Archives for posts with tag: Surefire

Avalon Emerson Interview

2015/03/12 //
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Catch this lovely lady tonight [3.13] at Kremwerk. Let’s jump into our conversation on dBfest 2014, late late nights and her return to Seattle..

 

DD Hello there Avalon! Welcome to Disco Droppings, how are ya?

AE Doing good, chilling in Arizona right now having some family time, gearing up for a big weekend.

DD Now I first saw you play at Decibel Festival 2014’s dB After Hours over at Kremwerk, which also featured Scratcha DVA (with a surprise Kode9 b2b set), Lincolnup and Ben Tactic. It takes a special feel to hold a crowd super late into the night, and I was totally captivated by your DJ set. You had a very strong focused presence, and it’s always a good sign when you forget where you are and how tired you might be and just get lost in the energy. How did you feel about that experience?

AE I absolutely love those kind of late nights where you’re not confined to time, the energy curves into an infinite amount. I had a great time, got to go in a lot of different directions. Plus the craziness of dB fest and all the out-of-towners added a lot of extra spice.

 

DD I haven’t gotten the chance to play much outside my home base in Seattle. I’m curious about how your travels affect your mindset with music? Compared to when you were more stationary.

AE It’s definitely a challenge to asses the crowd/club/scene in a new city you’ve never been to before. Got to be extra on your toes while still bringing a cohesive atmosphere and idea to the night. Especially in Europe where an hour flight means a completely different culture, language.

DD Cybernetic Edits is a nifty little site hosting these free new remixes of yours. What drew you to these artists for your reworks? My eyes widened when I saw Technotronic!

AE Thanks! I play a lot of edits, and often have people come up asking what some weird version of a track I played was. And on top of that I’m not the only DJ who does it! This one’s got a Bananarama edit from Derek Opperman, and I’ve got some great stuff in the pipeline from other artists coming up. Some of the best moments I’ve experienced in clubs are special crazy deep edits/remixes/versions of big tracks. We’ve already reached the virtual trainspotting singularity with discogs/youtube/forums/etc, might as well make it easy and fun for people to snag some different cuts.

 

DD Feelin’ the sass in “Pressure/Quoi!”. What was going through your head when these tracks came together?

AE Pretty straightforward, starting with a strange sample and a kick drum. I made “Pressure” in about a night, never second-guessed any of the voices or sounds, and “Quoi!” I thought no one would like because of the goofy vocal sample, but I still play both nearly every show.

DD You make your return to Kremwerk on Friday, March 13th, how’s the energy gonna’ be this time around?

AE I’m so pumped to come back! I love Seattle, it was actually the first non-SF DJ gig I played back on Valentine’s Day 2014 I believe. As always, I make no assumptions and take every show individually, but I have good vibes in store ❤

Avalon Emerson – Facebook Twitter Soundcloud

– Jimi Jaxon

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Graze – Download a Live Set + Debut Album ‘Edges’ out 12/3 via New Kanada

2013/12/02 //
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Graze is extremely effective at creating a journey with its productions, and this recent live set is no exception. The debut of this live show happened at Mutek 2013 in Montreal, and received significant recognition at the festival and in reviews. XI (Christian Andersan) and Adam Marshall (head of New Kanada, a personal label favorite) know how to demand motion and imaginative thought. While still being immersive with a wide spectrum of emotion, their tracks as Graze can have this dirty sassiness with the rhythms, and I absolutely love their execution. I’ve listened to this mix at work; washing dishes and cleaning tabletops, as well as at home cleaning my room. These can feel like mundane tasks, but as their live set sound tracked my actions I was immediately taken to another place, a placed dreamed up and translated by this duo. I hope to see Graze live in the near future, their fluidity with performance is of very high quality. I’m happy that this live session is available for download via XLR8R. Fine job with the eq’ing and/or mastering of the mix, ultra crisp. So many mixes I hear are missing that final touch, and I think it can do a disservice to the collection of tracks. 

 

I adored their self-titled debut EP. I wrote multiple blog features on the release, and played out several tracks such as “On Board” and “Ques”. After hearing that an album was fast approaching, I had no doubts that it would be major. I believe it will further show that Graze makes consistently strong statements about musical quality and graphic design. This new track “Skip/Crush” is a sonic triumph, pleasing on headphones and blasting out a club sound system. The video’s design demonstrates that Graze is just as strong with visuals and they are with beats. It astounds and inspires me that all the graphic design for Graze, including this new video and all the graphic productions for the New Kanada label are done by Adam Marshall. A one man machine, I see such talent in his able to create cohesion, making art pieces with lasting potential. This visual element of New Kanada deserves it’s own feature, but for now I want to give Adam credit for such mastery of the eye.

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Today marks the eve of the ‘Edges’ release, Graze’s debut album. They’ve built it up very well, with all signs pointing towards a very strong presentation. I hope that it brings listeners together from many walks of life; from techno heads to dubsteppers, bass music fanatics to ambient chill people’s and everyone in between. The walls between genres are being broken down and mutated once again. Graze are a perfect example of two people coming from different ends of a landscape, and through mutual respect, creating distinct common ground.

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You can now stream the entire album, with commentary from Graze via Self-Titled Mag.

Graze – Facebook Twitter

– Jimi Jaxon

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XI – On Tour Now in U.S. & Canada

2012/10/04 //
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I must see XI perform in either Portland or Vancouver BC, next week. Don’t miss out on this guy. There’s this Q&A with Now Toronto along with my old XI interview for Disco Droppings. See you soon Christian.. 

 

 

xibeats.com

– Jimi Jaxon

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Disco Droppings Showcase Choice for dB Festival Day 2: Surefire Presents @ The Baltic Room (9.27.12)

2012/08/07 //
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Gotta go with the Surefire Presents showcase for Day Two of Decibel Festival 2012. After hearing 2 Boiler Room sets from Objekt, he’s instantly become one of my favorite DJ’s, behind Erol Alkan and Pearson Sound aka Ramadanman (who co-runs Hessle Audio, the consistently unique label which released Objekt’s Cactus/Porcupine) . These sets move in unexpected ways, inducing a hypnotic journey rather than an aimless collection of tracks. I’ve posted his 40 minute set, but I suggest you head over to the Boiler Room site, make a free account if you haven’t already, and view his 60 minute set. Both are intriguing to say the least, but the latter mix really got to me.

 

 

As a producer, Objekt melds techno, dubstep, house, garage and 2-step in fearless ways. I’m eager to see this dude DJ at The Baltic Room come September.

Also on the lineup, we have Kuedo, performing a live set.

 

Pulling from the visions of Blade Runner, combined with dreamy interpretations of southern hip-hop, rap and footwork, his album Severant (Planet Mu Records) was released in October of last year.

 

XXXY opens the show with a live set as well.

Decibel Festival – Facebook Twitter

– Jimi Jaxon

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