The Mix 113: Debit

Throughout her career, Delia Beatriz, the Mexican-American producer, DJ, and academic better known as Debit, has felt drawn towards the cerebral and the physical in equal measure. These impulses have manifested as a series of celebrated EPs and albums for N.A.A.F.I., Quiet Time, and Modern Love, lofty experimental performances on MIDI wind instruments, and ass-shaking DJ sets across Mexico, the US, Japan and Europe. 

Beatriz’s debut, 'Animus' (2018), was an infinity loop circling two poles: the experimental noise and ambient music she began exploring during her university years in Providence, Rhode Island, and her experiences with dembow, industrial and deconstructed club music in Monterrey and New York. Later that year, she swung towards ambient with her 'Love Discipline' EP, before imagining what tribal guarachero might sound like from a post-industrial and techno perspective in New York on the ' SYSTEM' EP (2019). 

While she was studying towards a Masters in Music Technology at NYU, Beatriz began her second album, 'The Long Count' (2022). When I profiled her for Mixmag that year, I described it as “an unsettlingly beautiful fever dream of ceremonial Mayan wind instruments, digitised datasets, machine learning, and sound sculpture reconstructions.” Three years later, she reimagined the turtle-time rhythms and haunting accordions of cumbia rebajada as syrupy, slow-mo ambience on her third album, 'Desaceleradas' (2025). Along the way, she became a critical darling of the modern avant-garde. However, the heart — or more aptly, the booty — wants what it wants. 

Read this next: Debit’s radical new album reconstructs Mayan musical history

Early in June, Beatriz released her fourth album, 'Potpourri', through N.A.A.F.I. Across 13 fierce, immersive and sometimes disorienting tracks, traditional Latin American rhythms like guaracha intermingle with techno, acid house and industrial structures and sensibilities. Boomkat called it “music that needs to be experienced on a physical level.” I can only agree. 'Potpourri' feels like a series of earth-shattering ruptures along a faultline. When I think about the breadth and depth of her discography, I’m reminded that while we all contain multitudes, not everyone gets a chance to express them. 

Dressed in white on a video call, Beatriz sat in a pale blue room, surrounded by matching curtains. Over the course of a 40-minute conversation, she talked about bridging worlds, the realisations she has come to over the last 15 years, her new album, and surveying the electronic landscape of guaracha for her contribution to our mix series, which she has titled 'Handling Polyrhythms Without a Jog Wheel: Time Doesn’t Exist'.

You divide your time between electronic music composition, production, DJing and academic work. In 2026, what do you see your role as being?

I feel like I’m being a bridge — a world bridge. For a while, my work was about world-building, but it had closed borders because of the fragility of my subject matter and how speculative my synthesis was. Now that there's a general understanding and openness, I'm connecting different lineages and aesthetics. It’s become about being able to have a multiplicity within a single terrain — like music.

Your first album, 'Animus', split the difference between ambient and dance music. After that, you followed up with several EPs and albums that leaned towards either end of the spectrum. From your perspective, how has this all unfolded?

I feel more integrated now. It’s true: even before I went to school and started operating in that realm formally, I’ve always been straddling these two things. I was always interested in higher abstraction and deep contemplation of form, but in dialogue with folk or regional music, which would normally be excluded from institutions. 

I think my feelings of integration have something to do with maturity. I’ve been working in these mediums for 15 years now. That dichotomy you mentioned feels more natural as well, because newer generations have come of age, and they don’t see what I’ve been doing as that weird. It almost feels obvious now. I think this has let me relax a little bit about proving my point and place.

How much of this is the result of an internal shift, and how much of it is a result of the world shifting around you?

It’s probably both. My new album, 'Potpourri', feels like a secret third thing rather than the two poles of ambient and dance. My cultural experience was always feeling inadequate. Now it’s like the context is inadequate to me and my experience. Again, I think it is probably both. When I think about the new generation, I think about everything my generation had to internalise, process and introduce. Now, all of it feels really normal. There’s so much more openness to range, but without the identity politics tag that I found really limiting. 

Sometimes you literally have to wait for the audience to arrive, right?

Exactly. I finished 'Potpourri' two years ago. It’s funny, I’ve always had this idea of being ahead or being left behind. It’s part of being an immigrant and feeling like a weirdo. It's interesting that I kept it and released it at a time when it's easy to understand.

Read this next: NAAFI: Bass without borders

At the same time, outside of interviews, you’re probably already thinking about something newer you’re working on. 

Definitely, but now that I feel like I’m looking up, I’m really open to feedback in this context. You know when you're DJing, eyes down in the booth? You're just kind of doing the thing, and you're not even aware of the context? I feel really aware now that that's part of what I'm playing with — the moment, and those fabrics of reality. I’m just trying to understand more of the outside, rather than trying to get people to understand me.

When you look at the landscape and the continuums you’re in, what do you know now that you didn’t know 15 years ago?

I feel like everything has really shifted. First of all, engaging in creative and professional dialogue at a global level has broadened my perspective on how things work. I still don't quite understand the market as such, because again, my aspirations are so much more intellectual or speculative. 

I've learned to accept my innate difference, and realised it’s not a bad thing. There are forms of reconciliation without having to give up this vocation of really wanting to contribute something new to the form and its aesthetic possibilities. I’ve also realised that almost nothing is personal, positive or negative.

What do you think about the recent discourse around whether there is or isn’t a sound of the 2020s?

Computer music started coming through in the ‘90s in a non-academic context, but we’ve now reached its massification. We've lost all the big institutions, and there are no monolithic truths anymore. So naturally, in terms of genre, we're gonna have these collages of sound emerging — the Frankensteinification of it all. I think that is the sound of the 2020s.

On the production side, the first iterations of an idea introduce concepts and create aesthetic resonances that will always be clunky. Then we have the masterpieces, the generation that really makes it incredible and takes it to the next level. Over time, the tools, almost the learning curve of entry, keep getting flatter, thus the volume increases. I’d also assume that process influences so much in the context of the media world.

Let’s talk about 'Potpourri' as a musical term. It was coined by the 18th-century French music publisher Christophe Ballard to describe a musical form organised by the principle of non-repetition. How did you discover the concept, and what was it about it that crystallised it into your framework?

That came about when I started spending more time in Europe. I didn’t really start touring overseas until 2022. Once I started doing that, I began to realise how much disdain there was for the businessification of techno. I’d always been perplexed about how techno was being dismissed because of the business models that emerged around it. 

It got me thinking about why, and what was so characteristic about it. I think track structure is a big part of it. I thought: what if we change that to keep the lineage active, rather than just borrowing from past instrumentation? I wanted to give something back to it. I was also thinking about the tensions with techno. It’s really interesting how they can affect the aesthetic experience of a song. 

I landed on the term while researching different track structures, realms, and eras. After I found the 19th-century musical discourse around potpourri, I wanted to be meta-reflective. Alongside the non-repeating structure, there’s a thematic potpourri that I’m constantly speaking of around my biculturrality. It felt really meta. Musically, I thought it could be really interesting within the context of a general tension with techno. 

It’s fitting that this all happened after you started spending more time in Europe. What sort of impact do you think engaging with artists and culture on the other side of the Atlantic has had on you?

In the past, I always felt like I was operating on the margins, economically and culturally. I started my project and practice in 2013 and 2014, when identity politics and top-down inclusion were the big headlines. So, going to a place with several generations of well-established electronic music scenes, I found it a bit shocking to see that it was basically normie culture for some people. I hadn’t understood how much of a big theme park it could be. That was very interesting. I also felt like I was walking on eggshells because I wanted to make techno anyway and make something worthwhile for the naysayers as well.

Read this next: The Mix 031: Entrañas

There are two aspects to 'Potpourri'. On one side, you’ve got Latin American dance music. On the other hand, the sounds of techno and acid house from Chicago, Detroit and New York. Rather than being separated, however, they’re integrated. Can you talk us through this?

Guaracha and tribal music can feel very melodic and carnivalesque. It’s high-energy and very fun, but it’s also tried and quintessential. I can remove some elements to highlight others. It’s that classic thing of adding silence to make other parts louder. I took out the stuff that was too colourful for me, like the air-raid horns. There’s also this other thing. Not everything in Mexico is tropical or carnivalesque. In the post-industrial areas, things can feel really dystopian. I’ve always been a minimalist. The folk music in Northern Mexico is basically agricultural. I like that stripped roughness. I think that is where the noisy bits come in. 

I wanted to bring the brutalism I associate with techno to guaracha. In the other direction, I wanted to try these subtle structural adaptations, like a potpourri structure rather than an A-B drop build and the classic stuff we are used to. Even if it’s subtle, I wanted to put those Latin bits in as well. I was also thinking about noise, texture and sound design. That stuff isn’t part of the logic of keeping the dancefloor going at a 10 the whole time, but it can create tension with the business techno idea, or thinking of tracks as utilitarian club tools. 

Overall, my main medium is still electronic music, which, in itself, is still marginalised compared to, like, 'capital-M music' or classical. I had this idea of giving something back to the medium, in an animus sense, as if it were a god I was worshipping, not the other way around.

Who are some other producers from your world that you’re excited about at the moment? 

I‘m trying not to go too tribal, because I didn’t make a tribal record, but I’ve been super obsessed with this artist Ene Ese. They’ve managed to make something that would have been super weird feel accessible and cool. Entrañas is another brilliant producer who is flipping the script in a way that really works. 10010 has had an amazing projection outwards. Also, fransia 98, who recently came out of N.A.A.F.I. They’re all five to ten years younger than my generation. They have fresh, cool takes and feel very identifiable. 

Can you talk us through your mix?

I’m calling this mix, 'Handling Polyrhythms Without a Jog Wheel: Time Doesn’t Exist'. I surveyed the guaracha electronic polyrhythmic landscape, mostly focusing on artists and colleagues that I love, whether up or from afar. It's a lot more fun, a lot more energetic, and a lot more wholesome than 'Potpourri'. However, I think this work creates the context for something as daring as 'Potpourri' to exist.

Potpourri is out now via N.A.A.F.I., check it out here

Martyn Pepperell is a freelance music journalist, follow him on Instagram

Tracklist:
Debit - Ni de aquialla
Dylan Brady - Needle Guy (Nick León Remix)
J. Córdova - No Quieren Tiroteo
Ene Ese - Yohie - La Epoca del Terror
Brenda - Year of the Horse
Jtamul - Nereie
Omega Man - Unwritten Future
Debit - telosico
J. Córdova x karennoid - Encendida
Kassian - Shell Dub
Eisebelle - salem
Debit - dystrophica
Dom Carlo - Terrace
Entrañas - Fritada
Chanchuyo - Majadero
10010 - IIII (Abismo) Feat. DNZA
Nico - Santo Tambor
Merca Bae - Bacalho 1.0
Ene Ese - Puiyhu
Freebot - Respiración
Loris - Calor
Polygonia - Intrinsic Values
Viiaan - Taiko
Lyo XS - Prudencia
JASSS - Floating on Egg White
Siete Catorce - Mexicali (feat. André Pereda)