Where is he? The venue is packed. Someone points to the middle of the crowd, near a large fire pit, almost buried beneath a field of raised arms and billowing smoke. It’s the DJ, and he looks sweaty and ill-prepared for tonight’s set. His nervousness influences the records he plays—each failing to motivate even the most extraverted dancers.
The crowd, who’ve long since stopped moving their feet, grow cold towards his presence, a few even begin booing after catching wind of the next songs: Igor at a tea shop, A half-chewed cigar that’s sodden from the rain. His slick hands cause him to drop the next record on the floor, cracking the vinyl. Jumping back in shock, he bumps the current record that’s playing, causing it to skip, loudly splintering the sound with an ear aching jolt. The crowd’s frustration reaches a fever pitch as someone hurls their shoe at the DJ, who narrowly dodges it while attempting to recover his things and leave—ashamed of his performance. Security rush forward to grab and protect him, until they notice that the crowd has grown strangely silent.
A man slowly approaches the DJ stand. He’s wearing a beige robe that exposes his legs and bare feet while he walks. His earlobes are stretched and they gently sway side to side with each step. He is an aged man: wrinkles cover every inch of his skin like etchings on a banana leaf, yet, he walks with a fierce ebullience. Without him stating it, the crowd knows his refusal to weather from old age was not from a fear of death, but a refusal to concede life without understanding its meaning. Everyone recognizes the importance of this moment, his presence. Even the wind has settled, allowing the crowd to observe. In his hands are three records that he unwraps while approaching the sound booth. After reaching the podium, the man sits and slowly inhales through his nose; he pauses, then exhales a lengthy sigh through his mouth, audible even amongst the crowd. He repeats this breathing exercise several times before placing each record on a turntable, resting his hands on the vinyl, and then pressing play.
A cymbal punctuates the party’s silence with its percussive sibilant, peppering the evening air. Whilst that record plays, the robed figure begins rotating another slowly, then faster, scratching in time with the hi-hat pattern. As the first deck’s drums speed up and hit harder, he matches the recording’s intensity by incorporating more intricate scratching patterns, building tension. The crowd begins to cheer as he cuts his scratches with the mixer fader, perfectly aligning with the raucous drumming—his robes flapping about, nearly disturbing the vinyl records as they play. Echoes and distortion are applied via a hidden footswitch under the booth, which he occasionally clicks, producing a psychedelic effect that trails after each cut—its decaying warbles left floating in the air. Shortly after, he begins playing a third record featuring a passionate tabla performance, joining the mix seamlessly alongside the drum break and DJ scratches: its mid-range melodic tambors providing a nice counterpoint to the thudding drums and high-pitched scratching.
Mid-performance, he eyes the disgraced and beckons for him to approach. The crowd is dancing now to the grooves and cuts, their legs crisscrossing and jumping to the beat—nobody notices the disgraced DJ reentering the stage. During an interlude in the performance, the robed figure motions for the other to contribute to the mix. The ashamed DJ is terrified. He doesn’t want to kill the evening’s vibes, his hands trembling, unsure if he’s holding the party’s murder weapon. Without warning, the combination of experimental funk and jazz playing triggered memories of a transcendent performance by Bill Laswell from his youth. Frantically digging in his record bag, he searches for that singular, great, live recording. He pulls it out—his best shot for the mix. He puts the record on the final turntable, squints his eyes, and presses play. The instrumentation backing the interlude pauses briefly before the drop and the crowd steel themselves in anticipation. The moment hangs, then plunges into a hard hitting breakdown, with bass and synthesizers accompanying the grooves and percussion from the prior three records. The crowd goes wild as they dance, shaking the ground while they jump in unison, matching the energy of the DJs’ incredible mix. The robed figure smiles for the first time, then walks away from the booth, leaving the previous DJ to perform the rest of the show.
With a clear follow-up record in mind, he feels carefree as he reaches back into his bag, emboldened by the trust radiating from the crowd after his last choice. Time moves quickly through his set, and the dying flames of the nearby firepit signal that the show is over. As the crowd disperses, and the DJ packs up his equipment, he finds the three records that his robed friend played. He searches the area to return them; after a while, though, he puts the records in his bag: backups to break out for pinches like tonight.