In Session: Mor Elian

Mor Elian might be a jack of all trades, but she seems to have mastered them all. As a well-established DJ, producer, promoter and record label owner, she displays a protean approach to dance music that firmly dispels the old notion that specialisation is necessary to achieve greatness.

First inducted into the world of dance music culture at the tender age of 8 by a pair of rave-hardened older sisters, Elian gained her clubbing stripes on the circuit of her native Tel Aviv. Having then moved to LA to attend university, she now lives in Berlin but maintains links with the Californian city. There she runs the acclaimed Into the Woods party alongside Jimmy Maheras, giving LA ravers the opportunity to see underground legends like K-Hand and Hessle Audio’s Pangaea in action.

As a producer, Mor has quickly developed a distinct sonic signature, with the result that her discography now boasts releases on illustrious labels like Hypercolour and Prime Numbers. Her tracks feature icy, relentlessly tense electro grooves, with corrosive basslines that neatly coil around glimmering percussion. They’re streamlined, versatile tools that could easily slot into any DJ’s record bag and be deployed effectively at any time in the night.

Her latest EP, ‘Move Like Atoms’, which she released on her own label Fever AM, is the best consolidation of her style to date. At a time when the breaks resurgence is reaching saturation point, Elian repurposes a staid trope into something that feels genuinely futuristic. Those familiar clattering snares are whittled down to laser-precise pin prick squelches that flit between tightly arranged blasts of sub bass: a neat amalgamation of the cerebral and primitive, designed to wreak havoc on dancefloors across the world.

Elian is also an incredible DJ, holding down a highly regarded residency on LA radio station Dublab. Her recent guest mix for Hessle Audio's lauded Rinse show perfectly encapsulates her ability to conjoin disparate influence into a coherent product. Moody Berlin sounds and ethereal electro sit perfectly alongside pitched down, off-the-wall techno like Gaunt’s ‘Neueueeee’. Her DJ sets are just as vital, and more recently, she has seems to have found herself a veritable b2b partner in crime in the form of Bristol’s Hodge. The two have joined forces for a pair of rowdy shows in Bristol and Bath so far, with Mor’s stylish, focused selections serving as the perfect counter to Hodge’s wild polyrhythmic techno.

Her In Session mix is an equally thrilling trip, slaloming through dubbed out techno and gnarled breaks, before dragging you through to a breakneck, acid-doused four-to-the-floor finale. Strap in, and check it out below.

Tracklist:
Secret ;)

Josh Vincent is a freelance writer, follow him on Twitter