Throughout the 2010s, San Francisco-born Avalon Emerson established herself as one of clubland's most creative DJs, packing her sets with custom, on-the-fly edits and frequently darting between styles and eras. Her 2020 contribution to the DJ-Kicks series is an adventurous showcase for several of her own productions as well as obscure favorites, generally maintaining a constant groove but spinning off into some unexpected directions. Rather than picking some atmospheric selections to build up a vibe at the beginning, she ...
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Throughout the 2010s, San Francisco-born Avalon Emerson established herself as one of clubland's most creative DJs, packing her sets with custom, on-the-fly edits and frequently darting between styles and eras. Her 2020 contribution to the DJ-Kicks series is an adventurous showcase for several of her own productions as well as obscure favorites, generally maintaining a constant groove but spinning off into some unexpected directions. Rather than picking some atmospheric selections to build up a vibe at the beginning, she sets it off with her own cover of the Magnetic Fields' "Long Forgotten Fairytale," which is equally club-friendly and faithful to the original, and just as fun. A couple of Emerson's own swirling, spacious tracks are threaded throughout the mix, which touches on a grand, exotic proto-techno cut from Yello precursor Tranceonic and plenty of Y2K-era breaks, often leaning toward tracks which seem spiritually descended from early-'90s breakbeat hardcore, such as DJ Sense's "Finest," essentially a 2001 white label update of Foul Play's "Finest Illusion." Halfway through the mix, Emerson switches things up and mixes in some more off-beat selections, from a spiraling chugger by Oni Ayhun (the Knife's Olof Dreijer) to a cyber-pop tune by Oklou which swells from minimal techno to euphoric trance. Following some disco loop freakery from German duo Smith n Hack and one of its members' solo monikers, Sound Stream, Emerson drops her "cybernedit" of the Dirtbombs' rendition of A Number of Names' immortal "Sharevari," from the garage rock band's sorely underrated collection of Detroit techno covers, Party Store. The mix keeps up the momentum for a few more tracks, including Emerson's sparkling "Poodle Power," before concluding with her mix of Austra's coldwave pop gem "Anywayz," which goes two entire verses before the beat kicks in, providing one last chilling rush of energy. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi
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