St Hollywood Bbys - Mx Silkman
From Twitter DMs to actually coming to Bucharest from fuckin Cleveland, Ohio, Aerin Ercolea aka Mx Silkman is one of our most cherished friends and supporters.
Her musical journey to techno took the roundabout way of noise and power electronics, a raw nihilism you can still hear in her rugged, industrial-heavy sets. But the kind of techno she plays is fast, angry and cathartic. Aerin is also one of the few people we know who’s playing only vinyl and not being a snob about it. She’s been amassing records for over fifteen years and her collection was heavily influenced by growing up in the post-industrial Midwestern landscape.
Her love for all things gay, anarchist and techno also lead to the creation of In Training, an autonomous queer party striving to offer a space for marginalized communities, together with Father of Two and Kiernan Laveaux. For over four years, In Training has been responsible for curating nearly 50 monthly parties “that present a diverse range of performances that captures the essence of electronic music as an expression of hope and strength in the face of a dehumanizing and alienating society”, as she likes to put it.
She also makes music under the alias Auton, combining hypnotic, acid-infused techno with anarchist references from her Italian heritage. The mesmerizing La Lotta Continua was released last year via Doc Sleeps' excellent label Jacktone.
She sent us three tracks that inspire her before her coming to play Saint Hollywood and we're thrilled to finally be able to share them with yall!
Dollar bin find from a collection I found in Cleveland belonging to a rave DJ who died. His graffiti tag is all over the jacket I found this in written in silver marker. RIP DJ Gank.
Ripping deep off-kilter “hard minimalism” from 90s Germany. These two are like if Basic Channel and all their aliases used sonar radio recordings instead of dub reggae as their main influence. Definitely a dancefloor-clearer
Very sparse fast techno (Proto-trance?) That builds slowly over nearly 15 minutes. Absolute k-hole music. Too fast to play it all the time, which adds to how great of a track it is. The A-side is similarly great if you like rave whistle noises. Another find from the collection of the deceased DJ Gank. A shame we never met, as he had impeccable taste and has been a shadow-influence on myself and my friends since rescuing his collection from moldering at a resale shop.
