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]
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