Eraser is my long-term generative visual project and probably the clearest connection between my interests in programming, computer graphics and music. It originally developed alongside my DJ work and takes its name from my original mix Eraser, which won a competition organized by Decoded Magazine.
The visual explores transformation, distortion and the boundary between recognizable shapes and abstraction. Elements can appear structured or almost organic for a moment and then dissolve, collide or become unstable. I am interested in creating something that feels generated by a system while still having a strong visual character rather than looking like a conventional screensaver or visualization.
Technically, Eraser is a real-time browser graphics experiment built from multiple rendering layers. The current visual combines WebGL with two Canvas 2D layers. Much of the visual complexity comes from large numbers of particles, transparency, blending and different compositing operations.
Keeping a substantial part of the project in Canvas 2D is intentional. I like the API and the flexibility of its compositing model, even though this also makes performance one of the most challenging parts of the project. Large transparent areas, particle rendering and multiple stacked canvases can become expensive, especially at high resolutions.
Because of that, Eraser has also become a practical playground for investigating how browsers actually render graphics. I have spent a lot of time profiling frame rendering, reducing unnecessary drawing, experimenting with batching and state changes, studying alpha and composite-operation costs and looking at the interaction between CPU rasterization, GPU acceleration and the browser compositor.
- Multi-layer real-time rendering using WebGL and Canvas 2D
- Particle systems, transparency and compositing
- Procedural and generative visual behaviour
- Browser rendering and frame-rate optimization
- Experimentation with the boundary between 2D raster graphics and GPU rendering
- Used as a source of visual techniques for this portfolio, not as an embedded dependency
The project continues to evolve as I learn more about browser graphics. My current direction is to keep exploring what can be achieved with Canvas 2D while gradually introducing more GPU-driven techniques through WebGL and, eventually, WebGPU where they make sense.
Talking about Ivy Lab
With Ivy Lab coming to an end in 2026, I’m curious about what comes next for Sabre and Stray. Both had established solo careers before the project, as did former member Halogenix. Their work around labels such as Critical Music, its experimental Modulations imprint, and Invisible Recordings belongs to a wider history of producers pushing drum and bass beyond its familiar patterns.
Ivy Lab’s early releases, especially Oblique, became landmarks in their own right. Later, the group and their 20/20 platform helped establish a distinctive meeting point between drum and bass, hip-hop and experimental bass music. But it’s their roots in the stranger corners of DnB that make the next chapter especially interesting to me.
Sabre has already returned to Critical with Big Cat EP, his first solo release in almost a decade. It reconnects with his earlier experiments while taking them somewhere rougher: stripped-back rhythms, distortion and an industrial edge. If you only know his Ivy Lab work, his older autonomic infused A Wandering Journal LP is also worth exploring. His appetite for unusual rhythms and atmosphere goes back a long way. Also Stray and Halogenix used to make really cool and weird stuff on 170 bpm as can be heard on Warm Communications
This is where the terminology gets confusing. “Halftime” can describe the heavy, hip-hop-influenced grooves associated with Ivy Lab—often felt around 85 BPM, or counted at 170—but it also gets used for darker, more spacious music built from sparse percussion and fragmented jungle rhythms. Those approaches overlap, yet they can feel very different on the dancefloor. To my ears, Big Cat reconnects with that second world while bringing in ideas from outside DnB.
I haven’t followed every turn of Ivy Lab’s output over the past decade, but that possibility excites me: different branches of this music meeting again after years of developing separately. A sibling reunion, with everyone bringing back different experiences—and perhaps introducing a few new rough ideas.
Let's hope Stray will come back to his roots too and start producing stuff like in the old Critical days and updates modern halftime in different direction than Samurai Music. I want to see also "dark halftime" movement gain traction, but I hope it'll not go too mainstream... Let's hope for more producers like Sabre a Photek 30 Seconds Out that can maintain a healthy experimental underground for it to gain rise to new sorts of mainstream music.