Xav

My first real exposure to anything truly EDM/UDM related was early bass music in my college years around 2009-2012. Pandora was big at the time, and one day I deviated from my normal listening to try the electronic section. I had never heard anything like this type of music and immediately wanted to hear more like it. I eventually found a group that made more melodic bass music called Blackmill. The sound was still aggressive but also smooth.

Fast forward a couple of years and I stumbled upon a Spotify playlist called brain food. This playlist had many styles of melodic and hypnotic exploratory electronic music. One track that stood out for me was Lies by Tale of Us. It was again unlike anything I had heard before. I found the album it came from; the other tracks had the same unique style of melody, but with a danceable beat. While looking the tracks up online, I found the DJ website Beatport and it said the track was tech-house. I kinda knew what house music was, but had no clue what the tech meant. When I found out that tech meant techno, I was blown away. This is what techno is? I couldn’t believe it. Then again, I never took the time before to research what techno is, where it came from, what it sounded like, etc.

Learning there was a whole techno community with festival’s, concerts, shows, and different scenes was overwhelming at first. Techno wasn’t new but it was new to me. Nevertheless, this music moved me in a way I didn’t think music could, and I had to find out all I could about it. My first techno show was at the famous U Street Music Hall in May 2019. Amelie Lens was the headliner, and from the moment I walked in I was completely hooked. Going to Time Warp NYC later that year only further fueled my interest. So much so that I knew I wanted to be a techno DJ/producer one day.