upsammy

Dutch DJ and producer Thessa Torsing, who performs as upsammy, crafts dreamy and abstract dance music that moves fluidly across electro, techno, and IDM. Based in Amsterdam, she surfaced in the late 2010s and gained recognition for her wide-ranging DJ sets that traverse broad BPM territories as well as for her spacious, gliding productions shaped by nature and science fiction. After issuing several sought-after EPs, she delivered her first full-length album, Zoom, in 2020; her follow-up, Germ in a Population of Buildings, came out in 2023.

Torsing’s early exposure to electronic music came through CDs from her father’s collection, and attending her first rave near the age of fifteen proved transformative. Alongside friends she began organizing illegal parties that drew crowds in the hundreds. After relocating to Utrecht for arts university studies she began making house music, adopting the name upsammy from Dutch crooner Ramses Shaffy’s song “Sammy.” Her style evolved into a distinctive fusion of psychedelic-tinged ambient techno and electro. Two of her tracks appeared on the 2017 Nous’klaer Audio vinyl compilation Paerels, and her debut EP Another Place followed on the same label in 2018. Words R Inert was released next on the German imprint Die Orakel, while Whities put out the split EP Blue 03 featuring upsammy and BFFT. Her sound moved toward vintage IDM on the 2019 mini-album Wild Chamber for Nous’klaer Audio and the EP Branches on Ice for Die Orakel. The full-length Zoom, comprising kinetic pieces built with a drum machine, modular synths, and field recordings, appeared on Dekmantel in 2020. The EP Bend arrived in 2021, and PAN issued her second album, Germ in a Population of Buildings, in 2023.