DJ Dine & Dash: Lofi On The Brain
The SAFE EP from Calgary-based artist DJ Dine & Dash, the moniker of Liam Mackenzie, is a window into an emerging ethos in dance music.
Mackenzie firmly aligns himself with lofi house, a genre that’s been rapidly emerging thanks to the help of YouTube’s suggested videos algorithms.
Contrary to the incredibly polished and meticulously mastered nature of contemporary dance music, lofi house purposely tries to sound as if it was hobbled together on rudimentary equipment.
The upper frequencies are often slightly muted, giving the tracks a flat feeling. The melodies and the drums, meanwhile, sound like they were recorded with a tape recorder.
While this may sound undesirable in today’s climate, the genre prides itself on its contrarian nature.
DJ Seinfeld, one of the genre’s central figures, compared it to punk and metal, calling it the equivalent of “people rocking out in someone’s garage somewhere.”
Ross From Friends, another key figure, shared this sentiment, calling it a reaction to the “hi-fi soundscape we’re living in where every producer is striving for perfection.”
Mackenzie lists both of these figures as the main influences behind the SAFE EP, echoing their sentiments towards the music.
“The characteristics of the EP have mainly been influenced by the acts of DJ Seinfeld, he’s one of the biggest ones, and Ross From Friends, just because they really include a lot of natural characteristics,” says Mackenzie.
“Not everything is super polished, which is nice to hear, especially nowadays because, don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have nice polished music but there’s a lot of that at clubs.”
Lofi house also alludes to the house music of the early 90’s, a time when house was driven by pieces of hardware like drum machines and samplers.
This isn’t the first time Mackenzie has been drawn to “netstalgia.” His first major musical endeavour was “Advances,” a live band that played Sled Island in 2016.
The group called themselves “Disco Dreamcore,” and their songs harnessed the feeling of raw, unadulterated synthesizers and retro effects.
When Mackenzie began producing his first influences where artists like Shlohmo, an electronica producer known for capturing the hazy atmosphere of 90’s RnB, and DJ Paypal, a footwork producer known for putting washed-out samples in his tracks and calling it “Mall Music.”
Mackenzie describes this as a kind of spiritual predecessor to lofi house.
“There was definitely that first wave of Soundcloud sub genre which was like Soulection, and they’re really good, but I feel like lofi house music is going to be more the second wave of the sub genre on Soundcloud,” he says.
After this, Mackenzie’s next main influence wasn’t a genre, but a medium.
“As time went on I got into more collecting records and figuring out, discovering samplers and different types of samplers,” he says.
This meant spending hours a day online digging for records, often of the “disco house” genre, that were only released online.
“Those are my big influences, definitely the underground culture collecting vinyl,” says Mackenzie.
From the onset of his time as a producer Mackenzie has been dialled into the fresh culture being generated by the back lanes of Soundcloud. All of these diverse influences have led to the SAFE EP, released on Calgary-based label VRNT, being a veritable compilation album of the internet’s most cutting edge sounds.
There’s the future-funk inspired “Dance,” the footwork offering “Footsie,” the haunting minimal techno title track “SAFE,” and the lofi house-styled “Skrappy’s Crush.”
Although these each represent different genres, each one harnesses the same feeling of nostalgia driven rawness.
He points to the last track as one that stands out genre-wise, but follows the album thematically.
“And then the last one [Footsie] is kind of the tail end, out of all of them it almost doesn’t fit in there, but I think it does just because of the simplicity,” he says.
One of the central elements in the EP is also the use of melodies, a trait shared by the lofi house movement on the whole.
Whereas house and techno are often designed with the club in mind, part of the appeal of lofi house is that it’s also seemingly designed for the drive home after the club closes.
Mackenzie cites this as one of the main reasons for the genre’s popularity among young people.
“I think the characteristics of the music is very moody, the chord progression is really well done, lofi house music has very emotional chord progressions, almost like rock, some of them,” says Mackenzie.
“And that’s true because some of them actually do sample rock songs, but yeah the teens they just [have] teen angst and they like to feel emotion, and I feel like a lot of lofi house can help them relate to that.”
Because of this he also believes there’s an entire untapped market out there of young people who listen to house music, and experience it through the blogosphere, but have never been to a club.
“Especially in high schools, Tumblr’s so big in high schools,” says Mackenzie.
Despite the genre’s success it’s still not without its detractors. Last year a journalist from The Quietus accused lofi producers of having “no original ideas.” An article on Fact posited that the current wave of lofi artists seemingly lean on “humour and irony.”
The SAFE EP contradicts both of these. It serves as an example of how the lofi philosophy can easily be ported to other genres to breathe new life into them. While the imagery and artists names associated with lofi may be ironic, Mackenzie believes the genre mirrors the direction that electronica on the whole is headed.
“There’s good lofi and there’s bad lofi house music, but with that said, a lot of music is sampled nowadays - mainstream, other house music, deep house,” says Mackenzie.
“It’s like regular deep house music with more of an edge.”
Mackenzie is currently working on starting a new night next year that will bring this Soundcloud, blogosphere culture to a club environment. There’s a high likelihood that by that time there’ll be new emerging trends in electronica, but if Mackenzie’s history guarantees one thing, it’s that he’ll be on top of it and ready to warp it into something new.
Follow DJ Dine & Dash on Soundcloud at https://soundcloud.com/ddad
Also catch him opening for lofi heavyweight DJ Boring in February, details at https://www.facebook.com/events/798271930354761/
Follow Wavelength on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/WavelengthINTL/
Words by Jonathan Crane
