Interview

Kelly Lee Owens doesn’t believe in compromise. As renowned for her interest in exploring spirituality and sound’s potential healing properties as she is for laying down dancefloor eviscerators either live or in a DJ set, she’s equally comfortable allying both these worlds – as highlighted by her transition from Björk to DJ Koze’s ‘XTC’ in the mix she has supplied for her DJ Mag Podcast.

Hey Kelly. How are you? 2018 was obviously a pretty massive year for you. What have been some highlights? What have you learned along the way?

“Hey! I'm well, thanks! About to embark on a holiday for the first time in a couple of years. The past few years have been intense. Yeah, so many highlights – Feeling chuffed that people keep connecting to the music, that it keeps rippling and that I keep getting wilder opportunities to explore presenting it...

Good club music, DJ sets that actually feel resonant and meaningful – all of that requires a real empathy and internal awareness from an artist. Would you agree? Do you ever feel as though your previous career as a nurse impacted the way you approached music?

When Eric Estornel, now best known as techno titan Maceo Plex, was just three- years-old, things in his native Miami started to change. From April to October 1980 more than 100,000 Cubans reached Florida by sea, often in dangerously overcrowded boats, where they sought exile from Fidel Castro’s rule. The Cubans traveled from Mariel Harbor, 25 miles west of Havana, in what became known as the Mariel boatlift, an event that marked a milestone in Cuban- American history.

David Guetta is on a deadline. Posted up at his Ibiza estate, the French producer is busy at work. He doesn’t seem to be enjoying it.   

Capitalizing on the success of ‘One Love’, every track on ‘Nothing But The Beat’ was a megawatt collab, cementing the “pop star + massive EDM production = fans and money” template with cameos including Nicki Minaj, Snoop Dogg, Usher, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, Jennifer Hudson and Sia. (Sia’s track, ‘Titanium’, was a worldwide hit and the first of her seven collaborations with Guetta.) ‘Nothing But The Beat’ delivered four top 20 hits in the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic Album.

Aïsha Devi’s stare burns onto her machines with the intensity of a laser. To her back, left and right, a flickering, kaleidoscopic series of visuals and lights looms above the packed space of Oslo, Hackney. A deafening sub-bass erupts across the room, hammering the ears, chest, teeth and hair of everyone it crosses, burrowing deep into bodies as two more frequencies, higher pitched now, weave like serpents into the vibrating mix. Devi moves forward, standing solitary above a crowd of transfixed followers.

The lower floor of Kerri Chandler’s house looks like the backstage production labyrinth of a massive arena. Hallway after hallway, shelf after shelf, room after room, there are stacks of music gear, flight cases, records, records and then some more records. Plus 36 sets of turntables, a drum machine closet and enough technology to fulfill any audiophile’s dreams. He has a live recording room and another room for programming, set up with numerous screens like a multiplex theatre.

“What happened was,” says Chandler, who begins all his stories and/or explanations with these three words. “What happened was, I was a studio engineer before I ever started making records. Early on, I found out a lot of gear wasn’t doing certain things I wanted it to do,” Chandler explains to DJ Mag how “Chandlerizing” became a thing.

On it are sounds from Earth: nature, animals, music from across the globe, and a variety of languages.

“I was thinking maybe we should put something positive into space,” says Chandler, fondling the cherished Golden Record replica. “Music is always universal. What we do always seems to unite people. I met someone who works with Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence and we found a planet to send audio signals to. We got sponsorship and now there are a few DJs with 8-bit clips ready to send out to that galaxy to hit that planet.”

At the same time, Chandler is working on the third volume of ‘A Basement, A Red Light, And A Feelin’’, the Madhouse compilation series whose first volume was released in 1992, the second 10 years later in 2002. A third one would be another marker for the quarter century landmark. Much more recently Chandler launched his MadTech label in 2012 and even more recently than that, Kaoz Theory, named after his oft-used nickname “Kaoz”, in 2015.