With Thoughts and Prayers, Hayden F sharpens a decade of tension into five tracks that refuse easy resolution.
Released via his own Silence Records, the EP snaps between high-pressure techno and cinematic hypnosis — immersive, unstable, unapologetically raw.
Joy glitches in, melancholy hangs around, and nothing stays still for long. A closing remix from Mexican techno disruptor Fixon dials the pressure to breaking point, sealing Hayden F’s status as a producer who uses techno as a language, not a tool.
We caught up with the French producer to talk instability, instinct over polish, and why emotion always has the final say.
I don’t really measure density or space. I record most of my ideas as live sessions on the Push, triggering clips on the moment, it’s instinctive.
Thoughts and Prayers has a stark title and an unyielding sound. What shaped it?
My music has always been a way of translating what I can’t articulate elsewhere. It’s personal, but shaped by the world around me, by what unsettles me and what moves me. The title Thoughts and Prayers came from that tension, from this sense that our gestures often feel hollow, almost theatrical, while the world keeps collapsing in slow motion around us. It’s a way of saying that nothing is fixed, nothing is certain, nothing is as solid as we pretend it is.
Musically, I wanted to express that instability. There are moments that flirt with joy or innocence, others that drift toward melancholy, and passages that slip between the real and the surreal, in that uncomfortable twilight we call reality. The EP isn’t trying to console anyone or to support any particular opinion. It just exposes the contradictions I carry, and maybe the ones we all try to ignore.
You’ve spent more than ten years exploring the line between impact and emotion. What moved this release in a new direction?
In a way, it’s not a break but a continuation. The more time I spend making music, the more precise I become about what feels true to me. These five original tracks are deeper and more concrete than my previous releases. They carry a kind of seriousness I didn’t force, but that naturally appeared while I was crafting them.
Thoughts and Prayers is rooted in reality, and reality lately hasn’t been particularly gentle. So the direction came from that: the urge to stop polishing things and let the rawness come through. It still carries my usual contrast between impact and emotion, but this time the emotional weight dictated the shape instead of the other way around.
Fixon closes the EP. What led you to bring him in, and what do you hear in his contribution that you couldn’t reach alone?
Having Fixon on the EP felt natural. I’ve always admired his work and the identity of his label ANAØH, which has been a reference point for me for years. Victor Fernandez, who’s both a friend and a huge inspiration, introduced us after hearing the EP.
His remix brings a kind of raw power and eccentricity that I would never have reached on my own. It has this explosive tension, this sense of pressure that is so distinctly his. He reshaped SRLY with his own instincts, and the result hit harder than anything I could have imagined.
You often describe your music as cinematic. If this EP played out as a film, what kind of story would it tell, and who sits at the centre of the conflict?
It would be a film built from these last months, with their high points and their shadows. Something contemplative, grounded in reality but constantly slipping into metaphor. A story where the world feels familiar but slightly distorted, like a memory you’re not sure belongs to you.
I’m technically at the centre because I’m the one expressing it, but I’m not the subject. I’m more like the lens. The real characters are the situations, the tensions, the things that shape us without our consent. The conflict comes from trying to reconcile what you feel with what you’re supposed to feel. That’s where the film breathes.
Richie Hawtin pushed your unreleased track Urban Pressure extensively. How does that kind of support land when you’re steering your own label?
It’s surreal, honestly. Seeing someone you respect that much take your music and make it part of his own world is a strange and powerful feeling. He played it seven or eight times, and thanks to Aslice I was able to track it. It’s a shame that the platform is gone; it created beautiful bridges.
It didn’t change everything overnight, but it gave me a huge boost of motivation at the right moment. A reminder that the work resonates, that it travels further than you think when you’re alone in the studio. And the videos of him playing it… that still gives me a stupid amount of pride, both for myself and for the people who support me. It’s a connection I never expected.
Silencio Records is shaping into a home for darker strains of techno. How does this EP sit within the wider intention for the label?
I don’t see Silencio as a “dark techno label”. I’d rather it becomes a place where every release carries a certain charm, a question mark, a sense of identity. Music that feels alive, not just functional. If some of it leans darker, it’s because that’s part of who we are, but it’s not the mission.
This EP represents that mix: different energies, different references, all held together by the same thread we care about the most: Techno that’s fast, emotional, and direct. Techno that leaves a mark rather than fitting a pattern.
The EP shifts between hard edges and more hypnotic passages. How do you gauge when a track needs density or when it needs room?
I don’t really measure density or space. I record most of my ideas as live sessions on the Push, triggering clips on the moment, it’s instinctive. I try to stay loyal to whatever intention existed right there, in that exact moment, before my brain starts judging if it’s good or bad. I think in terms of what the track is trying to say. It’s like conducting an orchestra made of sounds I’ve created; you push, you retreat, you let things breathe, and you silence them when the silence says more.
The balance comes from instinct. You feel when a moment needs weight, and when it needs space to make that weight meaningful. It’s less about technique and more about listening to the story the track is trying to tell you back.
You’ve released on Obscuur, Room Trax, and TUTU. What feels different when you choose to release through your own platform?
Releasing on your own label is special. You control every part of the process, from the music to the artwork to the way it meets the world. And when it works, it’s a reminder that you don’t always need to look outward for validation; sometimes the right ecosystem is the one you build yourself.
Silencio is home. Releasing on it or playing at its events feels different, more intimate, because it carries the energy of everyone who has helped shape it. It’s my project, but it’s also a community. That’s what makes those releases feel so meaningful.
Silencio events bring in artists like Dettmann, Answer Code Request, and Flug. What links their approach with the direction you’re setting?
They’re artists with a clear identity, people who follow their own path without pretending to be something else. We share a similar energy, a similar taste for techno that’s forward-thinking but grounded, honest in its intentions.
Working with people like them sets the tone for Silencio: authenticity first, spectacle second. It’s about artists who care about pushing the genre without losing themselves in the process.
Five tracks with no wasted moments. Which part still catches you off guard in the best way?
Between the Lines still surprises me. The break feels like the moment where everything clicks: the melancholy melody, the rave elements, the old-school roughness, all fused without overthinking. It was the fastest track to produce, and maybe the one that feels the most complete.
I’d wanted to explore that kind of emotional melody for a long time, but I didn’t expect it to blend so naturally with those saturated, nostalgic textures. Every time the break arrives, it reminds me why I started producing Techno in the first place.
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