DEEp AND HYPNOTIC DUB TECHNO TO SOUNDTRACK THE AGE OF ISOLATION.

Sydney DJ and one of the brains behind the By Your Side collective lays down a mesmeric journey of deep and immersive dubby techno for the quarantine era.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Can you tell us a bit about your journey into electronic music and DJing? When did you first discover electronic music? My sister introduced me to electronic music in the mid ‘90s, along with trip-hop, grunge and other seminal ‘90s sounds. St. Germain, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Air and Faithless were a few that resonated with me from a young age (and still do!). DJing came later for me when a flatmate of mine bought a set of CDJs back in 2009 and set them up in our lounge room. I spent hour after hour for months on end teaching myself how to mix until I was confident playing in front of friends (mostly playing Booka Shade or Paul Kalkbrenner back then). A few gigs at parties turned into bar gigs and then much later became a more serious passion.

How did you decide to approach your mix? Was there a concept behind it? I really wanted to champion dub-techno as it’s my favourite ‘lazy’ genre. The brief was “home listening, 4am city drives and the dance floor in your mind” and my absolute go-to in those moments is deep dub techno. That said, I had a big playlist of tracks from a range of genres that I wanted to incorporate as well. I love the challenge of mixing genres. It’s something I don’t do a lot when I play gigs but really enjoy the chance to use some thoughtful programming and planning to create some unique moments. Especially trying to incorporate ambient or beatless tracks in the middle of a mix without the overall mix losing its continuity. Hopefully I’ve managed to achieve that here.

Are there any particularly special tracks or moments in there for you? The opening track is called ‘Bare Shoulder’ by Lenta (real name Rasul Gafarov). It’s on a stunning EP on an equally stunning label called Shahr Farang, an Iranian label run by a producer who features a lot on my mellow mixes – Ahu (real name Sohrab Karimi). Lenta’s music has this beautiful, hypnotic, dusty quality to it, perfectly suited to a lazy day at home.

Can you tell us a bit about the concept behind your Electric Relaxation series? The vast majority of the electronic music I listen to on a day-to-day basis is mellow, dubby, minimal or ambient. Yet I rarely get the chance to play these tracks at gigs. I wanted to create an outlet for the deeper, moodier and quieter shades of electronic music. Dance music for the head, not the feet.

You’re part of the Sydney crew, By Your Side. What do you love most about BYS and what makes it a unique party? By Your Side is a collective of like-minded music-lovers from Sydney who share a love for beats and parties. It’s a simple as that. We champion a broad range of music tastes and don’t tie ourselves to one genre. We have residents that play progressive house, minimal, house and techno and everything in between. We throw parties for people who want to have fun, not for the chinstrokers.

Name your all time favourite chillout track or album. Favourite album is probably Jan Jelinek – Loop-Finding Jazz-Records. Such a masterpiece of ambient sounds. It’s the kind of album you discover something new in every time you listen to it. For a track I have to pick something dub-techno; Rhythm & Sound – Imprint. I picked up this record in San Fran a few years ago without listening to it because I was a fan of Rhythm & Sound. When I finally got home and played it, I was blown away. 22 minutes of dubby bliss. Incredibly mellow and yet powerful at the same time. The word ‘deep’ gets thrown around a lot but this is as deep as it gets.