Darien J - A Track A Week For An Entire Year - Meet One of Brighton's Busiest Producers

We're so excited to bring back our Brighton Mixtapes Series. Since the success of our beloved Berlin Mixtapes Series, which has featured awesome guests so far, we felt there was a real gap in terms of showcasing the amazing talent within our own home city right here in Brighton. We have a wide spectrum of artists that span acrossany genres therefore we decided we would create the 'Brighton Mixtapes' Series, so that we can not only showcase established artists but also feature up and coming musicians that would like a platform to be heard.

Equally, whilst our focus at Berlin has always been somewhere between Deep House and Techno we can now open up and extend a wider reach into other genres that Brighton has to offer. Also each artist will be subject to a series of one answer quick-fire questions to accompany each guest mix to give readers a quirky insight into the artists' likes and dislikes.

Next up we bring you Darien J a producer, curator and mixer of deep atmospheric club music. He has a firm belief that dance music is for dancing not chin scratching, foot gazing, ego stroking or selfie taking. Darien constantly absorbs wide-ranging influences and like a musical sponge is wrung out on radio stations and dancefloors around the world.

Totally ignoring genre limitations he manages to combine elements from the deepest side of house, electronica and techno in both his DJ sets and productions.

Since his debut release of The Dubstar EP on Cubism Records in 2008 his skills in the studio have improved in equal but opposite measure. His latest releases can be described as sounding like ‘the abandoned love child of a twisted love triangle between Olivier Giacomotto, Stephan Bodzin and Solomon’.

Over the last few years Darien’s music has found homes on trendy labels like Motek, Submarine Vibes, Inside Out and Chapter 24.

Throughout 2021 he started to self-release one track every week that was made available free to fans who subscribe to his newsletter the week before general release.

We caught up with Darien to find out more.

Hi Darien, how are you and what have you been up to this week?

I'm really good, thanks! This week I have been mostly recovering from an epic Christmas Day that we had with friends here in our new little house in Brighton. I've managed to squeeze in some music making but my usual every day habit has fallen by the wayside somewhat.

How long have you been DJing?

I first had a go on a friend's decks back in '95 trying to mix jungle. Badly. I was hooked from the moment I managed to get two records to play in time with each other even if it was only a fleeting moment.