Have I been here before? Performed at Parson’s Brewing Company with Subform DnB on May 17, 2026.

Click play above to listen. The media may take a while to load from my server.

Above is a video I took from my phone of the set, but the audio isn’t great.

Track List

I played for about fifteen minutes; these are the tracks I played:

• AF015698 by dgoHn
• Puppet by dgoHn
• Glacier Zone – ARTIST: UNKNOWN by Pizza Hotline, DJ Total 90
• 1000 Miles by Machinedrum, Sub Focus
• Cyber Space 1-4: Genshi by SEGA SOUND TEAM
• Toxic by t+pazolite
• Smart System by Net-Zone
• Cyber Space 4-4: Wishes in the Wind by SEGA Sound Team
• Emotion Engine by Pizza Hotline

Listen on Spotify

Performance

I got to perform this at a Subform DnB event at Parson’s Brewing Company as part of their series there. I was there once before and played briefly, but I left feeling dissatisfied with myself; I didn’t know how to chill. Today was my chance for redemption!

I plan to cover Subform’s awesome mission and events in a future post, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, please check out some of the super talented DJ’s that I met!

Sorry if I missed you!

Selection

I have spent a bit of time considering what other DJ’s at Subform’s events have played. I thought pretty hard about how I could present something like that, but in a way that felt like me:

• Unique
• Something that challenges me
• Weird

For my RECHARGE open deck night sets, sliding from DnB or another genre into j-core checks all those boxes, but this was different. So, I went on the hunt for the unique, challenging, and weird.

A rabbit hole involving DnB with strange time signatures led me to discover:

• Intelligent DnB: I interpret this to be atmospheric, complex DnB. Searching this term helped me find some interesting tracks.
• Machinedrum: Travis Stewart’s DnB fascinates me. He has an incredible 5/4 track that I hope to incorporate into a set one day.
• dgoHn: not a typo. (or a Typo Typo, that’s someone else very talented!) An exceptionally strange DnB producer. Check them out.

I then sprinkled in a bit of my own flair. Sonic Frontiers has some incredible tracks that I think worked well here. I also got a nice comment about t+pazolite’s remix of Toxic. I’ve not heard the original, but I found the remix to be an interesting divergence from t+pazolite’s hardcore work.

New Things I Learned

• Memory cues: discovered this Rekordbox feature a day before. Fascinating and helped me plan auto-loops in my songs to leave me more breathing room to mix out.
• Vinyl speed: check this on a deck when you’re spinning with other people. It might explain why pressing pause doesn’t seem to do anything or stops very slowly.
• Charging: found a great place to charge Zippy (my scooter) at Parson’s this time.

Things to Improve

Normalization

I got some feedback during my set that Genshi was very quiet. I was embarrassed and stammered a bit because yeah, I should know how to deal with that — but I didn’t.

After my set, I asked Derek @dwrecklol, a much more seasoned DJ than I am, about what I could do about it. He suggested that I should watch the volume indicators on each channel on my controller. Genius! Looking at the thing that’s been right in front of me the entire time!

Yes, I was a bit embarrassed that I’ve never paid any attention to that for the past 10 or 12 years…I’ve been quite spoiled by helpful parents at gigs who can help me with volume. I appreciate that a lot, but to be a better DJ I need to use the equipment that I have to present a good set, and that means normalizing the volume of my tracks.

Harmonic Mixing

I had a great conversation with Rosemary (@dj_rose_ascendant) about mixing in key. It’s a main focus for her, and it made me reflect on my relationship with it.

My general opinion is that harmonic mixing generally isn’t noticed by audiences. However, just because they don’t notice doesn’t mean it’s pointless; mixing in key makes transitions sound so much better. A good example is when I accidentally found that All I Need by [IVY] is in the same key as Quon by DJ Noriken. This is the bridge between the DnB section of my Got Milk set into j-core.

Getting better at harmonic mixing will help me build better sets!

Talking and mixing

Eek; trying to talk to people and mix is hard. I’ll spare you the details here.

Attribution

That awesome t-shirt I’m wearing is by Mad-E Zwiebel (@shabby_beatnik)!