"At 13, I was like, if I could ever hang out with Skrillex, my life would be complete, he says, sipping a pilsner on an icy day in Washington DC. Then by 15, I'm doing it. Enticed by the sugar rush of America's booming EDM scene, and armed with little more than a Soundcloud account, a knack for knocking out zeitgeisty bootlegs and a little teenage bravado, this kid from Bethesda a comfy suburb north-west of the US capital was suddenly opening for Diplo."
"Cashing $10k for drubbing through an hour of garish EDM for sweaty Lycra-clad grownups will sharpen even the most adolescent perspective. I had kind of sacrificed a bit of my childhood to be in these adult spaces, he says. Villager: Nowhere FM stream Young took the first of a series of abrupt left turns in his nascent career. He packed in DJing, relinquished the Alex Young moniker and started listening to Radiohead and Rinse FM. I was really falling in love with music, he says."
Alex Young began DJing as a teenager, earning large fees to DJ fitness classes and opening for major EDM acts while still in school. Early commercial success created a sense of disconnection and a feeling of having sacrificed parts of his childhood to adult spaces. Young abandoned the Alex Young moniker, moved away from laptop-based production, and immersed himself in Radiohead, Rinse FM and the UK electronic canon. Recording loops on sequencers and samplers as Villager, he now produces idiosyncratic, heady club music that rejects EDM's dopamine overload and marks a creative second life.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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