Steve Kielty began his music career as a studio engineer in 1993, before recording drum & bass with Roy McCabe as Akustic Research and Banaczech. The pair released music in 1995 on Vinyl Addiction and Partisan Recordings. After parting ways with McCabe and taking a break from drum & bass, Kielty returned in 2005 as the solo project Survival. A British producer and engineer, he has also worked under the aliases South Soul Project and Basenji, exploring deeper bass music through those names.
Survival’s solo releases on Inperspective and Intasound helped establish his name, drawing on his experience in professional studios. His subsequent label credits include Dispatch, Symmetry, Critical, Exit, Shogun Audio, DNAudio and Quarantine. A 2006 single, Tron / Keep It Coming, came out on SGN:LTD. His 2020 single Dispatch Dubplate 016 was a collaboration with Script, released on Dispatch Dubplate. The range of labels also includes Utopia Music and Vampire Records.
Kielty has worked with dBridge, Fierce, Sabre, Ant TC1 and Break, and has made solo and collaborative releases for his own label, Audio Tactics. Those collaborations include work with Silent Witness, Alix Perez, Octane and DLR. Survival and Silent Witness formed a production partnership and planned the album In From The Wild for Dispatch Recordings in early 2013. Audio Tactics is also home to Survival’s 2025 single Spor.
In 2023, Survival’s releases included the single Where Do We Go (Survival Remix), with MC Fats, Paul T & Edward Oberon, on V Recordings, and the single Mira EP - Part 2 on Dispatch Recordings. His 2025 single KETTAMAN (Remix), with Calculon and King Sinister, appeared on King Sinister under exclusive licence to GRADUATION. Kielty is also a DJ as well as a producer.
