- A trip back to Deep Space NYC in 2009.
- As part of RA2122, our ongoing celebration of 21 years of club culture, we'll be featuring some of our favourite DJs from around the world, highlighting the parties or clubs most important to their lives in dance music.
It's safe to say that there would be no house music, and no dance music as we know it, without François Kevorkian. The French-born, New York-based DJ started remixing disco records in the mid-'70s when he was just a teenager, and became a pioneer of the form alongside names like Larry Levan, Tom Moulton and Walter Gibbons. And though he would become a house icon, he became especially known for the trippy "dub" mixes on the B-sides of records, which often eschewed the structure and vocals of the songs he was remixing in favour of excursions into the unknown.
It's that legacy that led him to Deep Space, his Monday-night residency at the once-legendary Meatpacking District club Cielo, which was one of the most beloved (and best-sounding) rooms in Manhattan. Deep Space started at 2002 and ran every Monday for over a decade. The idea was to explore "dub" in all its forms, and to play all kinds of music while manipulating it in real time. The slogan was "Live On The Mixing Board."
At Deep Space you would hear all kinds of music. Dub, reggae, dub techno, drum & bass—and later on, as you'll hear in this mix, dubstep—sure, but also disco, R&B, funk, old-school house. All music was dub in Kevorkian's hands, and over the years Deep Space became one of the most renowned and consistent parties in New York, a place of refuge and discovery every single Monday (and, eventually, Sunday). This four-hour recording allows you to almost experience what it was like to be in that room—you can even hear the crowd whooping and cheering—as Kevorkian journeys through ultra-deep techno, dubstep and a string of funky disco and post-disco tracks. It's a sound all his own, and though it was recorded 13 years ago, still sounds full of possibility and potential. Like the future.
Tell us about how Deep Space started, the idea behind it and how it developed over the years.
In the fall of 2002 Nicolas Matar approached me with an offer for a weekly Sunday evening residency at Cielo, a new club he was building in Manhattan's meatpacking district. The answer he expected was that I would accept and neatly fall into my role as one of the leading exponents of house music in NYC.
My reply was that I was totally unmotivated and would only agree to do a night away from any commercial pressures or expectations. It felt as if a Monday would be the perfect choice to discourage any casual club-goers from diluting the vibe. Because what I had in mind was to really come up with an event that specifically referenced dub as an aesthetic, whatever form it would take, and playing dub versions of songs by doing lots of live EFX processing and reworking of the music I would program during my sets.
So this implied that I would have a night where most clubs usually aren't even open—the worst possible time, as it ensured that party-hungry weekend crowds wouldn't be interested in coming out for this. It gave us the opportunity to build our nights slowly over time, away from any pressure and to remain in firm control the atmosphere and flow of the event. To that effect, and from the start I enlisted the help of Erica Ruben to help me run things, we were responsible for the door policy, and had our own staff, logo, promotion and identity for the event. Many people were initially shocked or surprised because this clearly went outside of what I was known for, many immediately fell in love with its eclectic ethos and others only came once and never returned because they were disappointed I didn't appear interested in catering to their monolithic tastes.
What role has Deep Space played in your history as a DJ?
Since I first started remixing records in the late '70s I had quickly developed an affinity for delivering very elaborate B-side dub versions. Creating Deep Space was the time that helped me realize that in fact I cared more about those dubs than I did about the main versions. Because I thought this was my little unique and surrealistic identity, the thing I did which very few other people were capable of (or interested in). Back at the time Deep Space started, it felt as if most DJs remained content of letting records play as they are, we chose the tagline "Live On The Mixing Board" as one of the slogans for the party as I thought it would illustrate that dub was a central part of how it expressed the transformative manner in which some of my selections were presented.
You may have been hearing a song you've already listened to a number of times before, but the version I would deliver at Deep Space became unique because I was often clearly able to transform it into a dub on-the-spot. So in that sense, it was an extremely important moment because it was when I first started merging my studio creative skills and aesthetic into what I was doing live in front of audiences in a far more eclectic manner, which was something that also helped me better understand and define my own identity as well as how much I value the idea of incorporating improvisation into my sets.
What, to you, made Deep Space unique, and how would you approach your sets differently than other parties?
The dub ethos was never meant to be a strict, reggae-only dogmatic approach. Rather it favored applying this aesthetic to any sort of music I felt like playing, and from the very beginning the range of selections was extremely broad. Rather than focusing on beat-mixing and narrowly sticking to one specific style as the be-all-end-all goal of my DJ sets, the selections could easily range from nail-biting electronic journeys to vintage disco, drum&bass, dancehall, funk, more abstract house, psychedelic rock or anything in-between. The main goal was to use all of these different sonic signatures as a way to create a journey with a tangible sense of narrative through selections that defied categorization.
This was purposely done in favor of letting the visionary aspects of the compositions shine through, and such refreshing juxtapositions often worked in mind-bending and very unexpected ways. By 2007 when we first started becoming aware of West London and Bristol-based producers creating a nascent sound called dubstep we immediately became enamored with it and started inviting them to play at Deep Space, because what they did fit so perfectly into the party's direction. This allowed us to acquire a whole new and younger audience who may not have come otherwise, and we were able to bring many of that scene's luminaries as guests before they even hit the big time. This may have seemed like a gamble as no one else would touch this style back in those years, but it really was a natural extension of our eclectic ethos. Because in a sense dubstep is so closely connected to the very roots of reggae and jungle I was already heavily programming, it felt so natural and effortless.
How and where was this mix recorded, and why did you choose this particular recording?
This was done in 2009, and I thought some of the qualities described above shone through in vintage Deep Space style.
What are you up to next?
Strangely enough, even though Deep Space is slated to restart as a quarterly event in early 2023, I have continued forging ahead with more sonic experimentation and further developed techniques that now allow me to perform small-scale multitrack live remixes during my DJ sets. This is made possible by the STEMS technology, here are some examples of what is possible.
I recently participated in the first edition of Format Festival where I was asked to do one such "Live Stems Mix" DJ set where I performed these live remixes in front of an audience. Additionally they had also booked me to play a night of immersive listening music which I called "Surround Sound Experience." Which is to say that it's gratifying to find such opportunities as I am constantly keeping abreast of new technologies, and excited to have been able to use surround content for playback on Dolby ATMOS or D&B Soundscape for some live events.
I have also been spending a great deal of time putting together some new music, which I am quite eager to release at some point in the near future. As if this wasn't already enough, I am concurrently in the process of writing my own autobiography and putting together a video production company with the goal of documenting the early days of NYC's underground dance music and its unsung heroes through images and sound.
As part of RA2122, we're also publishing a book of essays and letters (including a foreword from François K), as well as hosting events in New York and Manchester.