How ZHU Discovered His Manner Again to the Dancefloor By New Album, ‘BLACK MIDAS’

For over a decade, ZHU has operated across multiple corners of electronic music. But somewhere between the festival stages and the bedroom studio, the dancefloor got left behind.

BLACK MIDAS is his way of finding it again. Out now, the chart-topping artist’s fifth album marks his deliberate return to the dancefloor, shaped by extended DJ sets and intimate club environments to which he has recommitted.

While his music has always been rooted in that space, ZHU’s career didn’t unfold there. Even after several years of exploring different sounds, the ‘Faded’ producer, whose real name is Steven Zhu, was performing for massive crowds before he had the chance to test out his sound in smaller, more intimate settings.

“As soon as ‘Faded’ came out, the first time I played was in Australia in front of 10,000 people,” Zhu tells EDM.com. “Everything happened very fast.”

The momentum carried him through festival stages and ambitious touring productions. But in recent years, he has gravitated toward a more stripped-back approach that places the emphasis squarely on the music and the crowd.

“My music came from a bedroom producer perspective, as opposed to a DJ… energy-centric perspective, and it took me time to develop that,” Zhu says. “Now all I really need to show up with is decks and my voice. No production, no lights. Just the main ingredients.”

The cover of BLACK MIDAS, ZHU’s fifth studio album.Credit: Image courtesy of Press

That approach reflects the ethos behind BLACKLIZT, his club-focused concept built around immersive, close-quarters DJ performances. In those spaces, the distance between the artist and the audience disappears entirely, the two closely connected by the music.

“They’re around me,” Zhu explains. “There’s not a 40-foot gap between the stage and the audience. If they move, I move. I move, they move.”

Those moments of collective movement have become the defining influence on BLACK MIDAS. Unlike flashy, tightly programmed festival performances, Zhu says the album was shaped by longer DJ sets that stretch well beyond the typical 60-minute timeslot.

With multi-hour sets, planning gave way to instinct. “With a really long set, the magic is reaching a state where people are just entranced and forget about time,” he says. “It’s autopilot for the dancefloor, but also for the artist.”

Those sets also give him something the studio cannot: immediate physical feedback. A bassline may hit in the studio but until it lands on a crowd, its real impact remains a mystery.

“You can feel everything in the studio,” Zhu explains. “But if it doesn’t move and shake bodies, you never really know if it works.”

As a result, several tracks on BLACK MIDAS evolved through multiple iterations before landing in their final form. “There are songs that have gone through five, six, seven, eight, nine, even ten versions,” he explains. “Every step is a change in a snare, a hi-hat or the arrangement. But if the first idea works, I won’t touch it.”

At the same time, the album reflects a broader creative shift toward pared-down simplicity. Throughout his career, Zhu has moved across genres to weave together elements of house, techno, pop, trap and more. But while developing BLACK MIDAS, he found himself intentionally pulling back from the impulse to layer too many ideas onto a single track.

“It was important to focus on one idea at a time instead of combining too many ingredients,” he says.

Zhu laughs while describing the philosophy. “Sometimes you just want an In-N-Out burger the way it is. You don’t need a brioche bun and blue cheese. You just want the taste the way you remember it.”

Another constant is the atmosphere that has long defined his music, a balance between sensuality and shadows, leaving space for listeners to interpret the sound on their own terms.

“It’s about leaving a bit of room to be curious and explore,” he says. “Leaving a bit of darkness and space for the listener to explore their own curiosity.”

Credit: Damon Mahon for EDM.com

That mindset arrives at a moment when the electronic music landscape itself is evolving rapidly. When Zhu first emerged, artists often broke through with a strong sonic identity. Today, he says, the landscape is shaped as much by social media and spectacle as it is by the ability to generate viral moments.

Yet for all the changes, the foundation remains the same. “If you can write a great song, a timeless song, that’s what lasts,” says Zhu, who likens his current standing to the connective tissue between different generations of dance music culture. “What I am today is the bridge between the old generation and the new generation.”

“If someone hears (BLACK MIDAS) for the first time,” he adds, “I hope they become curious about where it all started.”

You can listen to BLACK MIDAS below and find the new album on streaming services here.