In Session: Darwin
A new era of bass weight
Darwin refuses to be put into a box for comfortable consumption. Her open-minded outlook towards the dancefloor has allowed her much room for experimentation, adding fluidity to her mixes from pure techno to UK bass to jungle. It's abundantly clear that her transnational movement from Canada to home bases in both Berlin and Mexico influence her diverse range of sounds.
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For the past five years, Darwin has been a resident DJ of Berlin’s Griessmuehle club, stamping her footprint deep into the scene and in 2016, she began her REEF parties at at the venue. Named after our ocean’s diverse ecosystems, the party is an all-night rave encompassing hers and her friends’ sonic influences. To give you an idea, the party has hosted the likes of Trevino, Shed, Objekt, A Made Up Sound, Courtesy and more. The last REEF party at Griessmuehle took place on October 26 and now Darwin is bobbing over to her winter home and residency at YuYu club in Mexico.
While in Mexico, she'll perform at Comunite Festival in January which takes place on a beach in Puerto Escondido with Kode9 and Mala down for the ride.
In 2015, Darwin decided to further test out new waters by starting the label, SPE:C and the label's eighth release, ‘Risky’ by Kellen303, dropped earlier this year. Another new venture for her came with an environmental initiative program dubbed Clean Scene, which aims to raise awareness surrounding climate change and make efforts towards reducing the dance music community’s carbon footprint. Their first project hopes to offset DJ’s flights with more energy efficient tour routes.
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Her In Session Mix presents all the kaleidoscopic facets of her sets, beginning with multidimensional matrix-like space sounds and slowly moving into her groove of deep UK garage before floating into break beats and infectious dancefloor cuts. Water bubble textures and acidic noises make an appearance before she ends with jacking footwork beats, setting you in the middle of the jungle.
Here she showcases an array of sonic explorations, a focus that has made her one of the key guiding forces in the underground scene today.
Listen below.
Comunite Festival, takes place on January 11 and features Darwin, Kode9, Mala and Madam X, more info here
Dev White is Mixmag's Editorial Intern, follow her on Twitter