It makes approximately five thousand tonnes of sense that Kiernan Laveaux would mention Ron Hardy as a DJ that profoundly impressed her. Much like house music pioneer, the Motherbeat co-organiser and affiliate of Eris Drew and Octo Octa's doesn't simply mix music, but does something with and to it. The Pittsburgh-based DJ also makes music, giving a sneak peek of what's to expect from an on-going collaboration with Johnny Zoloft in this contribution to our Groove podcast. It's a very personal mix, but as Kiernan Laveaux makes clear in this in-depth interview, it also has a deeper and more political dimension to it.
You made your first steps as a DJ at the event series In Training in Cleveland, Ohio that was founded in 2014. You were pretty new to dance music back then. What kind of music did you start out playing?When I first started DJing, I was playing a mixture of a lot of similar stuff I still play to this day-weird techno, house, post-punk synth-wave rave musics. I basically have sort of had this same affinity for sounds in different ways and just honed in on and expanded that as the years have gone on and my mixing style has grown. I started DJing to help open up nights at In Training so people performing wouldn't have to play to an empty room. I love playing more high energy sets now but also have always loved the ebb and flow of opening a night up. I feel like this flow between abstracted sounds and more danceable beats shows up in different ways in my DJing to this day. One of my favorite blends from beginning to DJ that I would still do to this day is Coil's "Answers Come in Dreams" mixed into Jeff Mills' "Alarms"!
This also marked the start of you engaging with the Midwest's dance music history. What did that discovery process look like?The discovery was largely due to coming up in dance music in the DIY nature that I did, as well as the unique geographical location of a place like Cleveland-being situated around cities like Detroit, Chicago, and Columbus, as well as expanding out to Buffalo and Pittsburgh in the rustbelt. It's a place that's able to have interaction with loads of other cities but also has it's own unique musical energy, almost a bit isolated all the time. I was initially drawn to techno and house, realising they're music partly born of the same region of this part of the world I'm from, and combining all these elements of science fiction, autonomy, musical innovation, community building, etc. Eventually I was just able to learn what I could through the internet, friends, and the beginnings of interacting more with the underground rave world around the midwest/rustbelt. I feel fortunate I was able to come up in what felt like a super fertile time for people throwing underground parties in that region, and being able to interact with legends and newcomers alike in a really refreshing blend of history and the present-honestly, it almost felt like a second moment of midwest DIY rave shit that hadn't happened since the mid-2000s RAVE act age (if you don't know about the RAVE act, read up on it!). Going further into the past and hearing DJs like Ron Hardy was really inspiring to me too, both feeling his influence on many of my favourites in the present and also hearing the way he could play any kind of music in a set and have it sound like him. Titonton Duvante once told me that being a midwest DJ is about being able to play music made in any part of the world and being able to make it sound like you, like it's been a piece of your spirit the entire time. In many ways, this eternal conversation of music inside yourself and your surroundings is what it means to me to interact with the midwest's dance music history-honouring the past, present, and future and how the whole world is interacting with each other through music, filtered through the continuum of your own being. Through all the forces involved around In Training, Heaven is in You, and Disco Paradiso, I was able to experience a lot of sets from regional friends all with their own unique perspectives on dance music. Literally everything from friends playing disco and freestyle records in basements, lots of live hip-hop, IDM, and industrial cosmic styles, profoundly strange and funky vinyl techno sets, fucking Limp Wrist -it really sparked a unique kind of attitude and approach to DJing as well as a super broad sound palette and love of spirit in music across genres. I feel my DJ style is entirely a product of my friends and these parties helping me see different avenues of expression and who I am. The midwest and similarly "mid-sized" US-American cities are incubators for musical openness and variety, disparate sounds joining together into a disjointed whole. It's hard for me still to not be constantly in the process of discovering new music.
Rétablir l'original