Feature

It’s a Small, Spinning World

And DJ /Rupture connects every last corner of it.

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By Bob Hammond
Published Nov 8, 2009

(Photo: Courtesy of D.J. Rupture)

Jace Clayton, a.k.a. DJ /Rupture, is a one-man musical Venn diagram, linking up genres, people, styles, and beats. After seven years in Spain, he felt the call of “the land of caffeine and stress” and returned here, where he’s fallen for cumbia (something you’re more likely to hear in Nueva York than Barcelona). He also co-founded the Dutty Artz D.J. and production crew, hosts a show “Mudd Up!” on WFMU, and last year released the acclaimed Uproot mix tape. His follow-up, Solar Life Raft, with producer Matt Shadetek, is a homegrown affair, featuring everyone from Brooklyn art-rockers Gang Gang Dance to composer Nico Muhly.

In a lot of your mixes, there are moments where the mix just completely breaks down.
“Why the rupture, Rupture?” [Laughs] Well, back in the day, when I began D.J.-ing, I was in Boston. I really dislike Boston. It’s a cold, racist, segregated city, and musically it’s super-segregated. People weren’t mixing anything up at all. I was into this idea of ruptures, of disrupting the dance-floor logic by some dynamic event where the beat disappears. It’s almost like it goes from music to sound—it just jars you into hearing things in a new light.

What kind of mixing up is going on here? It sometimes seems like there is not much collaboration between the indie-rock scene and the electronic-music scene.
I don’t get out so much to see guitar-band shows in New York. I feel that it’s still a very rockist city.

Which groups do you like, though?
Gang Gang Dance is amazing, and Telepathe. Those are two of my favorite bands. Both are really working with non-indie rock structures, channeling all these electronic sounds.

Everyone uses the Internet to propagate music. Does location matter at all?
Actually, location matters a lot. It’s still local relevance that helps propel sounds into international recognition. The scene in Brooklyn is so specific to place—people still want that.

The liner notes for Solar Life Raft suggest that the Brooklyn scene could evolve.
It sort of paints a picture of New York 40 years in the future, where the water line is at the fourth story of buildings and the rich people are dry in the Catskills. Kids are making music on their cell phones and grilling octopi. So, it’s postapocalyptic, but not necessarily grim.