significant joint ventures by the start of the 2010s. Alongside Dean Rodell he examined dubstep, industrial, techno, and further forms as Machine Code, whose first album Environments arrived in 2011. Both artists also belonged to the larger collective Underhill, completed by drum'n'bass producer Cooh and former Therion vocalist Martina Astner, which fused metal, goth rock, trip-hop, and dubstep. Ad Noiseam issued Underhill’s debut Silent Siren in 2012 and Prologue in 2014; the same year the label released Machine Code’s third album Samurai. Separate from these efforts, Current Value gained added visibility via 2012 remixes drawn from Björk’s Biophilia.

Later releases including the 2015 Force Black EP on Bad Taste Recordings and the 2016 album Biocellulose on Critical Recordings rendered Current Value’s style more immediately engaging than before, aligning the producer more closely with neurofunk than with the hardstep or techstep aesthetics that had earlier defined his work. The steady sequence of albums persisted with 2017’s Deadly Toys on Invisible Recordings and two 2019 LPs, PUER on Souped Up Records and SENEX on MethLab Recordings.