PREMIERE: DJN - Fine [Humboldt EP, Tiger Tapes]
Who’s DJN? Let’s find out. Humboldt EP is available now via Tiger Tapes.
Tell us about Iowa, the electronic music scene, and IowaTechno parties.
I grew up and graduated high school in Waukon, IA, which is a small rural town centered in the NE corner of Iowa. After graduating, I moved to Cedar Rapids and discovered the electronic scene a few years after that, which at that time was growing and thriving exponentially. We had multiple underground shows and parties going on almost every weekend, not just in Cedar Rapids, but also in Iowa City and Des Moines. IowaTechno started 9 years ago and was my friends and my attempt at throwing our hat into that ring, as several of the big promoters in Iowa had either ceased doing parties or were doing them very sparingly. We started small with bar shows at local dives, and eventually grew our scene and following into several warehouse spaces in the Cedar Rapids area. Things were really on a roll until Covid happened, and we struggled to get the scene back on track in the aftermath. Unfortunately, the scene seemed to have diminished in that time frame and IowaTechno disbanded, our last show being on 10.27.23. We had 9 solid years of successful parties, which is no small feat, but the environment unfortunately became unsustainable.
You just released a very cool EP Fleur with breaks, bass, and techno followed by your new single, “Fine” off of the forthcoming Humboldt EP. How has your time living in Iowa and attending Minneapolis parties influenced the music you produce?
Coming up in the electronic scene in Iowa, I was exposed to a lot of different genres of electronic music through my own discovery and from attending parties and listening to my friends mix. My time in Iowa I spent primarily focused on house music, but in a sense I felt pigeonholed in that respect and it made it complicated to break out of that mold, so to speak. My treks to Minneapolis opened the floodgates of what music could make a dance floor move, especially breaks and electro, which unfortunately weren’t very well received when I would try to play them in Iowa. Since I’d been regularly attending Minneapolis parties over the past year and a half, it had allowed me to open a creative part of me that had been yearning to come out for quite some time. Since I’ve moved here, I’ve written some of my best material to date, and I feel like that is heavily influenced by the events I’ve attended and the DJs I’ve danced to here in the Cities. I’m grateful for those events and those artists who showed me that it’s ok and encouraged stepping outside your comfort zone, and do/play/create what I feel, instead of putting out what I think people want to hear. It’s been very freeing from an artistic standpoint.
How long have you been making the trek to Minneapolis parties?
Since I lived in Cedar Rapids, IA for so many years, it was kind of few and far between since it was a 5.5hr drive, but I was able to make it up once or twice a year since 2008. It was only when I moved back to NE Iowa that I was able to make the trip more frequently since it was only a 3hr drive. And now that I live here it’s only a 15 minute drive to most events, so that whole facet is still kind of unreal to me but I’m absolutely loving it. The only issue is that there is so much going on, it’s hard to choose where to allocate my energy!
Which came first, producing or DJing? How have they influenced each other?
I started DJing in early 2008, and shortly after that I started producing. I used Reason for many years, moved to Logic Pro in 2012, and now I’m using Reason rewired in Logic Pro and I’m loving the functionality of those two programs together. As for how they influence each other, I would say that the music I DJ tends to push my productions in the same direction, as I like to weave my own tracks into my mixes.
