The Set That Has the EDM World Talking
The Mixmag Lab has hosted a lot of good DJ sets. This one is different, and the difference is audible within the first three minutes.
Ben Sterling’s session at Gallery Club — recorded live in the venue’s 360-degree concrete booth — is the kind of tech house set that makes other tech house sets look like they were playing it safe. That’s not hype. Watch the dancefloor from minute twenty onward and you’ll see what I mean: the crowd stops doing that thing where people dance near each other and starts doing the other thing, where they move together without deciding to.
Sterling built that. Track by track, with no shortcuts.
Ben Sterling: A UK Leader in House and Tech House Music
Mixmag called him “a leader of the UK’s new school,” which is the kind of quote that’s easy to dismiss until you look at the resume. Residency at Ministry of Sound. Releases on Hot Creations — Jamie Jones’s label, not an easy room to get into — and Solid Grooves, plus his own Planet X imprint where he keeps the weirder ideas. Dates at Club Space Miami, Amnesia and Pacha in Ibiza.
He draws from disco, Chicago house, Detroit techno. That’s a specific set of reference points, and it shows in how he structures a set: there’s always an argument being made, a direction being pulled toward. He doesn’t just play good records. He goes somewhere with them.
What makes Ben Sterling’s live Mixmag Lab set at Gallery Club London worth watching?
Ben Sterling’s tech house set at Gallery Club — recorded in the venue’s unique 360-degree concrete booth with a premium sound system — showcases his ability to build a dancefloor through patience and precision rather than spectacle. Drawing from disco, Chicago house, and Detroit techno, Sterling crafts a seamless narrative arc that keeps crowds locked in from start to finish.
Gallery Club London: Built Differently
A word on the venue, because it matters here more than usual.
Gallery Club opened on Kensington High Street in March 2025. The pitch was intentional and slightly combative: take the underground energy of East London and drop it into West London without filing down the edges. Four rooms, 400 capacity — small enough that there’s nowhere to stand and feel removed from what’s happening.
The Club Room runs on a d&b audiotechnik sound system and centers on a DJ booth made from ten tons of concrete, set directly on the dancefloor rather than raised above it. That detail sounds architectural until you’re in the room. What it actually means is that the DJ is surrounded — no elevated remove, no barrier between the booth and the people dancing three feet away. The crowd wraps around the artist completely. When Sterling’s head comes up between tracks, he’s looking directly into the faces of the people he’s playing for. That changes what a DJ set feels like for everyone in the room, including the DJ.
This is where he recorded the Mixmag Lab session.
What Made This DJ Set Special
The opening is understated. If you’re expecting the kind of first-track statement that announces itself, you won’t find it here. Sterling comes in quieter than you expect and builds through patience rather than spectacle. The dancefloor earns its temperature gradually, which means by the midpoint it’s running hot without knowing exactly when that happened.
The tracklist covers real ground. A remix of Flume and Kai’s “Never Be Like You” in Sterling’s hands becomes something more functional than nostalgic — the melody is there but it’s been put to work. A Hot Creations cut featuring Anabel Englund that sits exactly right in the sequence. Then the Billie Eilish ID remix, which is either a bold move or a calculated one and honestly might be both. The crowd at the concrete booth doesn’t scatter when it drops. They recalibrate and keep moving, which is the actual test — not whether they cheer, but whether they stay locked in.
That’s the set in microcosm. Sterling plays for the room he has, not the room he’d get somewhere else.
The Mixmag Lab series has been running since 2012, and its reputation holds precisely because the format strips everything back. No festival production, no light show designed to compensate for a weak mix. Just the booth, the system, and whatever the DJ actually has. Some artists shrink in that format. Sterling does not.
Why This Belongs in Your Rotation
Put plainly: this is a study in how house music is supposed to move. Not the mechanics of it — the feel of it. The sense that each track arrives at exactly the right moment, that the energy curve was designed rather than stumbled into.
The audio quality holds up through a screen better than you’d expect, which says something about Gallery Club’s system. The low end carries. It’s the kind of recording that ends and leaves you slightly dissatisfied with wherever you currently are, which is maybe the best thing a DJ set can do.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ben Sterling is a British DJ and producer from London known for his work in tech house and house music. He has released music on Hot Creations, Solid Grooves, and his own Planet X label, and has performed at venues including Club Space Miami, Ministry of Sound, and Amnesia Ibiza.
The Mixmag Lab London is a live-streamed DJ set series hosted by Mixmag, one of the world’s leading dance music publications. It has been running since 2012 and is filmed at various London venues, showcasing leading and emerging DJs in an intimate, live setting.
Gallery Club is a 400-capacity nightclub located at 2a Kensington High Street in West London. It opened in March 2025 and features a 360-degree concrete DJ booth, a d&b audiotechnik sound system, and four uniquely designed rooms. It focuses on house, techno, and electronic music programming.
Ben Sterling’s sets draw from tech house, acid house, and disco house, influenced by Chicago house and Detroit techno. His sound is consistently bass-driven and narrative in structure.
More EDM
If this is new to you, there’s more where it came from. Explore more artist profiles on the Night Streak blog, or dig into the full archive of electronic music coverage — the recommendation engine here is worth following.