This is DANCE MIX WATCH. I’m posting the best mixes coming in right now.
DJ NJ DRONE (based in NY!) has had an inspired year so far, recently releasing a manic and danceable EP via Bootleg Tapes and remixing the out-of-this-world “Foundtain” by P4N4 into a high-pitched underwater club track, featuring some of the most beautiful synth work we’ve heard recently. DMW #7 is Truants’s mix (and subsequent interview, linked here).
NJ DRONE’s “mind club” is aptly named. This is a mix for the clubs, but it’s clear that NJ DRONE’s intention is never to perpetuate the idea that the nightclub is a vapid, negative space. Rather, the mix feels like a shrine honoring and revering the ability for club music to speak individually to a listener/dancer, the ability for it to create a space full of people into something solitary and meditative, while still being connected to a physical rhythm. Drums and synths do most of the work in NJ DRONE’s production (many of which are featured). It’s always a ballet with the two instruments, one doing the heavy lifting while the other rests in the background, and vice versa, but neither ever disappear. DRONE does not switch between moods, but creates the ability for each moment to be tragically emotional or functionally danceable. The combination of the organic and inorganic feel like a modern machine, one separated from basic narratives of the future as purely metallic; even when we are living in a science fictional world, DJ DRONE will always connect us to the dirt.
DRONE plays at Fade to Mind’s 8/29 show at Trans Pecos (NYC) with Rizzla, Ma Nguzu, STUD1NT (whose work feels to have a symbiotic relationship with DRONE’s), and some secret guests!
• DJ NJ DRONE: https://soundcloud.com/r-i-p-dj
• Truants: http://truantsblog.com