BIO
Gain Freq (Clayton Powell) is a composer, producer, mix engineer, and synthesist from Chattanooga, Tennessee. He has experience across the music industry, from DJing live events, to producing, mixing, and mastering. His work bridges electronic styles from bass music to house to ambient, crafting impactful musical experiences both inside and outside genre lines. His music balances the intellectual, emotional, and danceable. In May 2025 he earned a BA in Electronic Music Production and Sound Design from Berklee Online. He is passionate about teaching others how to produce their creative work, about electronic music, and about the science and technology that makes modern music production and performance possible.
“Gain Freq demonstrates an impressive mastery in creating sounds that not only stand out, but also resonate deeply with the listener.”
– Viktor Raphael, Beat for Beat.
Artist Statement
I create music to give voice to the otherwise silent aspects of our human experience. My creative journey has led me from bluegrass and folk to bass music and house. I find joy in bringing these influences together and creating something inspired by each of them, colored by who I am and where I am in the God given adventure that is life.
I value quality over quantity. Music takes time to develop and mature. Inspiration is something that can strike with sudden potency and completeness upon artists- and there are few better feelings in the world than when it does- but most often, inspiration is the result of patiently getting up and going to do the work of music in the practice that is often called “woodshedding.” With enough time, practice, patience, and a good measure of carefree fun, a new piece of music is born.
Music is at once intellectual, emotional, and physical. It is intellectual and it is emotional because the people who make it and the people who listen to it think and feel. It is physical because hearing is physical and so are both natural responses to music: dancing and stillness.
All art is inherently narrative. Music is no exception. All genres of music tell narratives. Often musicians and DJs and producers stick somewhat religiously to a single genre or sub-genre to define themselves as artists. I do not. I view genre not as the predecessor of musical creativity, but as an excellent codifying tool used to describe it ex post facto. The artist makes the music, and the music defines the genre, not the other way around.
But who am I and what kind of music do I write? My stage name is Gain Freq; my given name is Clayton Powell. I write house music, bass music, and more free form ambient electronic music. Those style markers roughly triangulate my sound.
My art is my life, and my life is my art.