The platform works by asking DJs to voluntarily share a percentage of their performance fee with the producers who create the music they play in a set. DJs are recommended to share 5% of their fee. For example, if a DJ was paid $5,000 for a set, $250 would be set aside for producers. If there are 20 producers on the setlist, each one would get $12.50.

It may not sound like a lot, but with DJs all over the world playing sets it can add up. For reference, it would take a producer around 5,000 streams on Spotify to make the same amount.

Many compare the role of Aslice to that of a Performing Right Organization (PRO). These groups collect and distribute royalties on behalf of artists registered with them. The issue with PROs, however, is that many of them do not accurately report data. Bad metadata, unreported setlists, and a lack of educational resources for producers make it so that a lot of revenue goes unshared.

During their private beta, Aslice reported that DJs uploaded 110 setlists featuring 5,291 tracks. Each list contained an average of 49 tracks, coming out to an average of $1.49 per track. Some tracks made as much as $10 or $20, depending on the donation amount.

In an interview with DJ Mag, Khutoretsky shared optimism about the project. “So many DJs want to do the right thing and just need an ‘easy button’ to do that,” he said. “Once we show them the simple process and almost immediate results from our system, they seem to be convinced of the possibilities quite fast.”

The techno-heavy gathering will expand its usual mid-afternoon until late next morning runtime to include daytime parties across five stages. Additional nighttime after hours events will also be curated. 

REFORM will take place at Catch One on Sunday, September 5th with Danny Tenaglia, Headless Horseman, and Josh Wink, among others. From 5:00 PM-2:00 AM, attendees also have the chance to catch Lauren Flax, DJ Hyperactive, and Truncate perform back to back.

Drumcell curates an entire BL_K Noise Live Room, featuring live performances by Richard Devine and Sentence (Drumcell and Surachai) as well as others. Visuals are provided by OKTAform.

The Discovery stage features Annika Wolfe, Jeniluv, Jelani plus more L.A. locals. 

REFORM by Night, the special nighttime program presented by DJ Mag, will be curated by DVS1. It will take place at an undisclosed location with the curator playing alongside Bernt, Lindsay Herbert, and Lonefront.

2021 marks the second edition after REFORM launched in 2019. The gathering is a concept created by L.A. promoters Syntetik Minds, Dirty Epic, and 6AM Group.

Attendees of the day event can exclusively get tickets for REFORM by Night. More information is available via Resident Advisor.

Space of Urgency Demonstration, as it’s called, will begin at 11:00 PM at the Alexanderplatz transportation hub in Berlin’s Mitte district. Among the organizers are Kollektiv Spieltribe, Love Foundation and Studio dB. Participants are required to take a COVID-19 test beforehand as well as wearing an FFP2 mask and exercising social distancing at the gathering.

The peaceful protest has been organized “because of the rapid disappearance of socio-cultural venues, clubs, self-determined housing and free spaces,” according to Space of Urgency’s Facebook event page. “These spaces of urgency are crucial for Berlin’s unique identity and urban resilience in total.”

The protestors’ demands include a mediation task force that would lobby on behalf of such spaces, improved access to bureaucratic resources for them, and policy changes in their favor. They additionally intend to raise awareness for issues faced by similar cultural institutions in Colombia, Holland, Palestine, Greece and Georgia.

“Clubsterben” refers to the increased closure of clubs and other creative institutions in recent years due to commercial property developments. Many such spaces, Hegemann’s Tresor in particular, have been active since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1991. At that time the availability of abandoned facilities converged with the reunification of Germany, setting the stage for Berlin’s world-renowned nightlife scene.

More information will be made available on the Space of Emergency website.

Although digital, The Escape Velocity Magazine uses online publishing platform Ziney to emulate the layout of a physical booklet. The cover art was designed by AbuQadim Haqq, who has assisted with the visual branding for labels like Transmat, Tresor Records and Planet E.

The first issue sets forth Mills’ mission to highlight boundary-pushing electronic musicians and “act as a liaison between their ideas and an audience ready to analyze them.” In addition to writings on individual Axis releases, the magazine includes interviews with DVS1, Terrence Dixon and Jonas Kopp, among other features.

“The creation of The Escape Velocity artists program and magazine are our contributions to these topics,” reads a statement by Jeff Mills, who serves as editor in chief. “We’re ready to examine and explore all that revolves around the mechanics of creativity. Subjects that at first glance, may not appear to be influential to what you hear, but are in fact, primary reasons that had help fuel many creative efforts by many electronic musicians and artists for decades.”

Read the first issue of The Escape Velocity Magazine here.

“Suadade” offers up tranquil atmospheres and otherworldly sound effects, followed by the more brisk-paced “Alcantara.” On the flip side, “Konsequenz” builds tension with a darker melody and growling bass before “Atlantico” explores dynamic percussion. The digital release includes “Radikale,” a bonus track with more dance floor-friendly peaks and valleys.

The EP description describes Surrogate as a “veteran producer” who has released music almost entirely under a single alias over the past 20 years. It gives no additional details regarding their identity or follow-up releases.

DVS1 (real name Zak Khutoretsky) boasts an electronic music career dating back to the early ’90s. He runs a 4,000-square-foot Minneapolis warehouse space where he hosts his Future Classic events, and his Wall Of Sound events in the Netherlands are intended to make the sound system the star while the DJ performs in a darkened booth. In December he released his debut studio-length album, Beta Sensory Motor Rhythm, by way of Jeff Mills‘ Axis Records.

Pre-order for MISTRESS 15 opens on Friday, February 5th.

The range of sound explored by DVS1 (real name Zak Khutoretski) throughout the album touches on eclectic influences while still making a singular sonic statement. “Alpha-Theta” opens Beta Sensory Motor Rhythm with tranquil ambient textures before percussive elements foretell of what the rest of the album holds in store. “Drifting” and “Transient Response” each offer suspenseful disharmonies as their centerpiece, whereas tracks like “Delta Wave,” “The Five Aggregates” and “Solfäge’s Framework” are largely defined by dubby, meditative drone.

If the titles weren’t a clear enough indicator, Beta Sensory Motor Rhythm derives conceptual influence from sleep state sensorimotor activity. “From the perceiving body to the liminal space of the dream-state, audible frequencies send a neurofeedback message,” reads an album description on the Axis Records website. “A paradigm-shift is activated in the mind. A movement from the present hour toward the realm beyond measure.”

A Russian-born immigrant, Khutoretski began his electronic music career in Minneapolis in the early ’90s. In addition to running a 4,000-square-foot warehouse venue where he hosts his Future Classic event series (COVID-19 pandemic notwithstanding), he’s the brainchild behind the Wall Of Sound events in which DJs perform in a darkened booth while the sound system takes center stage. His last release was the six-track Hush 20 which came out via his own label, HUSH, in 2017.

Beta Sensory Motor Rhythm by DVS1 is available in digital format via the Axis Records website.

“Jeff Mills, who is one of the leading black techno artists in the world, one of the founders of UR (Underground Resistance) and a leading voice in music as a true art form, recently changed his profile picture to a Black Lives Matter image,” wrote DVS1 (real name Zak Khutoretsky) in a Facebook post. “After posting this image, many people have gone on to argue that “all lives matter” and jumped to say they are leaving his page because he has posted that as his image.”

Rather than vilify specific social media commentators, Khutoretski touched on techno’s legacy in “art and revolution,” explaining why responding with “all lives matter” can come across as tone deaf. He wrote, “Imagine if every time you complain about an ache or a pain in your body to someone, imagine if the person you asked for help, instead of hearing your pain and acknowledging it, simply responded with ‘What about me? I have pain too!'”

Techno Rebels

To know Mills’ place in techno’s revolutionary history is to understand why Khutoretski takes issue with fans dismissing the techno veteran’s voice in particular. As Selector recently explored, Underground Resistance were arguably the biggest reason the genre belongs in any conversation about protest music.

The label and DJ collective branded themselves with themes of militant uprising, posing incisive social commentary about the whitewashing of black music. Routinely performing in ski masks with the underlying mission of empowering young, African-American men, their artistic statement is eerily relevant amid the tumultuous events defining 2020 thus far.

This isn’t the first tike Khutoretski has spoken about the Black Lives Matter protests. Being that they erupted in the wake of George Floyd‘s apparent murder at the hands of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, he and fellow Minneapolis artist Dustin Zahn were among the first figures in dance music to voice their advocacy.

Mills has not publicly addressed any of the comments on his recent Facebook posts himself.

DVS1 (real name Zak Khutoretsky) voiced his support for those demonstrating. “I can’t condone all the behavior surrounding the protests, riots, looting, and violence, but I 100% stand by the reasons this is all happening and I can understand why it’s happening,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “When peaceful protest goes unheard, riots happen, uproar happens. When you don’t hear the voice of someone speaking quietly, they speak LOUDLY.”

Zahn made more pointed commentary, criticizing electronic music influencers for inaction. “I must admit the lack of support from the underground dance community regarding the week’s past events is pretty disappointing considering our culture is entirely indebted to black roots,” his Facebook post began. “The biggest voices in the industry are doing nothing and saying nothing. Your top-tier DJs have made nothing more than whispers and Resident Advisor has barely acknowledged the situation. They should all be ashamed of themselves.”

Compared to the outpouring around the 2018 Tbilisi raids, Zahn asserted that key industry personalities have remained absent from the conversation. “Most popular acts have said NOTHING while others posted an MLK quote, hashtagged George Floyd, and called it a day,” he wrote. “Today’s use of excessive force is 1,000 times the cause everyone fought for two years ago but nobody is doing anything to raise awareness.”

As Selector has recently explored, techno is not only rooted in African American culture but protest as well. Often called “the Public Enemy of techno,” Underground Resistance incorporated themes of uprising into their brand to make social commentary on the whitewashing of black music.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Wednesday that Chauvin’s charge would be upgraded from third to second-degree murder. The other three officers present during the incident have been arrested and charged with aiding and abetting.

Minneapolis DJ, producer and promoter Steven Centrific (real name Steven Seuling) interviewed DVS1 (real name Zak Khutoretski) for a segment wedged between DJ sets comprising his April 25th, 2020 Twitch live stream event, Distant Future. Sitting an appropriate social distance from Seuling, Khutoretski touched on coronavirus uncertainties with reassuring optimism. Continued access to the 4,000-square-foot warehouse in which he hosts his Future Classic parties has allowed him to focus on music and safely visit with friends, he said, surely a factor in his warm disposition.

That’s not all. Such deeply rooted local presence is the very thing he thinks could help him and others like him weather the storm.

“I’m in a unique position – as is, I think, anybody who has a local community and a local scene. The world could fall apart around us, but I can come home to Minneapolis,” Khutoretski said. “I can do these parties and I can have a local base here that a lot of touring DJs either lost or never had. In the countries they come from, they weren’t built around local scenes, they were just built to get big, and have big parties and bring big names, and that was what they looked towards.”

Watch Distant Future from centrificmpls on www.twitch.tv

Khutoretsky pointed out that prior to the the COVID-19 crisis, certain Minneapolis acts commanded enough of a draw to sell out events without assistance from touring acts. He speculated that further removing them from the equation might provide opportunities for more locals to achieve such status.

“I’m really hoping that this starts to grow local scenes again,” he said. “When clubs reopen, does anyone really need to book a headliner and spend a bunch of money? The reality is we have a lot of amazing locals in a lot of territories around the world who have never had a chance to shine, and those people will now be able to pack a club.”

Khutoretsky is not the first thought leader in techno to describe a scenario in which pandemic fallout democratizes the arts and entertainment. Not long ago, English electronic music veteran Dave Clarke explained why he was “hopeful for this reset” in a social media post. “I think clubs will be the first to reboot, and something I said a while ago is that the ‘Artisan DJ’ may be important as opposed to having 90% of talent flown around the globe,” he wrote.

Devious Track Record

Khutoretsky has long criticized the cult of personality that has gradually emerged around DJs. A Russian-born immigrant who spent a year in juvenile hall for distributing LSD, his career in electronic music dates back to the early ’90s. In addition to DJing and producing under the DVS1 (pronounced “devious one”) alias, he has launched event brands like HUSH Productions and venues like Foundation interwoven with Minneapolis electronic music history.

More recently, Khutoretsky has introduced event formats designed to place sound ahead of stardom. His Wall Of Sound gatherings relegate DJs to a darkened booth while monolithic speaker stacks take center stage. In a 2018 interview with DJ Mag, he postulated that the rise of festivals contributed to a broader dilution of the electronic music experience. He went on to say that he had stopped live streaming DJ sets for similar reasons – likely among the reasons he did not perform for Distant Future.

Khutoretsky has managed to hold onto the Future Classic space for 11 years, and the parties have virtually grown synonymous with the Minneapolis scene. Initially headlined only by him and other local DJs, the gatherings eventually showcased venerated tastemakers like Jeff Mills and Danny Tenaglia on the condition of confidentiality. He told Seuling that he was confident the pandemic wouldn’t derail the brand. The two of them recounted how issues with neighbors once forced Khutoretsky to go nine months without an event, but he managed to pick up where he left off.

Dustin Zahn, Z.I.P.P.O. and Petra were among the artists who performed on live stream during Distant Future. A video recording of Zahn’s set can be found on Steven Centrific’s Twitch channel.

Image credit: Yonathan Baraki