SharedViews Mixtape Sessions - Vol 15 feat. Emyli Dahlia (Full Interview Included)
EMYLI DAHLIA
Hometown: Sharon, MA
Labels: Beyond.Collective | Strange People
Genre: Techno | Acid
Contact: emyli.dahlia@gmail.com
Social Media:
There is an alien in our midst. She’s from the Purple Planet, it’s exact locations unknown. This alien’s human name is Emyli Dahlia. She is a tatted up, petite, pixie-gothic-techno princess on a mission to infiltrate the Denver Techno scene and collect info at 140 bpm. She lurks in the underground, honing in her craft and raising eyebrows and energy throughout clubs and warehouses across the city.
There’s not a lot of local press given to Denver’s robust and accelerating Techno scene. If you hadn’t known, there are plenty of great promotion/production companies that are bringing in some of the world’s greatest DJ’s on the regular, including Mahesh Presents, Whirling Dervish, Afterhours Anonymous, and The Hundred Presents. Whether through the SoCo network, warehouses, rooftops in unexpected places, or area bars, you can find an exciting spectrum of different sub-genres of Techno (local or international artists) on any given day of the week.
In the three years since Emyli first jumped behind the decks, she’s racked up an impressive resume. She’s shared the wheel with world-class talents such as Maya Jane Coles, Charlotte De Witte, Joseph Capriati, Pig & Dan, and Deborah De Luca. She’s played at all the top clubs in town, she’s rocked Vegas, Miami, and Costa Rica with her bestie Meli Rodriguez. In fact, they are down working the main room together at Club Vertigo in San Jose, Costa Rica as this story is being released!
Emyli chose wisely, teaming up with the hardworking and clever minds over at emerging label, Beyond.Collective. Gabriel Taverez (Owner) and Sergio Perez (Label Manager) (aka Lever Wright ) have assembled an eclectic and formidable roster, including the likes of Kevin Kevin Callison, Lexi Fey, Sergio Santana, Seth Nichols (Owner at Eko House & Love Vinyl Records), Sevin and Zil. They’ve released music from Meli Rodriguez and Michael Rosa (Strange People | Desert Hearts), as well as original tracks from Lever Wright. This year they plan a surge of new releases, including original work from Ms. Dahlia.
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2020 - “DAY ONE”: ROARING 20’S PARTY
I show my ticket and enter the Main Room at Bar Standard. Spot familiar faces and eventually my crew. Ravers gyrating and swaying back-and-forth with the standard left foot, right foot (always reminds me of someone doing Calisthenics), dressed in an array of mostly animal onesies. Some people with too much time on their hands assembled and displayed their own “roaring 20’s” regalia. We’re off to an electric start to the new day decade, many of Denver’s House and Techno brethren haven’t slept a wink, looking haggard.
This event is the 20th anniversary of the Day 1 party, hosted by Outta our Heads and Norad. Christian Martin (Dirtybird) is the usual headliner and the rest of the lineup is stacked with Denver’s finest House + Techno artists.
I kneel down and scoop up a crumpled $20 bill on the floor and head straight to the bar. I make my way downstairs where there are two main rooms to groove to. If you’re not familiar, the first room you’ll encounter straight ahead from the stairs is what I call the Clockwork Orange Room. It is orange, it is Kubrikian. Dare I say more?
Today it’s Drum & Bass, which I’m not all that well-versed in, nor interested in learning how to dance to. The room next door to the left is the dungeonous Milk Bar. Milk keeps the lights down low with a red hue. The tiny stage is right on top of the dance floor, which becomes cramped and sweaty on a busy night. If you wander past the stage, you’ll find rows of red-cushioned booths prime for debauchery. If these walls could talk.
I head back upstairs, asking randoms “where’s the Techno Room?” Oh, it’s at the Salty Dog. Head outside, go left and… nope! Ah hell. Finally, make my way into Salty Dog and saddle up at the bar near the decks.
Emyli Dahlia. Techno, ninja, fairy. I’ve walked into high octane, 140 bpm Trance Techno. Haunting melodies in minor chords float in the background, providing a contrast to the punching beats and darker bass notes. Alienesque bleeps and bloops abound. I missed the first act of her set, where she warmed the crowd up with a fast, electro-party sound. She reads the crowd well and unloads banger after banger, to the delight of the swelling audience. All the while, headliner Christian Martin’s set begins next door.
She flexes her skills behind the Pioneer CDJ, playing through the Hedd_Sound System. She’s laser-focused, tinkering about, but she spends sufficient time giving her fans some love while she blisses out. She’s flowing her arms and hands to the melodies. When she’s on a heater and fully transitioned, she gives a wry smile and does this Rock-Em-Sock-Em Robots locomotion. Left-right-left-right. Cute.
At this point, people are enquiring why I’m scribbling wild notes onto my notepad. “Emyli is the sweetest gal on the planet,” says Jon Moeller, a friend, and supporter. Duly noted.
She closes her set strong without a dud and makes her way to the Clockwork Orange room to catch Drum & Bass legend, R.A.W. I catch an hour of Christian Martin dropping a Dirtybird-style club night set. I hugged who I needed to and hit the pavement while there’s still light out.
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Recently I had the opportunity to sit down with the mysterious and magnetic (and enigmatic) Emyli for an hour to discuss subjects like her career aspirations, her thoughts on the scene, her development as a person, the obstacles she has overcome, and much more. The Denver Techno scene is one of the best in the country, and SharedViews is on the beat to bring you the rising stars who carry the flag into the future.
Major shout out to the very skillful and creative photographer and media wizard, Rob Coca. I think it’s fair to speak for the three of us that Emyli’s photoshoot was a lot of fun!
Ladies and gentlemen, without further adieu, may I present to you our engaging interview with Emyli Dahlia. Enjoy!
Emyli: How crazy of a vibe was that party on Day 1? I love Denver! It used to be just a hot mess at the strip club.
SharedViews: First Day 1 I’ve made - I usually buy a ticket and end up too haggard to attend. Didn’t you do a gig at Diamond Cabaret at one point?
Emyli: Oh my gosh! Yes, I did. I was super nervous about what to play. As soon as I got there the strippers were asking me “do you have any Bassnectar?”. I said ‘I don’t have anything even close to Bassnectar, but I have stuff you girls can shake it to, I promise’.
So I played a lot of Ghetto Tech, and basically every remix I could dig up on my USB of popular songs. But there were some people a part of the production (Diamond Cabaret management) that weren’t happy with me. But the strippers actually loved it, and they kept tipping me, which was really surprising and cool. And the crowd was hilarious because from where I was standing, from the right of me was the strip club crowd and they were paying attention to the girls and giving money. And to the left was my fan club and a group of friends just dancing to the techno. It was this funny blend. I love that about Denver, how we can bring Techno to these different venues. It’s like when you go to Lodo’s and there are these people watching football and eating wings, and there’s us raving.
SV: So you played a show on New Year’s Eve, correct? Did you play one of your Acid Tech sets?
Emyli: The show I played on New Year’s Eve was at Tennyson Tap that I co-hosted with Ryan Mack, who is a resident DJ. I closed and I played a really hard Techno set. I do throw a party called “Acid Night” at Tennyson’s. I do one every 3 months.
SV: You played a late set, and then you have to go on at noon the next day. It’s not like you get out from behind stage and want to go to sleep on NYE, right? What did that night look like? Did you at least get a disco nap in?
Emyli: I kept wondering how the night was going to go because my group of friends is going to want to come to my house afterward. I live near Tennyson’s and it’s just our tradition. So people came over and I played music for a while longer, but I wasn’t partying, so I took a nap and let my friends handle things at the house. I got up around 7 am so it was really just a nap. We all got ready and rallied. That’s kinda my dream life- going from gig to gig- I don’t care about the struggle.
SV: With your daytime set (NYD) you went pretty hard. I’m more of a House-head; school me on some of what you played.
Emyli: I started the set with fast, electro, broken beat type of music. Kinda what I would call real ‘party music’. It’s the Techno Room so I knew I was expected to slam Techno, which is what I normally do. I started with some funkier stuff. I played some Ghetto Tech, like DJ Godfather, which is more old school. Then I segway'd into, I guess what you would call ‘Trance-y Techno and melodic Techno’.
SV: Would you call it “Progressive”?
Emyli: Melodic Techno is slower than I’m used to playing, with longer breakdowns, more empty space. The music I’ve been playing is a lot of European producers who are making really fast Techno. And I’m really drawn to these very sad sounding, minor-key chord progressions. I call it ‘Cry Techno’. It moves me. I love that music can be so hard and still be so beautiful. 140 bpm is my comfort zone.
SV: Tell us about this mixtape, Vol. 15 of our mixtape sessions. What direction did you decide to take and why?
Emyli: This minimix highlights some of my favorite tracks of 2019 by artists like Anetha, Kobosil, and Schacke. It incorporates emotional melodies and acid lines with fast, driving, tribal percussion. I love layering heartbreaking minor chord progressions over hard hitting, industrial dance beats. I want to make you dance and sweat and cry and hear an emotional side of hard techno. Straight from my chest to your ears.
SV: I’m interested in some of your current and past influences, labels you follow, any artists you’re currently following.
Emyli: I love Nina Kraviz’ label, Trip Records; Hector Oaks label, Kaos, Fast Forward Productions is this crew out of Copenhagen (Denmark) that I played a lot on New Year’s. Artists…Vladimir Dubyshkin. His production is absolutely amazing. I bought his first EP at a record store in Barcelona randomly. I just was selecting random records and thought ‘this one is hot pink; I’ll give it a shot’. His two albums are inspiring to me. Dave Clarke is one of my favorite DJ’s to see live. I love his mixing style, he kinda mixes Techno like it’s Hip Hop. Lots of quick cuts. There’s this guy, Martin Schacke, who is one of those guys out of Copenhagen.
SV: You’ve spent a lot of time in Europe, have you had a chance to play while you’re out there?
Emyli: Not really. When I’ve taken trips out there I’ve called it R & D. I love going to parties in Europe. It’s really shaped my taste over the last couple of years.
SV: What were some parties like that you’ve been to during your travels?
Emyli: It kinda started a little over a year ago. I called it my ‘Eat, Pray, Techno Trip’. I was going through some personal issues and needed some space. I planned it around certain festivals. I started at Sonus Festival in Croatia, Awakenings and Time Warp, which was in Dusseldorf, Germany. Then I went to ADE in Amsterdam. I’ve gone to ADE before and that festival has been life-changing for me. It completely changes my perspective on music every time I go. It’s a conglomeration of all the best electronic music in the world. It’s completely overwhelming, amazing, and will totally change your life.
Over the course of the trip, I went to a bunch of other smaller shows and did some touristy things too. I went to Berlin and went to all the clubs there. I’ve done Berlin a few times, now. I’ve made some connections - I made some big connections in Barcelona. I will have a gig there eventually, as well as Amsterdam.
SV: How would you describe your sound?
Emyli: I think what most people consider what I play to be a “Big Room Techno” sound because it’s a little more ravey. I don’t like that phrase because I think it implies something like a Decadence (mainstream EDM) thing. Commercial music.
SV: I would like to learn a little about your musical background. Were you always into electronic music?
Emyli: Nope. So not a lot of people know this about me but I started playing the harp when I was 4 years old. My dad had a cassette tape of harp music in his car that he would listen to on his way to and home from work, kinda to relax. And I had a lot of health problems, really my whole life, but I was young and they didn’t know what was going on with me yet. So I would stay out of school and go to work with my dad. I thought it was some kind of piano and I would play air-piano because I was so in love with it. At some point, I found out what the harp was. So I begged and begged and my parents rented me one. My parents were really encouraging of extracurriculars, and I’m an only child, they’re a little bit older, and they wanted me to be artsy, so I dance and whatever. I started taking lessons and still loved it so they bought me one. I was maybe ten. I still have the same one. I haven’t been playing it because it needs to be re-strung.
When I was a teenager I got into punk rock and really into the emo thing. Then I moved to Colorado after college, and because of the Burning Man community, I got into Bass music for a while. I really liked Drum & Bass, and then the whole Dubstep thing happened. I got into that, but when I started getting into Techno it was a different thing. This was the music I was looking for. I was always really passionate about the music I was into. It’s always been my main drive in life. Techno is it, for me.
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SV: You moved here to Denver after college. Was there a reason you chose to come here over other places?
Emyli: I came to Boulder initially and the reason is I went college for digital media, like the interactive design. I had my internship in California with a snowboard company. I’ve always been an avid snowboarder. When I moved to Colorado, I knew I wanted to work in the ski industry and action sports industry, and also ride some real mountains.
I got a job in Boulder very quickly as a production assistant for Warren Miller, which is a ski company. They own a ski magazine, as well. I worked there for 5 years and then got laid off.
SV: So let’s circle back. You must’ve gone to shows in Boston as a kid.
Emyli: Yes. I was definitely not a popular kid in high school, and I dealt with it by going to the city a lot, meeting friends from other towns and going to a lot of punk shows.
SV: How did you get started DJ’ing?
Emyli: The whole DJ thing came about in a crazy way. I was becoming a DJ before I made the choice that this is what I’m doing. It just kind of happened, like it was meant to be. When I was trying to decide what my DJ name would be, I wanted to keep my name so other people would know it was me. It’s been about three years since I started.
SV: How did you get connected to Beyond.Collective?
Emyli: It was so cool. I love Gabe (Taverez), by the way. He’s amazing! He had posted on Facebook stating ‘We’re doing a locals-only show for Thanksgiving at Eko House, post your mixes’, which Eko House was kinda the Techno stomping grounds for a long time. I had been messing around on a little Traktor controller, recording myself, and putting them on Soundcloud just for fun. So I posted it (to Gabe on Facebook) and he asked if I wanted to open (the show). I was like “Oh my God! I can’t believe it,” and I didn’t even know how to really use CDJ’s. I brought my controller with me like such a nerd and I played alright. I met a lot of people that night that are now some of my best friends.
When I did start playing on CDJ’s it was really funny as well. It’s almost like a metaphor for this whole experience for me. Someone dropped out from a Milk Bar gig on a Thursday and either Kevin (Callison) or Seth (Nichols) messaged me. ‘Hey, you know how to play on CDJ’s, right? Can you come play at Milk Bar?’ I was like “yep! Totally.” I didn’t know how to do it. It was a challenging moment up there. I was sweating!
SV: Did you eventually have any mentors?
Emyli: I did. My friend Nick Louie, who is a part of P.U.N.C.H.I.S. crew. He plays more of a minimal, micro-House style. He helped me a lot. He’s almost like the guy…who is the old guy from Karate Kid? He’s my Jedi-master. He made me learn beat-matching and mixing from the ground up. I am grateful to him for that because I now have an understanding of how equipment works.
SV: How do you approach any given set?
Emyli: I have a plan- I go into it with an idea of the venue, the time-slot, and who I know is going to the party. Even who booked me. Like, what kind of vibe they like. And from that, I’ll make a playlist. If it’s an hour and a half set, maybe select 60-70 tracks on my playlist, which is about twice as many as I’ll play. Then I’ll usually order them by the key signature because I like to keep everything harmonic, especially because I play a lot of melodic tracks. So I’ll put them in order, but when I’m playing I don’t know where in that playlist I’m going to start because I base it on what the person before me is going to play. Then I’ll jump around. There have been a couple of times when I’ve made a playlist that was totally wrong. So I’ll use my USB to find another playlist. You learn, whether it’s a daytime show or a festival, there’s a lot to consider.
SV: Have you started working on music production?
Emyli: Yes! It’s a hard thing to talk about when you haven’t released anything, which I haven’t. But I’m currently learning so much.
There are so many ways to do one thing in Ableton - there’s like ten different ways. I’m at the point where I know how to do things one way. I’m learning though and it’s been a lot of fun. I’m learning about the hardware, as well. I actually bought some hardware. I haven’t gotten to play with it yet. It’s really exciting and sometimes I’m scared, but I know I can do it. I’ll definitely have music out by the summer.
SV: What are your thoughts on the Denver scene? Has being a woman in an industry that is predominantly male affected your path for you and others?
Emyli: Yes, of course. Being a woman in any industry, there’s a difference. But especially in a performance-based industry. I’ve had to deal with a lot of insecurities (from men), especially over the last year as I have been coming up in Denver. Is it the music? Is it because I’m female? Are people just being nice to me because I’m a girl? Is it because you’ve been playing longer than I have?
On the one hand, I’ve had so much support and I can’t even believe it sometimes. Like when I had that first gig at Milk Bar and Louie came up on stage and DJ’d with me. I have so many people holding my hand right now. I’m not the best DJ. I haven’t been doing this thing as long as many other people in the scene. But I tell myself to stay positive, it’s not just about your technical skills. It’s about track selection, it’s about your energy and vibe. There’s plenty of DJ’s that have so much talent, it doesn’t matter if they don’t have stage presence. It’s because their music is so amazing. My style is to really engage with people in the crowd. I want to party with them. I do weird things with my hands, I have funny dance moves.
When I plan a set, it’s not just songs, it’s the whole thing. It’s a story and I try to suck people in at the beginning, then I bring them down a little bit, then I have a peak, then I bring it down again with the energy level. It really worked at the Day One set because I could feel the energy in the crowd and it felt magical.
SV: I would say your fashion style (and persona) brings another element. Do you agree?
Emyli: I want to be fun to look at. I want to look psychedelic. I want it to look good with how it sounds.
SV: Tell us about your Acid Techno Nights you’ve been hosting.
Emyli: I love Acid because of all the parties I went to in Europe, especially Amsterdam. There’s not a lot of opportunity in Denver to play it. It’s a very weird sound. It’s a squelchy, grimy, aggressive sound. I never thought about throwing a party. I never wanted to be a promoter. But when we kinda took over Tuesdays at Tennyson’s Tap, Seth Nichols throws his Love Vinyl Nights, and Lexi Fey throws her House of Fey Nights. I asked Gabe, “what if I threw an Acid night?”.
The first party was amazing! It was just such a dance party on a Tuesday night. So we started doing it quarterly. I’m about to throw my third one and it seems like every time one is over I need to start planning the next one.
I love Denver, I don’t even know how it happened. I love this style of music and wasn’t sure if anyone else would. I just needed a stage and an opportunity for it.
SV: Let’s switch gears. I was informed that you have a chronic health condition and it has created challenges for you. Would you care to discuss?
Emyli: Yes, no problem. I have Crohn’s Disease, which is an autoimmune disorder. When I was a child it was ear and sinus infections and I was sick all the time. I was so little. When I was in Elementary school I was weirdly skinny and little. I think I was in 4th grade when I finally got diagnosed. It took a long time.
SV: Do you take immunosuppressant drugs?
Emyli: I do. I’ve had a lot of surgeries and right before I started DJ’ing I got really sick and I had three surgeries in one year. It was really traumatic for me. But when I recovered I had this new attitude about life. I don’t want to judge my life on someone else’s idea of success. For me, success is feeling like I did a good job at the end of the day. If playing music makes me feel that way, then that’s what I’m going to do.
I’m on medication now, which is an infusion. I go into the hospital for it once a month, and it’s called BioLogic. It’s an immunosuppressant and it’s working. I’m very cautious about not getting sick, so I don’t share drinks with others, I don’t drink alcohol, and I do what I can to stay healthy. I’ve gotten really into fitness since the surgeries. I’ve lost like 40 pounds.
After all that I got my certification as a personal trainer and I’m a Yoga teacher. I do private sessions right now, so if anyone is interested in getting trained, I can set it to music and we can get you in shape. It’s fun! It’s something that moves me and I’m passionate about it.
I’m also into arts and crafts. I have a company on Etsy called Gold Dust. I make yoga clothes, yoga mats, leggings, t-shirts, etc.
SV: Thank you for your time, Emyli!
Emyli: My pleasure!
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