Toronto producer Billy Pollard may be shy, but he’s candid.

“My early stuff is the sound of someone learning how to make music,” says the man known internationally as Knifehandchop. “My first album is terrible; it’s just random noises and funny samples. When I was young, I thought that was cool.”

Now 27, the Scarborough native has been creating electronic dance music for nine years, with his first Knifehandchop release being the above-mentioned Fighting Pig Learns Judo Tricks, released in 1999 on UK breakcore label Irritant.

Since then, the equally rock-and-rave-influenced Pollard has been quietly going about his business, releasing a slew of singles and handful of full-lengths on labels also including Kid 606’s Tigerbeat 6. He’s earned a living through his music, largely by touring regularly — he’s hit the shores and cities of the UK and Europe dozens of times — and gaining exposure through radio support from the likes of the BBC’s late, great John Peel.

Most of all though, Pollard has been steadily developing his songwriting chops, breaking free of the breakcore tag.

“I wanted my music to become less funny because, at first, it was all jokes — like mash-ups and crap,” he reflects. “Although I’m always changing styles, what I’ve always been going towards is less sampling and more new, original sounds. I want the hooks to be something I made. It’s actually shocking to me how few people in the electronic music scene write anything and how much of people’s melodies are stolen.”

The fruits of Pollard’s focus began to be apparent in his last album, 2004’s How I Left You, which paired dancefloor-friendly rave nostalgia with lovely, melancholic instrumentals like “Vacant Chinatown Recital.” More recent remixes of artists including Modeselektor and Dan Le Sac have revealed Pollard’s ability to find and develop strong pop hooks, whether he’s making tech, breaks or ragga.

“If you have enough confidence in the hook of your song to loop it for a long time, it was probably ready,” he says. “But if you keep changing the song every few seconds and are all ADD with it, you probably didn’t have a strong foundation.

“Maybe that’s why it’s so hard for me to write an album right now — because everything I’m writing is supposed to be a single. And it’s hard to write 12 of those kinds of songs; it takes way more time. I’ll work on things for three weeks sometimes and if I’m not happy with them, I’ll just throw them out. When I get the sound I’m looking for, I know it.”

Lately, Pollard has been writing “a lot more straight-up dance music,” specifically with his live sets in mind. His conscious blend of accessibility and musical mind-fucks has resulted in Knifehandchop now appearing alongside acts like MSTRKRFT and DJ Mehdi where once it was junglists. Recent live dates in China and a coming appearance at brilliant British festival Bang Face both have Pollard buzzing.

This weekend, though, Mr. Knifehandchop is making his public DJing debut at Base War. Notoriously selective about local appearances (“If I look at Toronto as this place where I also work, I feel like I’ll never be away from touring”), he’s happy to play at this party run by friend Carl Heindl a.k.a. Sincere Trade a.k.a Errol.

Personally, I’m rooting for Pollard and Heindl to bring back Math Hooker, a successful and much-needed series devoted to live electronic music.

“I started to notice that there were all of these dance parties, and people couldn’t tell the difference between us bringing in Modeselektor and locals playing whatever was on the blogs that day,” explains Pollard of the event being on ice.

 “It just felt too risky financially and it felt like there wasn’t that much of a point to having another dance party. But now I’m seeing that not a lot of these dance parties are playing new dance music any more — it’s mostly mash-ups — so I’m starting to have a call to action and might have to throw another one. Original electronic music is what I believe in.”