Nikki Nair Mixx
Atlanta-based Producer and DJ Nikki Nair is up next for #22 of our Tapes series. In such a short time, he’s distinguished himself as a bold voice in the landscape of hybridized dance music and has released on Scuffed, Pretty Weird, Gobstopper, Banoffee Pies, Muy Muy Limited, TRAM Planet, and Dirtybird.
Nair’s productions, in conjunction with his selection skills, establish him as a fresh, unconventional voice in dance music and we’re excited to be welcoming him for our Origins Tapes series!
Tracklist
Photek - Ni Ten Ichi Ryu (TeeBee Remix)
Raiden & Meth - The Bob Nudd Project
Noisia & Phace - Floating Zero
Gridlok & Mayhem - Meant 2 Be
Corrupt Souls - 1138
Raiden - Working Class Heroes
Ewun - Screw Up
Evol Intent - Broken Sword
Calyx & Teebee - The Quest (Break Remix)
SKC - Desert Siege
Khanage & Resound - Atlas (feat. Stapleton MC)
Counterstrike & Eye-D - The Grind
Quadrant - Arachnid
Chris SU & SKC - Crash
Pish Posh & Evol Intent - Corrupt Cops
Psidream & Pacific - In Effect
Dieselboy - N/V/D
Raiden & Current Value - RM Bleeps
Eye-D & Squee - Circuitry
Photek - Thunder (DJ Die & Clipz Remix)
Hey Nikki! Thanks so much for preparing this mix for us! Could you tell us a bit about what you’ve put together?
It's aggressive drum and bass from the mid to late 00s. I learned about drum and bass from hearing this DJ called Dieselboy-- I think many rural Americans who got into dance music in the mid 00s before EDM likely had this same entry point. So a lot of these tracks are ones I heard him play or discovered at that time.
I'd heard electronic music before and liked it, but when I discovered drum and bass in high school it felt like something made just for me. I was a badly behaved foreign kid living in a backwards area, and I had absolutely no sense of identity or belonging and was angry about it. This music sounded exactly how I felt and made me not feel terrible about feeling that way. I got into a wider variety of dance music later on, but this era and style of drum and bass is what created my emotional connection to dance music.
Oh sweet, so what sort of music were you listening to before this? I was a masssssive RnB and Garage head growing up. Blessed to be from the era where that was at its prime in the 90/00s.
So I grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee. This is like a relatively rural area and I did not know anyone who liked or even heard dance music until late in high school. I’m guessing most of the readers here are not Americans, so I’d like to emphasise the lack of dance music culture in the rural US at that time. It was around in very isolated pockets, but not nearly on the same scale as in Europe/UK, so I missed a lot of stuff until later.
I think at that time I was really into just finding weird music. I was a relatively serious drummer (played from when I was 8 till I was in college) and was always looking for something new. I guess I focused mostly on the metal, jazz, and indie rock sections of the CD store. Some highlights for me at that time were Melvins, Melt Banana, John Zorn, and Blonde Redhead. The electronic music I liked before finding drum and bass was mainstream electronica-- Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Chemical Brothers -- and electronic jam bands that toured regionally like STS9.
I had a good old stalk before writing these questions (lol) and saw you’d done a Mantissa Mix recently! They are legends. Tom is one of the founders, great guy, great DJ. I love that they’ve done so many mixes! Hopefully, we can reach there someday. There are some awesome mix series out there but if there was one blog/mix series that you would love to contribute to, who would it be & why !?
Mantissa is great! I was honored when they reached out. Honestly no idea though. I have been making a lot of mixes and maybe need to stop for a bit!
As a producer over the years, I feel like you’ve shown the ability to write ambient, house to what I would feel like your more clubby/regular sound which feels bass/breaks driven. **The interviewer goes to check Soundcloud again.** Tbh Bass and Breaks are deffo what I associate with your music haha. How do you feel you developed your sound over the last few years, and why do you think you’ve landed where you are at now musically?
As far as the stylistic evolution from like ambient/house to more clubby stuff goes, I don’t know if I’ve done any of this on purpose. I don’t have enough self-control to decide what type of track I’m making until I’m part-way through making the track. I really like weird house/disco-oriented music, I think just as much as I like breaks and techno, so I probably make both.
In my mind, a lot of the bass and breaks tracks I have are breaks-influenced techno. I feel like those tracks are influenced by Detroit techno/electro, midwestern techno, and Florida breaks, just as much as they are from drum and bass/jungle and UK Garage.
But when it comes down to it, I don’t know what I’m doing consciously-- I just listen to and learn about as much music as I can and then make music that I want to DJ with.
Best party you went to pre covid? (remember that time, remember parties!)
Is it bad if I say my own party? I hope not! Would be a TEKNOX in my hometown definitely. There were so many great ones. I started DJing and throwing events in Knoxville, Tennessee with this party/crew called TEKNOX, which consists of Dialectic Sines, Saint Thomas LeDoux, Alex Falk, and me. The party is techno-oriented and free to attend. Over the years we’ve gotten to book some truly amazing artists. I guess since the party is fully out of the way of any major dance music hub, it’s always been a labor of love, and more importantly, always been free of hype.
The first party you can’t wait to get yourself to post covid!!? (it’s around the corner, people - we hope !!)
Definitely can’t wait for the first event I’m booked at, which will be at Bossa Nova Civic Club in New York in late June. I don’t know if it's a full club night, but I think I’m playing a set in a club and was informed that there could be actual people dancing in the club.
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Interview by @armand.origins