Chris Stassy and Interplanetary Criminal Team Up on 'Dangerous' EP

One EP, Two Names, One Big Idea: Why the Chris Stassy and Interplanetary Criminal Collab Matters

There's a particular kind of creative energy that emerges when two producers working in adjacent but distinct lanes finally make something together. That's the charge around Dangerous, the forthcoming four-track EP from Chris Stassy and Interplanetary Criminal, due November 13 on Stassy's Up The Stuss imprint. The EP announcement landed quietly in mid-October, but for anyone paying attention to where peak-time house and UK garage-influenced club music are heading, it's one of the more interesting pairings of the autumn.

Chris Stassy's New Chapter in Tech House

If the name looks different, that's intentional. The Dutch producer known internationally as Chris Stussy changed the spelling of his surname to Stassy in the summer of 2026, describing it as "a new chapter." The rebranding is more than cosmetic: it coincided with a significant year that saw him climb 22 places in the DJ Mag Top 100, landing at No. 59, and share a record-first joint Highest Climber award alongside John Summit and Mau P. His USS event series, which bans phones and centres the dancefloor experience, has become a reference point for how underground events should feel in 2026. His label, Up The Stuss, has consistently championed functional, groove-anchored house music with a low-ego editorial line.

Dangerous is the first release on Up The Stuss under the Stassy alias — and in that sense, it's the formal statement of intent for this next phase of his career.

Interplanetary Criminal Brings the Low End

Interplanetary Criminal — the Manchester producer born Sam Flanagan — has been one of the more distinctive voices in UK dance music over the past few years. His output sits at the intersection of UK garage, late-period bass house, and the kind of chunky, percussive house that plays well at both afternoon festivals and 5am floor sets. The Memories EP on ATW Records earlier this year consolidated his reputation as someone with genuine swing in his programming, not just energy.

On paper, a Stassy/IC collab reads as an obvious pairing — Stassy's leaner, more Iberian-influenced groove sensibility set against IC's UK-rooted low-end instincts. In practice, according to early descriptions, the EP delivers exactly that tension: Stassy's synth work and structural precision working alongside IC's breakbeat-adjacent rhythms and garage-inflected basslines. The title track and the opener "I Just Can't Get" are reportedly the most peak-time of the four. "Movin" and "From The South Coast Mate" — that last title alone suggesting some self-awareness about the cultural geography at play — push further into hybrid territory.

The UKG-House Crossover Moment in 2026

The timing reflects a broader conversation happening in underground house right now. UK garage's influence on continental European tech house and minimal has been building for a couple of seasons: artists like Interplanetary Criminal, Sammy Virji, and producers operating around the Bajes and Warehouse Project ecosystems have been quietly dissolving the genre border. The accent is shifting from the stiff, programmatic four-to-the-floor of mid-decade tech house toward something with more bounce, more swing in the hi-hats, and a bassline that walks rather than stomps.

A Stassy/IC EP on a label like Up The Stuss formalises some of that crossover in a way that feels deliberate rather than incidental. Neither producer is abandoning their roots — this isn't a repositioning so much as a recognition that the sounds were always compatible. The structural vocabulary of UK garage (the 2-step rhythm, the rolling bass, the emphasis on syncopation) sits naturally inside the minimalist European house framework that Up The Stuss has always operated in.

Both Active at ADE This Week

Notably, both producers are active at Amsterdam Dance Event this week, reinforcing that the EP announcement isn't a studio project waiting for a moment — it's landing in the middle of their busiest live period. Stassy appeared in a b2b set with Job Jobse at Bajes Amsterdam, while Interplanetary Criminal held his own ADE date at the same venue. Whether either debuted cuts from Dangerous in those sets, the energy around the collaboration is being felt on the floor before the vinyl even ships.

Four tracks, Up The Stuss, November 13. That's the spec. But the context makes this more than a standard label drop. It's the first move in Stassy's post-rebranding catalog, a credible crossover between the UK and Dutch scenes at a moment when that crossover carries genuine creative weight, and a release that arrives at exactly the right point in the calendar — as ADE buzz fades and the winter circuit picks up. Keep a space on your USB and your record shelf.