flyover 2: elysium alps

Friends of Jamie Larson wouldn’t describe him as “chaotic." The soft-spoken Bogotá-born, Duluth-raised, Minneapolis-based producer and DJ projects an outwardly calm, quiet, and collected demeanor, but is a genre-hopping time traveler behind the decks. As Elysium Alps, Jamie first made a name for himself in Twin Cities clubs and basements prior to the pandemic, and has continued honing his musical crafts since its onset. His flyover mix effortlessly jumps from trance to house to techno (Detroit, dub, and minimal), with a dash of oddball leftfield tracks thrown in for good measure. Though he leans on contemporary releases, Jamie’s eclectic listening habits allow him to draw connections others miss between dance tracks new and old. When asked about his listening and selection process, Jamie said that “for better or for worse, it’s sometimes hard to keep my focus on certain things…maybe that’s why I’m into so many different kinds of music...my brain just kind of flips over the course of listening....it’s this scatterbrained attitude towards listening to music [that] translates into the mix.” 

Unwilling to succumb to the chaos, Jamie possesses a well-practiced ability to sort, categorize, and organize the wide variety of tracks that come to mind as he mixes. After looking at the tracklist, you might be skeptical that he connects the dots between the dreamy 90s trance opening track “Epsilon Phase” and “Beauty,” a 2014 Mistress Recordings techno cut by the self-exiled Minneapolis antihero Doubt. But Jamie finds a way. “I try to challenge myself a little bit to see what works and what doesn’t...mixes that might seem kind of difficult in my head, I just test them out and see if they actually work. Some of these weird genre switches don’t make sense on paper or whatever, but once you [put them] in practice, they work...I try to put the genre stuff in the back of my head and find tracks that have a similar feeling.”

In one sequence, Jamie pairs Bakongo’s dark and menacing 2020 UK funky track “Anytime” with a cut from Terrance Dixon’s 2017 LP No More Time, draws a line to Claude Young’s 1997 Elypsia track “Prance,” then yanks us right back to contemporary UK breaks and garage with Nikki Nair’s “Super” and Two Shell’s “Oil Slick,” both released in 2020. After calling attention to ties between UK bass and Detroit techno new and old, he hammers home the point by dropping a Robert Hood remix of Dave Clarke’s “Wisdom To The Wise (Red 2), crystalizing the connection.

Fans of Jamie’s live sets might be surprised to hear him jump around like this. He considered flyover’s freeform online medium a chance to weave tracks that wouldn’t typically play together in front of a live audience. “I wouldn’t play this mix in an actual club, it just wouldn’t work...I wasn’t so concerned about it being as danceable, even though I did play a lot of club music, that wasn’t really the goal of it, it was to be a bit more open and broad as far as track selection.”

After nearly a year without gathering communally in front of large sound systems, plenty of internet mixes and live streams have surfaced in noble but futile attempts to fill the void felt by music lovers and obsessives the world over. Instead of adding another entry in this vein, like his stellar mixes for Kajunga Records and Hennepin County Disco Authority, Jamie decided to record a deeply personal mix, focusing on songs that remind him of people and experiences important to him. “It’s just something kind of intimate...it feels personal to me, this mix, and I hope that’s conveyed. It’s a mix where I was thinking about a lot of different things...like COVID, and being bummed that I can’t go out and see my friends.” Aware that internet mixes are often heard through earbuds or phone speakers rather than large sound systems, he sought to ensure that this mix is enjoyable regardless of how it’s played. “For this mix, and a lot of mixes I record at home, I do a lot of high pass filtering with the low end still up...it kind of has a punchy sound, so you can hear that whether you have low end or not, like it’s kind of more of a knockier sound than just straight-up low muddy bass.”

Also a talented producer, Jamie quietly slips a couple of his own unreleased tracks into the mix, hiding them in plain sight amongst the organized chaos. He sneaks in an edit of Seal’s 1991 R&B hit “Violet,” but if you blink, you’ll miss it. “Layer 42,” an Elysium Alps original, comes in towards the end of the mix, and is characteristically sandwiched between a 90s Fade II Black track that sounds like it could have been released yesterday (featuring a power saw synth and bouncy house beat), and an Adlas Answer Code Request cut that essentially was released yesterday. “It’s different from what I usually release under that moniker,” he said of “Layer 42.” “I took some field recording and used snippets from them as drums...that’s kind of a funny track...the hi-hats on that are actually crickets I recorded on my porch...you can’t really tell, they’re just super processed.” Though field recordings are a new addition to his production, they meld perfectly with his dreamy, ethereal, and genre-blending approach. It’s been a few years since Jamie released Wild Blue, his last proper record, but he’s still an active producer front. Demos and works in progress are floating online in burner SoundCloud accounts and DMs for those in the mood for a musical treasure hunt.

Tracks:

Chapterhouse, Global Communication - Epsilon Phase [Dedicated, 1993]

Ital - Ice Drift (Stalker Mix) [Workshop, 2013]

2Lanes - Fresh Vessel [2019]

Doubt - Beauty [Mistress Recordings, 2014]

Phyzikal Flex - Pandora’s Box [Magic Carpet, 2020]

Seal - Violet (Elysium Alps Edit) [2020]

Neinzer - Nabi [Where To Now?, 2020]

Talismantra - Warmth Reheated [C.S.M.F. Records, 1997]

Alex Falk - Lift [Allergy Season, 2019]

Herron - Billy’s Walk Home [Peder Mannerfelt, 2019]

Bakongo - Anytime [Roska Kicks & Snares, 2020]

Terrence Dixon - 4 [Lower Parts, 2017]

Claude Young - Prance [Elypsia, 1997]

Nikki Nair - Super [Banoffee Pies, 2020]

Two Shell - Oil Slick [Mainframe Audio, 2020]

Dave Clarke - Wisdom To The Wise (Red 2) (Robert Hood Mix) [Deconstruction/Bush, 1996]

DJ Deep - Fluorescent [Childhood, 2020]

Cobblestone Jazz - Hired Touch [!K7, 2007]

Rejected - For The People (DVS1 For Everyone Mix) [Rejected, 2011]

Fade II Black - In Sync [Fragile Records, 1990]

Elysium Alps - Layer 42 [2020]

Adlas - Arrival By Air [Answer Code Request, 2018]

Dj Frankie - أحلام جميلة [Radio Mars, 2019]

Le Dom - Hornet Express [2020]

Autechre - Basscadet (Bcdtmx) [Warp Records, 1994]

Mannequin Lung - City Lights (Mr. Hazeltine Remix feat. Divine Styler) [Plug Research, 1998]

Follow Elysium Alps on IG and SoundCloud

flyover 1: tabby

Opening sets can be rough. In a live setting, the soundcheck might bleed into your first few tracks. Sometimes there’s an issue with the lights, so you find yourself playing to a sound guy on a ladder. Otherwise, the floor is empty. There are probably a few people hanging around the bar, but they definitely aren’t there to hear you play. If you have friends who aren’t the “sorry I missed your set” type, they’re either awkwardly standing around the edge of the room, or worse, feigning enthusiasm as you bring the first kick drum in only to find the subwoofer isn’t on. You might start to wonder if anyone is going to show up, and you might blame yourself for the empty space. Do my tracks suck? Am I a shitty DJ? Do all of my friends hate me? Not once does it cross your mind that you’re playing Kitty Cat Klub on a Tuesday night.

Such moments of self-doubt seem completely foreign to Tabby. The Virginia-born, Minneapolis-based DJ is relentlessly confident, but with good reason; she knows her tracks slap. She cherishes the opportunity to “set the vibe” for the evening, and her opening pre-COVID Stay In Crew set is a testament to that wherewithal. Tabby feels that opening “gives you an opportunity to both play the slower, deeper cuts as well as being able to play more of a diverse sound than a set later in the night...while you might be playing to a much smaller crowd, you have the opportunity to start off much slower and bring up the energy. You can play a wider variety of sounds and create a narrative.” Her approach to opening follows the golden rule of DJing: play to the room. Even if you missed her set at The Aquarium in Fargo last March, you can still hear Tabby start out smooth and easy, building intensity as the night progresses and the floor fills. She wraps up her slot with a series of characteristically bouncy lo-fi house tracks, ready to hand the keys over to the next DJ. The vibe is set.

With Tabby’s penchant for opening in mind, I knew she’d be the perfect DJ to kick off flyover. During a pandemic, opportunities to play in front of more than a few friends in a living room are few and far between, but Tabby was down to shake off the rust and curate a phenomenally selected opening set. She sticks with what works for openers, starting with “What She Had,” a downtempo deep cut from Francis Harris’ 2014 LP Minutes of Sleep. Tabby values Harris’ genre-blending production. “He blurs the line between a deep house track and something more ambient and jazz influenced...the opening track hits an intersection between an almost danceable beat and an ethereal ambient sound that was a great place to open up the mix and prep ears for the journey.” The oscillation on that track, followed by Auscultation’s 100% Silk cut “Turn Down These Voices,'' which bleeds into Yaeji’s drippy, nostalgic vocals on Mall Grab’s “Mountain,” set the tone with algorithmically precise vibe cohesion. The mix itself also oscillates initially; the acid bassline from Urulu’s “Mushroom Valve'' makes you think we’re leaving deep house territory for darker dystopic techno vibes, until its sparkly synth riff and distinctly lo-fi house vocal sample kick in and guide us back to hanging plant utopia.

Throughout her mix, Tabby builds energy with tracks that sound like they were destined to play together. “I look for a set of tracks that both take you on a journey, but also flow into each other thoughtfully. I want tracks that sound different enough from each other so that the mix isn’t stagnant but still a cohesive progression of sound.” A third of the way through, she kicks it into high gear and doesn’t look back; the point of no return comes when the hi-hat on Armless Kid’s “Deep Energy” cuts out for a few bars. If that organ and saccharine stuttering vocal sample didn’t clue you in, the crash cymbal that relieves the hi-hat of duty definitely will. From there on out, we enter the Lobster Theremin zone. Tabby’s choice cuts from one of her favorite labels and its sublabel Lost Palms glue the rest of the mix together, but not without the help of heaters from Gnork and House 2 House. On “Blorp93,” Gnork contributes what might be the catchiest rave piano riff of all time. The vocals on House 2 House’s “Music Is” remind us more succinctly than I ever could of what this is all about: “many struggle to define what makes this music feel so good. The answer, quite simply, is soul. Music is to be felt.”

Follow Tabby on SoundCloud and IG.

Tracks:

Francis Harris - What She Had [2014, Scissor and Thread]

Auscultation - Turn Down These Voices [2020, 100% Silk]

Mall Grab - Mountain ft. Yaeji [2016]

Hidden Spheres - Beachy [2017, Distant Hawaii]

COEO - Clouds [2017, Lagaffe Tales]

Derek Carr - A Hundred Dreams [2019, Just Jack Recordings]

Urulu - Mushroom Valve [2018, Voyage Recordings]

YYY - 金344 [2018, YYY Series]

Paperkraft - No Other [2016, Step Back Trax]

Togethrs - Feeling Lovely [2018]

Armless Kid - Deep Energy [2019, Vertv Records]

COMPUTER DATA - Seele [2020, Lost Palms]

Dumbo Beat - The Big Sales Of Broken Watches (Fabrizio Maurizi Remix) [2019, Smoud Traxx]

Em-Wa Tanner - Numeric [2017, Dinsubsol]

Guy from Downstairs - Lamps [2020, Pleasure Zone]

DJOKO - Washed Away [2019, PIV Records]

Sweely - Stronger Than Me [2017, Lobster Theremin]

House 2 House - Music Is (1997 Version) [2020, District 30]

Youandewan - Cauliflower Wing [2019, Small Hours]

Funk Fox - Super Fine [2018]

Gnork - Blorp93 [2013, Blind Jacks Journey]

Subjoi - Joy [2020, Lost Palms]

Maruwa - On My Mind [2019, Lobster Theremin]

Raw M.T. - WWM [2020, Lobster Theremin]