flyover 6: mutual identities

Versatility and adaptability are crucial traits for proficient DJs. “Play to the room” is a cliche, but it’s still among the first things most lifers will say when describing how they do what they do. Arriving at a gig armed with tracks suited to the vibe of the party is no small undertaking, but the ability to depart from the plan if necessary is what sets the best apart. If they intend to keep raucous crowds of dance music fans happy, musicians who use machines and instruments instead of flash drives and wax also need to be able to improvise while playing and managing their gear.

If you’re familiar with Mutual Identities, you might know the duo's slogan: "an ever-changing sonic experience." A bold claim, but the Minneapolis band's music, eclectic and evolving, delivers on that promise. Originally formed in 2017 as a four-piece indie rock band, MI now operates without a drummer and vocalist, but still aims to fulfill the group’s original goal of making and performing “instrument-driven dance music.”

Today, Mutual Identities is Ethan Sanders and Nathan Graff. With gigs at Minneapolis dance music institutions like Communion and House Proud under their belts, they're used to playing big sound systems as a live act, sandwiched between DJ sets. These gigs come with clear expectations: the music can’t stop, and the crowd needs something to dance to. DJs and live acts alike need to deliver sets with narrative arcs and responsive energy flows. Since there’s no time to tune or gather yourself between songs, and no one in the crowd is interested in frontman banter, most bands aren’t up to the task. Time and again, MI delivers under these difficult circumstances.

These skills don’t develop overnight. Both lifelong musicians and multi-instrumentalists, Ethan and Nathan started playing in bands as teens. These days, they may find themselves performing in relatively unfamiliar settings, but they have learned how to deliver fun and thumping melody-driven sets that blend seamlessly with those from DJs on the lineup.

Their flyover set began as a rehearsal for another unusual gig: a friend’s wedding reception. Given their versatility, MI could emulate a Klezmer band or bust out a cover of “Electric Boogie” if they had to, but this was no ordinary wedding party.

Ethan [above, left]: “It was on a proper sound rig and stuff...it was bangin’, dude. It was so much fun, [it was in] a very intimate space...but it still had all the energy of a kick-ass dance party. That was the coolest wedding I’ve ever been to.”

Consistently funky, vibey, and dynamic, their flyover set is an improvisational hour with intentionality at its core, serving up 60 minutes of compelling "instrument-driven dance music."

Ethan: “It’s not just electro, it’s not just house, it’s not just this or that or whatever, and it gets really pretty, and really melodic, and things that I think sometimes people shy away from in club culture sometimes...we’ve just been playing instruments and writing songs our whole lives, that’s just the kind of music we make.”

Ethan: “Basically what we do is make grooves in every single key on the scale, then we just pick a note and go up a fifth in the scale. That’s how we jam because then when you go to the next thing, everything’s in harmony, so you can take the bassline out [while] the melody keeps going, and then lay down a new bassline, then drop that and make a groove on top of it.”

Bold, friendly, and boisterous, Ethan describes himself as MI’s one-man rhythm section. He works with synths, sequencers, samplers, and leads the live side of MI sets. Soft-spoken by comparison, Nathan uses a keyboard, synths, and samplers to drive the band’s melodies. Nathan found his way to dance music a decade ago via festivals, and decided to try his hand at production around the same time, and still produces dubstep as Coma Dose. Both members of MI are intensely passionate about music and deeply knowledgeable about the gear they use to create it.

Ethan: “Nathan has such a good understanding of the keyboard that he can play these beautiful and open chord progressions and stuff that add a layer to the music that...if the groove was just there, it’d be solid enough to keep a dancefloor person’s attention, but it goes to a different level when Nathan plays in his piano parts.”

The duo’s love for a wide variety of music and genres keeps their live sets and recordings fresh.

Ethan: “We’re not ever trying to arrive at any particular destination...allowing ourselves to not be so caught up with one particular thing, for better or for worse. I don’t think we specialize in anything, but we can do a lot of different things.”

Nathan: “We keep it open and it pretty much just happens. It’s not like we have full control, we’re just kind of like, ‘let’s see what we can do.’ [When it comes to] dance music, I do like it to be hard-hitting...Ethan introduced me to house music, and it’s really nice to make stuff that’s just vibey, [so] you can really just set into a groove.”

Nathan: “I kind of go back and forth [with genres], it’s nice to be able to go back and forth between things. We produce hip-hop stuff too. I like just doing everything...it’s nice to be able to take a break from something after it gets old.”

However, the rigid expectations of current MI gigs within DJ-centric ecosystems can be a double-edged sword, sometimes leaving Ethan feeling that MI is not yet achieving its full potential.

Ethan: “We knew when we started doing this that we don’t necessarily fit in with any kind of ecosystem that exists right now...I want to start a set at like 96 BPM and do vibey-ass R&B and finish at like 145 [BPM] breaks...Mutual Identities at its fullest would be that, this huge and ever-changing sonic experience.”

Given that MI’s load-in is more difficult than that of a DJ toting a flash drive and a bag of records, the duo is always looking to simplify their workflow. Their current setup includes nine components: a plethora of sequencers, samplers, synthesizers, plus a keyboard and a mixer. This can lead to difficulty in spaces more suited to DJs with USBs and vinyl.

Ethan: “Live hardware stuff kind of has this asterisk next to it all the time. First off, our goal is [to] shrink our gear, our live setup. Look at all this dumb shit [gesturing to their crowded studio], we bring all of this to every set we play. DJ booths aren’t that big…[and] this is a rock band’s worth of shit.”

Nathan: “That’s a lot to ask [of event crews].”

Ethan: “That is us at our best musicianship. One of our favorite sets this past summer, I brought my bass, and I was playing slap bass at like 132 [BPM] house, and it was really fun.”

Nathan: “It’s a lot to ask.”

Ethan: “It’s a lot to ask of someone…[it’s hard] to trust yourself enough that you’re gonna play a stringed instrument that well on a big-ass sound system like that.” The duo’s genre-defying tendencies, intense work ethic, and passion for their craft mean there’s always something new around the corner.

Ethan: “We are sitting on a plethora [of music]...some of it’s kind of like UKG house-fusion type stuff, others are just like 124 [BPM] house, we just have like a chugging techno track too.”

Ethan: “There’s a particular energy going on here creatively lately...I’m overwhelmed by the anticipation of where things are gonna go for all kinds of people. Before the pandemic, we were just an internet entity. We weren’t really playing shows...we didn’t have anything to latch onto at that point yet...now we’re kind of going to the next phase of what we’re gonna be doing...comparing our last EP, which still had instruments on it...compared to whatever we release next, they’re not the same at all.”

If you want to hear where Mutual Identities takes its ever-changing sonic experience next, keep an eye on the band’s Instagram and SoundCloud.

PREMIERE: Private Guy - Zipperworld [Kajunga Records]

We have some new heat from Kajunga Records co-founder Private Guy ready to stream. Liquid Sun, The Minneapolis-based producer and ceramicist’s debut EP, drops digitally and on wax next week. Pre-orders are available via Kajunga’s Bandcamp.

“Zipperworld” is a slow burn, like that last log on the final bonfire of the season. Dynamic, locked in, wavy, and versatile, Liquid Sun's B1 has a long shelf life. Alex says his ideal deployment of the track comes early in the day and under the sun. He sees it being played when you're “getting ready to get down, afternoon style, sort of a beach party...I can definitely see it in a spacey house sort of setting...it feels very much like bringing you on an adventure.” As a long and cold winter begins to set in, we hope we’ll get to hear it played out long before we make it back to the beach.

Armed with a pair of machines from Roland’s Boutique line, Alex utilizes a tuned-in hi-hat and a dialed in snare via a TR-08. The potent bassline and ethereal melody come courtesy of an SH-01A. “That thing is a beast in the studio...it really helped me find and identify the sound I was looking for.”

Liquid Sun has been in the works for a minute. “It took some marinating for the ideas to come forth. I think with every song you’re kind of seeing something a little different. There’s a kind of melancholy side to my work, where it can be a little more uplifting and soulful, that I think really comes across with the tracks in this album...when putting them together, we kind of realized that it was saying something together, becoming greater than the sum of its parts.”

Buy the record here, and follow Private Guy on SoundCloud.

FO-002: tabby

Available via Bandcamp or local pickup in the Twin Cities--email flyoversound@gmail.com to coordinate. No shipping charges via local pickup.

We’re back with another transmission from our favorite Minneapolis alleyway. In her July 2021 set, Tabby packed in plenty of secret jams and potent rave piano riffs for you and your houseplants to vibe to. Gather the cats for 93 minutes of lo-fi bliss dubbed to hi-fi ferric--at the correct volume this time.

Green glitter cassettes in gold cases featuring hand-numbered J-cards designed and printed by Tabby. Limited run of 50.

Cover art designed and printed by Tabby.

Mastered by Cameron and dubbed by Jacob at The Greenhouse.

RELEASE PARTY INFO:

Thursday 10/28/21

7pm - midnight

Upstairs at Part Wolf

$5 door // $10 tapes

Turbosounds courtesy of Dan Darco

Event link

flyover 5: allen hz

“One of the things about UK garage [UKG] that needs to be made fun of is the artwork, because every release has some cartoon character on it. And it’s not just [the label] Timeisnow with the cartoon artwork, it’s every UKG label. It’s like, what’s that game? Cup Time or something? I think the scene is single-handedly keeping the rubber hose animation industry alive.”

Not one to mince words, Ben’s flyover mix is a fittingly sunshine-drenched up-tempo tear through contemporary UK garage. It marks his debut as Allen Hz, a handle he coined for his post-quarantine DJ sets and production. Prior to COVID, Ben produced house music and helped run Why Not?, a monthly open format dance night with co-conspirators Amy Pickett, Travis Stearns, Jim Frick, and Robert James. I recently caught up with Ben in his Northeast Minneapolis loft and studio. We talked about his turn towards UKG, the social and financial capital that powers its ongoing revival, and the genre’s slick new veneer that labels use to push records.

“It’s just cartoons, cartoons, cartoons...I guess it’s of its time right now, that whole aesthetic. I’m sure it makes it a lot easier for these label managers to put out records, because it’s like ‘let’s slap a Looney Toon on the record and call it a day, or let's turn these producers into characters and put that on the label’ or whatever...that’s why it’s so easy to find UKG now...it’s all self-referential...if you see the record cover, you know it’s UKG..sometimes you can hear this approach in the actual music, and not in a good way."

After months of digging, Ben emerged with new tracks and a deep historical knowledge of UKG, its influences, and its offshoots. With its roots in house music, the UK was primed and ready for the emergence of a faster, R&B-tinged variant. As with jungle, the Afro-Caribbean diaspora in the UK helped foster a vibrant scene where genres developed in conversation with each other.

According to Ben, UKG came “out of a party scene on Sundays where DJs played US and Italian house music sped up to cater to partiers coming out of raves and clubs from the night before. The UK producers took the spirit of these house records and added their UK spin to it.”

After quickly finding commercial success, a state crackdown on clubs in the early aughts killed the scene. Attention turned elsewhere; UKG splintered, it got darker, more lyrically focused, and offshoot genres like grime and dubstep rose to prominence. Throughout the ‘00s, UK funky and bassline took up the mantle. Recently, renewed interest in UKG has led to a proliferation of new labels, producers, and reissues spearheaded by a new generation of passionate 2-step connoisseurs.

Reissue labels like Dr Banana helped set the stage for UKG’s revival. By shining a light on older tracks, they’ve brought renewed attention to the genre and put the music in front of an online, international audience. Other labels facilitate critique and discussion among listeners, DJs, and producers of the genre new and old.

“What really sucked me in is the community-oriented labels like Shuffle and Swing or Kiwi Rekords. These label heads host groups on Facebook and Discord for people to share rare and new UKG records, as well as their own productions for feedback.” This organic rise in prominence allows larger labels to capitalize on the renewed interest in the genre. In 2017, a Shall Not Fade sublabel called Lost Palms helped popularize the fuzzy tropical sound of lo-fi house through releases by producers like DJ Boring and Earth Trax. In 2020, Shall Not Fade launched Timeisnow, another sublabel with a genre-specific lean. UKG is the focus, and the label both takes advantage of and helps facilitate the revival. “I think they’re making a lot of money on this genre. [UKG is] selling like hotcakes, and they’re like ‘okay, let’s keep putting out shit, more and more shit.”

As a dance music obsessive and keen cultural observer, Ben keeps tabs on the UKG revival. He painstakingly crafted a mix that highlights the tensions in the genre, blending many new UKG releases with reissues of tracks first released in the nineties. The mix itself focuses on the lighter side of UKG. Ben described digging for the mix (with lighter tracks in mind) as a distraction from COVID.

“With the pandemic...I really fell in love with that lighthearted side of UK Garage, because it helped keep my mood normalized a bit. It was like therapy I guess, [listening to] really catchy UKG music that gets stuck in your head. I would wake up in the morning [with] a melody in my head, and I’d be like ‘I need to find this melody’ because I’ve heard it within the past two or three weeks in a mix...sooner or later you come across it and you’re like, ‘That was it! That was the track that I’ve been obsessed with or hearing in my head for weeks.’”

“All About U” is one of those tracks. In this bouncy reinterpretation of Mýa’s smoldering 1998 R&B hit “It's All About Me,” Wilfy D chops up and lays out Mýa and Sisqó’s vocals over a 2-step beat and an understated piano melody. The track’s subtle bassline is in stark contrast to that of DJ Swagger’s “On The Block,” which could’ve been ripped from a Seinfeld interstitial.

Next, Ben goes darker; he brings in the reverb-laden dancehall toast on Main Phase’s “Nice ‘N Sweet,” which he follows not long after with busy and stuttering percussion on “Move 2 Me.” That Pluralist track features a dark, potent bassline and chopped Charlie XCX vocals, and is followed by Anz’s “Unravel in the Designated Zone,” a UK Funky track with a sour G-funk synth line. These tracks keep the mix in conversation with some of UKG’s offshoot genres. Only when the bass hook from Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” (famously sampled by A Tribe Called Quest for “Can I Kick It?”) comes in on MILq’s “Hybrid Vitality” does Ben return to the lighthearted vibes he opens with.

Throughout the mix, percussion is syncopated, plentiful, and in the foreground. This maximalist approach to drums draws Ben to UKG. “The percussion is very dense, but it’s all perfectly sequenced in a way that can create a groove...you can’t even place what is happening at once, it’s all happening so quickly...every percussion sample is cutting off the other percussion samples, but there are a million different percussion samples happening at the same time. That’s what fascinates me about the genre, the crazy amount of detail that goes into those UKG beats.” 

Ben dug deep to piece together so many upbeat UKG tracks. In comparison to UKG from the nineties, he describes the newer stuff as “a lot darker, and it’s a lot heavier, bassier...and more focused on sound design.”

“There aren’t a lot of artists [who] are producing newer music [how] producers were making UKG in the 90s, which was a lot lighter and melodic R&B influenced...with this mix, I wanted to find those artists [who] are making that type of lighthearted fun danceable UKG music. It was kind of a challenge, because there’s a lot of darker stuff that’s being put out right now...it’s not just that warm summer sound, that sunny UKG vibe that I want to explore. I want to explore the deeper aspects...then there’s the sick, darker, sound system-oriented stuff. I have tons of that stuff that I really want to mix.”

He’ll have a chance to do that soon. Allen Hz makes his live debut at Bliss on Saturday, October 9th at Part Wolf in Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis.

Tracklist:

DJ South Central - Really Got Me [Nice 'N' Ripe, 2000]

Peaky Beats - Delicious [Peaky Beats Records, 2019]

Tiago Walter - Dat Girl [JISUL, 2020]

The Heavyweight Kru - The Drea-MM [1999]

Interplanetary Criminal - Who On Da Mic [Timeisnow, 2020]

Zero FG - Knock Knock [Entity London, 2019]

PROZAK - Sunshine [Timeisnow, 2021]

Strickly Dubz - Realise [Strickly Dubz, 1999]

DJ Swagger - On Tha Block [Timeisnow, 2020]

Wilfy D - All About U [Vitamin D, 2020]

Main Phase - Nice 'N' Sweet [Dansu Discs, 2020]

DJ Swagger x DJ ÆDIDIAS - Don’t Call Me [Timeisnow, 2020]

Pluralist - Move2Me [Panel, 2020]

Anz - Unravel In The Designated Zone [OTMI, 2021]

MILq - Hybrid Vitality [Punchline, 2020]

Pinder - Forever [Instinct, 2020]

Moodswing - New Direction [Obstacle Records, 2019]

Soul Mass Transit System - I Cant Wait [Dr Banana, 2021]

DJ Swagger - Smartphone Love [Thirty Year Records, 2020]

DJ Perception - Groove Me [Timehri Records, 2021]

Jhelisa - Friendly Pressure (From Midnight Mix) [Dorado, 1998]

Follow Allen Hz: SoundCloud / Instagram

PREMIERE: devata daun - the agreement

Devata Daun is back with an eerie, blistering dance track. In “The Agreement,” vocalist Nikki Pfeifer describes a deeply personal and transformative spiritual experience over a quick and stuttering footwork beat. Since the last Devata Daun release, Nikki has cultivated her trademark “paranormal sasscore” sound with live hardware techno sets as Tekk Nikk. So why release a Devata Daun single now? 

“The universe told me to...I got into my car one day and it started playing automatically on my phone. I took that as a sign...it made me remember my passion for being a vocalist, being a singer/songwriter, because Tekk Nikk is such a different way that I write.”

Originally planned as a remix for a Devata Daun release that was ultimately canned, Nikki decided to release “The Agreement” on its own. The expanding and contracting synths paired with layered and filtered vocals connect the track to the 2018 Devata Daun EP Pye Luis, but “The Agreement” marks a departure from Devata Daun’s prior R&B via chillwave sound. As far as Devata Daun tracks are concerned, Nikki plans to continue lending lyrics and vocals to Uymitsu’s productions. 

“I really love working with producers. I do my own productions, but I don’t really enjoy devoting time on a DAW. I’d rather write a live set as Tekk Nikk. I really like working with [Uymitsu]...we’re going to continue working in that way, where I’ll be doing vocals and lyrics, and he’ll be doing production on the dance tracks.” 

Nikki hopes “The Agreement” resonates with people navigating the complexities of life on this plain, while remaining open to the paranormal called to mind in the track. “We’re so powerful, and I just want people to know that about themselves.” 

"The Agreement" is available for download via Devata Daun's Bandcamp.

Follow Devata Daun: SoundCloud / Bandcamp / Instagram

FO-001: icarus redux

On June 6, 2021, Icarus Redux laid down a set still reverberating through an infamous Minneapolis alleyway. After 16 months of silence, “Hackney Parrot” was one of many tracks to remind us that low frequencies and bass bins can do wonders for your mind, your body, and your soul. The archivists at flyover determined these euphoric 90 minutes worthy of preservation, even though a combination of rust and Strongbow kept us from capturing a crystal clear recording. We hope you enjoy the crunch!

Sold out. 50 hand-numbered copies were available. Thanks to everyone at The Great Beyond who bought a copy! The mix is available digitally on Icarus Redux's SoundCloud below.

Tabby designed and printed the cover art.

Jacob dubbed them at The Greenhouse.

Kyle King brought the mix back from the brink.

Thanks Nora, Cameron, and Lanny for the moral support.

Thanks Communion for helping bring all of these weirdos together.

flyover 4: lanny

After wondering for a few weeks if I had another failed music blog on my hands, I got the text message from Lanny I didn’t know I was waiting for:

“Went nasty with it.”

Flyover crew recently paid Lanny a visit at his Northeast Minneapolis home to chat about his mix, take some photos, and play some tunes. On a hot and disgustingly humid Saturday afternoon, it was a relief to feel the temperature drop by 20 degrees as we walked down the stairs to Lanny’s basement studio. Big speakers, a subwoofer, synths, machines, four decks, a mixer, plus his homemade record cleaning machine (made from a gutted turntable, a shop vac, and a model train transformer) greet his visitors and complement the wood paneled walls and comfy couches. In my mind, Lanny’s basement is a fun, happy, music-filled place, which made it all the more surprising to hear about the basement’s severe effect on his mix.

“I recorded a couple [of mixes] and they weren’t what I wanted. I was down here like ‘okay, I’m gonna do it again, I’m gonna do this nice mix.’ I tried, and I was just failing at the decks, ‘cos I’m in a basement recording a mix by myself and the mood wasn’t there. So then I got mad...I was laying on the floor, just like yelling ‘Ahh! I suck! What the fuck?’”

“But then I was like, ‘wait a second, I need a drink. I need to get in the zone. I’m gonna chill out a little bit and do something else ‘cos this is not working…so I very quickly was like, ‘alright, I’m gonna do a nasty mix, and it’s gonna be psychedelic.’”

“So I went through Rekordbox in 10 or 15 minutes, I picked those tracks, and I started playing...I think that’s what I needed to do, just like, be in a mood or something…[I needed] to be in a party mindset.”

Jokes aside, Lanny takes his craft seriously. His knowledge of dance music runs deep, and his perfectionist tendencies are evident in his approach to mixing. If the golden rule of DJing is play to the room, it checks out that Lanny couldn’t make himself play an upbeat summertime mix quite yet, as he initially planned. Yes, parties and shows are on the books again. Lineups are dropping, tickets are selling, and this mix comes out during a period marked by slight optimism that we’ll soon get to collectively damage our hearing again. However, we’re not quite there yet, and there are constant reminders all around us that the present and future is bleak and uncertain. A happy pre-recorded mix right now, especially before Big Parties start up again, would be forcing it a bit. It speaks to Lanny’s veracity as a person and DJ that he can’t lie to us like that.

Regardless of the vibe of the room he’s playing, Lanny has consistent and specific qualifications in mind when he’s digging for tracks.

“No matter what [mood] I’m picking, I’m picking something that has some groove and some swing…I enjoy some beatdown techno from time to time if everyone’s doing it and it’s in the right environment...but I’d rather hear and play something with that swung, weird, groovy bassline and trippy in-your-head kind of thing…I always want the groove to be leading it…one track groovin’ into another…always teasing that next groove and maintaining the last.”

His flyover set is no exception. Opening with a misleadingly optimistic breaks-forward Extrawelt cut, Lanny selects some acid, techno, and electro to kick things off. After going minimal for the first of two Terrence Dixon tracks, he brings in the heavier vibes that resonate throughout the rest of the mix. Sharif Laffrey’s “Sounds To Come” marks the point of no return, setting the tone for the real nasty cuts that pop up later.

Lanny usually tries to get crowds moving to unexpected tunes. “I kinda want to play the weirdest thing that I can get people to dance to...I want it to be weird, I want it to be fun, I want it to be groovy...like, you’re not into it yet, but we’re gonna get you there, we’re gonna get you into it.”

Thankfully, Lanny eases us into Mike Dehnernt’s “The March,” which, as Kerosine observed, "sounds like it’s happening in a tube." Its dripping and stuttering percussion is the mix’s most memorable moment until it’s upstaged one track later by Tama Sumo and Prosumer’s dusty Ostgut Ton cut “Play Up,” which features the nastiest vox in the mix. From there, Lanny brings us home with a hypnotic techno section, punctuated by the UFO organ on Aubrey’s “Stressed Squares,” as well as an iconic looping rave riddle featured on “Take A Shot.”

Since moving to Minneapolis in 2016, Lanny has brought his weird groovy cuts to basements, patios, bars, and warehouses. In a post-COVID landscape, he hopes to pick up where he left off by bringing out some of the tunes he discovered in pandemic isolation and continuing to develop musical versatility.

“I want to grow as a DJ. I want to be able to do it all…I’m trying to expand my horizons as a DJ, and within the last year, that’s what I’ve been thinking of…I can play boring tech-house all day and enjoy it, and I can listen to boring tech-house all day and enjoy it, but I don’t want to only do that…I want to be able to play the right dance music for [any environment].”

Lanny credits the Minneapolis dance music scene for welcoming him with open arms, and showing him what a loud sound system in a dark room can do for people.

“Before coming here—I’m from North Dakota—my musical friends were…nobody. The internet is what got me into music…I kind of knew before I moved here that I really liked dance music...but I had never been a part of a music scene. So, I kind of came here and asked around, and I found my way pretty quickly to an Intellephunk party on a Halloween, and I was like ‘oh damn, this shit’s loud.”

“When I moved here, I was like, ‘these people are really cool and really talented,’ and now...not only are they my peers, these are my best friends.”

“I’m super stoked on all of my friends. All of my friends are talented, awesome people...you can [say], ‘oh it’s hard to meet people in the Midwest,’ or whatever…not if you fuckin’ go to a party and talk to people. I think it’s really cool how easy it is to build friendships off the shared experience of live music.”

With that, everyone’s funniest friend Lanny extends an open invite: “no one’s gonna write you off in Minneapolis, because we need people to join our party scene…it’s like ‘Come To Our Parties, We Accept You!’ As long as you’re chill and you know how to handle yourself…come listen to the music and you will be welcomed with open arms.” 

Tracklist:

Extrawelt - Ungerade [Furthur Electronix, 2021]

Justin Cudmore - Straight No Chaser [Unknown To The Unknown, 2018]

Russell E.L. Butler - Builder [Left Hand Path, 2018]

Sansibar - Mandate My Ass [Natural Sciences, 2019]

Terrence Dixon - Vertical Hold [30D Records, 2019]

Tazz - Unrestrained [Underground Quality, 2010]

Sharif Laffrey ‎- Sounds To Come [Special Forces Records, 2020]

DJ Qu - Pressin’ [Strength Music Recordings, 2020]

Camin - Duct [Cong Burn, 2019]

Mike Dehnert - The March [Deeply Rooted House, 2010]

Tama Sumo & Prosumer - Play Up [Ostgut Ton, 2008]

Refracted - Uku Che [Oblique Music, 2018]

ESHU - Cesium [ESHU Records, 2014]

Exium - Trashflow (Jeroen Search remix) [Nheoma, 2019]

Aubrey - Stressed Squares [Solid Groove, 2000]

Zenker Brothers ‎– Bias [Index Marcel Fengler, 2015]

Kalter Ende - Near of the Moon [Android Muziq, 2016]

DJ Hell vs. Richard Bartz - Take A Shot… [Kurbel, 1997]

Terrence Dixon ‎- The Parkhurst [Thema, 2011]

Follow Lanny's SoundCloud

flyover 3: kerosine

Kerosine spent the pandemic building an arsenal. After taking photos and designing covers for the first two flyover releases, the St. Paul via Bismarck DJ, producer, photographer, and bartender stepped into the booth with a newly acquired reverb pedal and a third deck borrowed from Sarvesh (a.k.a. Icarus Redux) to record his most thoughtful mix to date. Though he says it’s not intentional, he captures the many vibes of pandemic living in mix form. Moving seamlessly from sad, longing, atmospheric tracks made all the dreamier by the additional reverb to nightmarish looping vocal samples drowned out by static, this mix sounds like what the past 13 months have felt like.

If you run this theory by Cameron, he’ll tell you he just wanted to play the best tracks he’s found lately. Describing his selection process, he said it “was just like, these are the fucking tracks. These are the ones that are really hitting right now….I tend to look for tracks that have that wavy, Warp [Records] nostalgic type sound, with really melancholy melodies.” 

Not long after opening the mix with a hazy intergalactic vacuum cleaner of a track by Ghostride The Drift, released on xpq?, a label whose output Cameron calls “very weird experimental stuff...some of it is very dance-oriented but a lot of it is very dusty warped-out fucked up sounding stuff,” he dishes out dance music comfort food in the form of a newish Burial track that would’ve fit right in on Untrue if it weren’t snapped to the grid. The infamous London producer is one of his favorites. The track has “that chunky, synth bassline which is very cluby, but yeah it definitely has like a melancholy that only Burial can bring...that’s something I would love to hear out, people playing more stuff like that. Just a little sprinkle, not all the time...he’s just like such an iconic electronic artist and relates so much to the club experience. He talks about [his sound] in his interviews, like it’s about being outside the club...those sort of ringing in your ears aspects of the tracks.”

Though they aren’t in the tracklist, the influence of Boards of Canada, another Cam favorite, is evident throughout. Whether it’s the synths on Patricia’s “Apoptosis” or the earlier vocal sample that calls to mind a numbers station broadcast, unsettling dreamlike nostalgia permeates the mix. The nightmarish looping static from Lucy’s “Milgram Experiment” is reminiscent of BOC in spirit if not sonically. “That track in particular is definitely a lot more dark than the rest of the mix...I guess there is an aspect of like, at in-person parties, sometimes you do go through those points...you have those moments where things get kind of dicey, but you also have those moments of pure ecstasy and there’s kind of that contrast between that track and the next track.” Afterwards, Cameron provides some much-needed relief with “Heart Piece,” a blippy playful cut from Two Shell.

Though it’s been a rough one for a while now, and the current state of affairs leaves no reason for optimism, there is one thing to look forward to: we might soon be able to resume gathering communally in front of large sound systems. Hardly a weekend goes by without someone in the flyover pod saying “I want to stick my head in a speaker.” With that in mind, Cameron closes the mix with a sample from a video recorded in the early 90s of UK ravers still dancing long after the music has stopped. “I thought that part was funny and cheeky, and kind of lifted the mood a bit...we’ve all been there...it was a little bit of hope at the end. Like a ‘we’re going to get to do this again’ type of thing.”

 Follow Kerosine: SoundCloud / Instagram

Tracklist:

Ghostride The Drift - A1 [xpq?, 2019]

St. Vincent - Masseduction (Midland’s Mass Seduction remix) [Loma Vista, 2019]

Christopher Rau - Slu Terms [Smallville Records, 2020]

Waage - W7 [X/OZ, 2019]

Burial - Rodent [Hyperdub, 2017]

Leibniz - 32 MB [Molten Moods, 2019]

Jabes - Glass Censors [Klunk, 2019]

Graze - Ripley [New Kanada, 2014]

Keppel - Taken For Granted [Well Street Records, 2020]

Neinzer - Rassalin [Where To Now?, 2020]

Leonardo Martelli - Popolus [Antinote, 2020]

Robert Fleck - Set Point [Well Street Records, 2018]

Lucy - Milgram Experiment [Stroboscopic Artefacts, 2012]

Two Shell - Heart Piece [Livity Sound, 2019]

Pugilist - Acid Flange [3024, 2020]

Jonas Friedlich - Jazzersizzzze [RFR, 2018]

Appleblim - Vurstep (Shed Remix) [Boogie Box, 2018]

Ike - Kiwami Formed [INDEX:Records, 2020]

Arkajo - Untitled (Run Away With Me) [Aniara Recordings, 2019]

John Selway - Sliders [Gyroscopic Recordings, 1996]

Patricia - Apoptosis [2020] BOC

Syz - Metafauna [Pseudonym Records, 2020]

Savile - Talk Smile Bite [2017]

Silicon - 0% [Frustrated Funk, 2005]

Asmus Odsat - Tykaepyzo [Fever AM, 2020]

Peder Mannerfelt - A Queen [Voam, 2020]

PREMIERE: heckadecimal - thousands of baby spiders reverse hang gliding

Before a live set in June 2018, Josh Bestgen realized he left a power supply for his Avalon Bassline synth, the “heart of [his] setup,” at home. “I was annoyed, but I had enough stuff that I could still play, so I did.” Had the cord made it into his bag, that Heckadecimal set would’ve sounded a bit like his upcoming LP Spider Dreams. Luckily, Josh recorded a practice set beforehand, “so that’s what half the reease is based on...the other half is just sort of tracks from over the years, some recent, and some actually quite old.”

“Thousands of Baby Spiders Reverse Hang Gliding” is the uptempo seventh cut from the record. After tying up loose ends from the prior track, “Baby Spiders” gives way to a melancholy synth line, which stands in stark contrast to the track’s quick, stuttering hi-hats and muffled kick. Midway through, a couple of slippery dueling acid basslines take over and drive the energy up. “I used my Machinedrum to remix synth riffs and beats on the fly,” Josh said of his process. “It’s pretty fucking fun.”

Spider Dreams drops on Thursday, February 18, and is available for preorder digitally or on CD from Diffuse Reality Records.

Follow Heckadecimal: SoundCloud / Bandcamp / Always Human Tapes / Instagram

flyover 2: elysium alps

Friends of Jamie Larson wouldn’t describe him as “chaotic." The soft-spoken Bogotá-born, Duluth-raised, Minneapolis-based producer and DJ projects an outwardly calm, quiet, and collected demeanor, but is a genre-hopping time traveler behind the decks. As Elysium Alps, Jamie first made a name for himself in Twin Cities clubs and basements prior to the pandemic, and has continued honing his musical crafts since its onset. His flyover mix effortlessly jumps from trance to house to techno (Detroit, dub, and minimal), with a dash of oddball leftfield tracks thrown in for good measure. Though he leans on contemporary releases, Jamie’s eclectic listening habits allow him to draw connections others miss between dance tracks new and old. When asked about his listening and selection process, Jamie said that “for better or for worse, it’s sometimes hard to keep my focus on certain things…maybe that’s why I’m into so many different kinds of music...my brain just kind of flips over the course of listening....it’s this scatterbrained attitude towards listening to music [that] translates into the mix.” 

Unwilling to succumb to the chaos, Jamie possesses a well-practiced ability to sort, categorize, and organize the wide variety of tracks that come to mind as he mixes. After looking at the tracklist, you might be skeptical that he connects the dots between the dreamy 90s trance opening track “Epsilon Phase” and “Beauty,” a 2014 Mistress Recordings techno cut by the self-exiled Minneapolis antihero Doubt. But Jamie finds a way. “I try to challenge myself a little bit to see what works and what doesn’t...mixes that might seem kind of difficult in my head, I just test them out and see if they actually work. Some of these weird genre switches don’t make sense on paper or whatever, but once you [put them] in practice, they work...I try to put the genre stuff in the back of my head and find tracks that have a similar feeling.”

In one sequence, Jamie pairs Bakongo’s dark and menacing 2020 UK funky track “Anytime” with a cut from Terrance Dixon’s 2017 LP No More Time, draws a line to Claude Young’s 1997 Elypsia track “Prance,” then yanks us right back to contemporary UK breaks and garage with Nikki Nair’s “Super” and Two Shell’s “Oil Slick,” both released in 2020. After calling attention to ties between UK bass and Detroit techno new and old, he hammers home the point by dropping a Robert Hood remix of Dave Clarke’s “Wisdom To The Wise (Red 2), crystalizing the connection.

Fans of Jamie’s live sets might be surprised to hear him jump around like this. He considered flyover’s freeform online medium a chance to weave tracks that wouldn’t typically play together in front of a live audience. “I wouldn’t play this mix in an actual club, it just wouldn’t work...I wasn’t so concerned about it being as danceable, even though I did play a lot of club music, that wasn’t really the goal of it, it was to be a bit more open and broad as far as track selection.”

After nearly a year without gathering communally in front of large sound systems, plenty of internet mixes and live streams have surfaced in noble but futile attempts to fill the void felt by music lovers and obsessives the world over. Instead of adding another entry in this vein, like his stellar mixes for Kajunga Records and Hennepin County Disco Authority, Jamie decided to record a deeply personal mix, focusing on songs that remind him of people and experiences important to him. “It’s just something kind of intimate...it feels personal to me, this mix, and I hope that’s conveyed. It’s a mix where I was thinking about a lot of different things...like COVID, and being bummed that I can’t go out and see my friends.” Aware that internet mixes are often heard through earbuds or phone speakers rather than large sound systems, he sought to ensure that this mix is enjoyable regardless of how it’s played. “For this mix, and a lot of mixes I record at home, I do a lot of high pass filtering with the low end still up...it kind of has a punchy sound, so you can hear that whether you have low end or not, like it’s kind of more of a knockier sound than just straight-up low muddy bass.”

Also a talented producer, Jamie quietly slips a couple of his own unreleased tracks into the mix, hiding them in plain sight amongst the organized chaos. He sneaks in an edit of Seal’s 1991 R&B hit “Violet,” but if you blink, you’ll miss it. “Layer 42,” an Elysium Alps original, comes in towards the end of the mix, and is characteristically sandwiched between a 90s Fade II Black track that sounds like it could have been released yesterday (featuring a power saw synth and bouncy house beat), and an Adlas Answer Code Request cut that essentially was released yesterday. “It’s different from what I usually release under that moniker,” he said of “Layer 42.” “I took some field recording and used snippets from them as drums...that’s kind of a funny track...the hi-hats on that are actually crickets I recorded on my porch...you can’t really tell, they’re just super processed.” Though field recordings are a new addition to his production, they meld perfectly with his dreamy, ethereal, and genre-blending approach. It’s been a few years since Jamie released Wild Blue, his last proper record, but he’s still an active producer front. Demos and works in progress are floating online in burner SoundCloud accounts and DMs for those in the mood for a musical treasure hunt.

Tracks:

Chapterhouse, Global Communication - Epsilon Phase [Dedicated, 1993]

Ital - Ice Drift (Stalker Mix) [Workshop, 2013]

2Lanes - Fresh Vessel [2019]

Doubt - Beauty [Mistress Recordings, 2014]

Phyzikal Flex - Pandora’s Box [Magic Carpet, 2020]

Seal - Violet (Elysium Alps Edit) [2020]

Neinzer - Nabi [Where To Now?, 2020]

Talismantra - Warmth Reheated [C.S.M.F. Records, 1997]

Alex Falk - Lift [Allergy Season, 2019]

Herron - Billy’s Walk Home [Peder Mannerfelt, 2019]

Bakongo - Anytime [Roska Kicks & Snares, 2020]

Terrence Dixon - 4 [Lower Parts, 2017]

Claude Young - Prance [Elypsia, 1997]

Nikki Nair - Super [Banoffee Pies, 2020]

Two Shell - Oil Slick [Mainframe Audio, 2020]

Dave Clarke - Wisdom To The Wise (Red 2) (Robert Hood Mix) [Deconstruction/Bush, 1996]

DJ Deep - Fluorescent [Childhood, 2020]

Cobblestone Jazz - Hired Touch [!K7, 2007]

Rejected - For The People (DVS1 For Everyone Mix) [Rejected, 2011]

Fade II Black - In Sync [Fragile Records, 1990]

Elysium Alps - Layer 42 [2020]

Adlas - Arrival By Air [Answer Code Request, 2018]

Dj Frankie - أحلام جميلة [Radio Mars, 2019]

Le Dom - Hornet Express [2020]

Autechre - Basscadet (Bcdtmx) [Warp Records, 1994]

Mannequin Lung - City Lights (Mr. Hazeltine Remix feat. Divine Styler) [Plug Research, 1998]

Follow Elysium Alps on IG and SoundCloud

flyover 1: tabby

Opening sets can be rough. In a live setting, the soundcheck might bleed into your first few tracks. Sometimes there’s an issue with the lights, so you find yourself playing to a sound guy on a ladder. Otherwise, the floor is empty. There are probably a few people hanging around the bar, but they definitely aren’t there to hear you play. If you have friends who aren’t the “sorry I missed your set” type, they’re either awkwardly standing around the edge of the room, or worse, feigning enthusiasm as you bring the first kick drum in only to find the subwoofer isn’t on. You might start to wonder if anyone is going to show up, and you might blame yourself for the empty space. Do my tracks suck? Am I a shitty DJ? Do all of my friends hate me? Not once does it cross your mind that you’re playing Kitty Cat Klub on a Tuesday night.

Such moments of self-doubt seem completely foreign to Tabby. The Virginia-born, Minneapolis-based DJ is relentlessly confident, but with good reason; she knows her tracks slap. She cherishes the opportunity to “set the vibe” for the evening, and her opening pre-COVID Stay In Crew set is a testament to that wherewithal. Tabby feels that opening “gives you an opportunity to both play the slower, deeper cuts as well as being able to play more of a diverse sound than a set later in the night...while you might be playing to a much smaller crowd, you have the opportunity to start off much slower and bring up the energy. You can play a wider variety of sounds and create a narrative.” Her approach to opening follows the golden rule of DJing: play to the room. Even if you missed her set at The Aquarium in Fargo last March, you can still hear Tabby start out smooth and easy, building intensity as the night progresses and the floor fills. She wraps up her slot with a series of characteristically bouncy lo-fi house tracks, ready to hand the keys over to the next DJ. The vibe is set.

With Tabby’s penchant for opening in mind, I knew she’d be the perfect DJ to kick off flyover. During a pandemic, opportunities to play in front of more than a few friends in a living room are few and far between, but Tabby was down to shake off the rust and curate a phenomenally selected opening set. She sticks with what works for openers, starting with “What She Had,” a downtempo deep cut from Francis Harris’ 2014 LP Minutes of Sleep. Tabby values Harris’ genre-blending production. “He blurs the line between a deep house track and something more ambient and jazz influenced...the opening track hits an intersection between an almost danceable beat and an ethereal ambient sound that was a great place to open up the mix and prep ears for the journey.” The oscillation on that track, followed by Auscultation’s 100% Silk cut “Turn Down These Voices,'' which bleeds into Yaeji’s drippy, nostalgic vocals on Mall Grab’s “Mountain,” set the tone with algorithmically precise vibe cohesion. The mix itself also oscillates initially; the acid bassline from Urulu’s “Mushroom Valve'' makes you think we’re leaving deep house territory for darker dystopic techno vibes, until its sparkly synth riff and distinctly lo-fi house vocal sample kick in and guide us back to hanging plant utopia.

Throughout her mix, Tabby builds energy with tracks that sound like they were destined to play together. “I look for a set of tracks that both take you on a journey, but also flow into each other thoughtfully. I want tracks that sound different enough from each other so that the mix isn’t stagnant but still a cohesive progression of sound.” A third of the way through, she kicks it into high gear and doesn’t look back; the point of no return comes when the hi-hat on Armless Kid’s “Deep Energy” cuts out for a few bars. If that organ and saccharine stuttering vocal sample didn’t clue you in, the crash cymbal that relieves the hi-hat of duty definitely will. From there on out, we enter the Lobster Theremin zone. Tabby’s choice cuts from one of her favorite labels and its sublabel Lost Palms glue the rest of the mix together, but not without the help of heaters from Gnork and House 2 House. On “Blorp93,” Gnork contributes what might be the catchiest rave piano riff of all time. The vocals on House 2 House’s “Music Is” remind us more succinctly than I ever could of what this is all about: “many struggle to define what makes this music feel so good. The answer, quite simply, is soul. Music is to be felt.”

Follow Tabby on SoundCloud and IG.

Tracks:

Francis Harris - What She Had [2014, Scissor and Thread]

Auscultation - Turn Down These Voices [2020, 100% Silk]

Mall Grab - Mountain ft. Yaeji [2016]

Hidden Spheres - Beachy [2017, Distant Hawaii]

COEO - Clouds [2017, Lagaffe Tales]

Derek Carr - A Hundred Dreams [2019, Just Jack Recordings]

Urulu - Mushroom Valve [2018, Voyage Recordings]

YYY - 金344 [2018, YYY Series]

Paperkraft - No Other [2016, Step Back Trax]

Togethrs - Feeling Lovely [2018]

Armless Kid - Deep Energy [2019, Vertv Records]

COMPUTER DATA - Seele [2020, Lost Palms]

Dumbo Beat - The Big Sales Of Broken Watches (Fabrizio Maurizi Remix) [2019, Smoud Traxx]

Em-Wa Tanner - Numeric [2017, Dinsubsol]

Guy from Downstairs - Lamps [2020, Pleasure Zone]

DJOKO - Washed Away [2019, PIV Records]

Sweely - Stronger Than Me [2017, Lobster Theremin]

House 2 House - Music Is (1997 Version) [2020, District 30]

Youandewan - Cauliflower Wing [2019, Small Hours]

Funk Fox - Super Fine [2018]

Gnork - Blorp93 [2013, Blind Jacks Journey]

Subjoi - Joy [2020, Lost Palms]

Maruwa - On My Mind [2019, Lobster Theremin]

Raw M.T. - WWM [2020, Lobster Theremin]