In Session: Young Male

We’ve become big fans of the techno spread that Young Male, aka Quinn Taylor, lays out. It's sometimes minimal, often stomping and always prime for the dancefloor. To put it simply, the New York native turns out music that has character in a genre that has its fair share of plastic copycats.

His first release, the dark and sinister 'All R' EP, which launched his White Material label with DJ Richard, quickly stirred up a buzz when it came out in 2013, partly thanks to its minimal sounds reminiscent of Detroit's halcyon days.

Since ‘All R’, Taylor has been selective of what he’s released, taking a three-year break between his ‘Lost My E’ EP on Work Them Records in 2013 and his return to White Material with ‘Hot For Destiny And The Street’ last year. The break proved fruitful, though, with Taylor dropping his debut album ‘How To Disappear In America’, a leaping departure from his usual output that explored synth-tinged ambient and downtempo music.

When launched in 2013, White Material had one simple premise. Both Young Male and DJ Richard were sitting on a wealth of material and wanted to release it on their own terms. "Just straight up, no bullshit techno,” as Richard put it. Keeping their family of contributors close knit, they’ve achieved that. Alvin Aronson’s ‘City’ EP delivered deep, lo-fi cut ‘Extension’ and the jittering ‘Drone Techno’, Morgan Louis produced an EP of perfect dancefloor tools and Galcher Lustwerk provided deep, sexy house with ‘Tape 22’.

DJ Richard has since moved to Berlin, while Young Male has remained in New York honing his craft. He’s yet to release in 2017, but it hasn’t stopped him making magic in the booth, regularly updating his SoundCloud with mixes. His high octane and industrial style, perhaps a result of making hammers and veneer saws as a profession before his debut EP, has helped turn him into an internationally touring DJ. The holy grail of techno that is Berghain has had him in regularly, as has New York’s Output.

With new music dropping very soon, Young Male's In Session is a reminder of how brilliantly he wields techno. From the first kick there's no respite. The mix is one hour of heads-down, jack-knife slammers recorded in one take. Taylor says: “The goal was to create a full speed ahead rave techno journey, punctuated by moments of trance, acid, and polyrhythms. While recording I imagined being in a crowd of sweat-soaked dancers in an airplane hangar on a Sunday afternoon in August.”

Time to fly. Buckle up and listen below.

Louis Anderson-Rich is Mixmag's Digital Intern. Follow him on Twitter