In Session: Jane Fitz

Jane Fitz has been perfecting the art of the DJ set since the mid 90s.

She's a long-serving selector, crate digger and promoter and is, basically, as dedicated to dance music as anyone can be.

And she's in it for the holistic reasons that underpin rave culture: freedom in sound, the communities that form on the dancefloor, parties and dancing as anti-capitalist action. Those things so oft forgotten, but not by Fitz. She's a real OG.

"To me an event is 10,000 people and a bouncy castle somewhere deep in the countryside until midday the next day," she told Inverted Audio. "It’s not a club night, or a party. I think people’s attitudes to parties have been, whether they realise it or not, completely governed by a selfless property market and the diminishing amount of available space that is left. Clubs get closed and the land sold to developers, and the crappy areas get colonised, leaving nowhere to turn the volume up. Because of that venues charge the earth, which means promoters have to charge big-ticket prices, and in doing so, have to put on names to attract big crowds. It’s economics but it’s ruined what parties should be about."

Her blindingly good DJ sets, which are fuelled by her mouth-watering record collection, have earned a reputation among fans of house and techno played with soul. They'll have heard her at Freerotation, the UK festival where she's been a resident for half a decade, or at one of her parties, Peg (which ran from 1999 to 2009) and Night Moves (organised with Jade Seatle), which celebrates its fourth birthday in London this month.

Indeed, she's the toast of those in the know, beloved of people in the dance and behind the scenes. Her 2016 gig list boasts the Bloc., Dekmantel, Further Future and Gottwood festivals, clubs like Tresor, Concrete and Corsica Studios and promoters Krankbrother and Secretsundaze. Quality always speaks for itself.

Fitz's story starts as a budding music journalist who got the chance to move to Hong Kong aged 23. There, she found a strong dance music scene inhabited by a potent mix of tourists and locals. Speaking to Hyponik, she said: “I’d kind of missed the early rave scene [in Britain] but by the time I got to Hong Kong it was the right sort of time and you almost had a second-coming of acid house, semi-exported through ex-pats that eventually caught on and became nurtured by a local scene.

"By ’97 the scene was established locally as well; Lee Burridge and a guy called Christian were DJing at bars in Wan Chai, at Big Apple and later, Neptune’s. That was the first time the city had an after-hours scene and where everyone came together, from bankers to the Triad and anyone who wanted to stay out and party.”

After delicious experiences in Hong Kong, she spent the 00s running Peg and getting stuck in to the UK's underground house circuit. The turn of this decade was a tipping point: Fitz started rubbing shoulders with fellow risers Sven Weisemann and Brawther as well as Boo Williams and Mike Huckaby. The last few years have been her busiest yet, reeling in gigs across Europe and in Japan and Australia. Later this year she'll head to the US.

The In Session mix she's turned in for us showcases her deep, dreamy side – the perfect warm-up for Night Moves next weekend. Of the party, she told Inverted Audio: "If you look at our approach to hosting a party it goes against everything in the promoter handbook – we don’t advertise; other than in our regulars group we keep a fairly low social-media profile. We book our friends to DJ, whether anyone’s heard of them or not. We never talk about what music is going to be played. Three years down the line and we’ve done one interview together. We never give out the venue address. We have moved our venue to an unfashionable part of London. And we seldom plan ahead, because our lives govern when we can put a party on. A party really begins with its crowd, and evolves on the dance floor." The quote is a neat insight to her DIY, for-the-love mentality and focus on what matters most: good music and a strong community.

Like we said, Jane Fitz is the toast of those in the know. And know you know.

Night Moves takes place in London on Saturday April 9

Seb Wheeler is Mixmag's Digital Editor. Follow him on Twitter

No tracklist, sorry!