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Music

Juliana Huxtable Made a Mix for Feminist Techno Collective Discwoman's One-Year Anniversary

The trans icon's selection of club tracks emphasize what Discwoman is all about: female authorship.

Some DJs are are cool. Others are important. Rarely do you find one that manages to check both boxes, but Juliana Huxtable does it with a casual swing of her trademark braids. As a trans woman of color, the DJ and visual artist is an icon far beyond the New York City queer circles that she came up in. Huxtable has already been an alternative "it girl" for a hot minute,with appearing at all the right parties and on the runway for quintessential New York brands like Hood By Air and DKNY. But it was her contribution to the New Museum Triennial earlier this year—where Frank Benson's 3-D-scanned plastic sculpture of her naked body was a standout—that catapulted her to international acclaim.

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This Saturday, Huxtable is headlining the one-year anniversary of Discwoman, a techno feminist collective based in Brooklyn that I'm proud to disclose I am also a member of. Since their first party at Bossa Nova Civic Club in 2014, the Discwoman crew has thrown events in Boston, Philadelphia, Montreal, Detroit, and San Juan, Puerto Rico—with each lineup exclusively featuring female-identifying DJs. (A simple idea that serves as a scathing critique of many dance festivals' all-male lineups.)


Some DJs are are cool. Others are important. Rarely do you find one that manages to check both boxes, but Juliana Huxtable does it with a casual swing of her trademark braids. As a trans woman of color, the DJ and visual artist is an icon far beyond the New York City queer circles that she came up in. Huxtable has already been an alternative "it girl" for a hot minute,with appearing at all the right parties and on the runway for quintessential New York brands like Hood By Air and DKNY. But it was her contribution to the New Museum Triennial earlier this year—where Frank Benson's 3-D-scanned plastic sculpture of her naked body was a standout—that catapulted her to international acclaim.

This Saturday, Huxtable is headlining the one-year anniversary of Discwoman, a techno feminist collective based in Brooklyn that I'm proud to disclose I am also a member of. Since their first party at Bossa Nova Civic Club in 2014, the Discwoman crew has thrown events in Boston, Philadelphia, Montreal, Detroit, and San Juan, Puerto Rico—with each lineup exclusively featuring female-identifying DJs. (A simple idea that serves as a scathing critique of many dance festivals' all-male lineups.)

Huxtable says her Discwoman mix is a mèlange of different tracks she's been listening to lately, starting with M.I.A. because "she really embodies so much of what I like about the idea behind Discwoman: female authorship, an awareness and consciousness of the relationship between music, how it's represented and distributed, and the structures that shape the world." Although her initial idea was to mimic the Discwoman model and only include female producers in the mix, Huxtable decided that seemed "over-thought and untrue to what I play."

Read our interview with the Discwoman crew

"I have this instinct to avoid reproducing the male producer/female vocalist binary in my mixes, but I actually feel like so many women are defining that space as a place of power, and the way that so many artists on SoundCloud demand this sort of respect and have producers really vying to work with them is emblematic of that," she continues. "I do wish there were more female producers, which is why I'm so happy Discwoman is establishing a place and presence for that. I guess the mix is my own reflection on the state of things in music culture, finding moments of power within it and looking forward to something else."

Catch Juliana Huxtable, Honey Dijon, Sandunes, Star Eyes, Katie Rex and Shy Eyes at Discwoman's One-Year Anniversary party on September 19 at Bossa Nova Civic Club. More info here.

Tracklist

M.I.A. / SWORDS (@STEEZIE_WONDER RE-SLASH)
@EVIANCHRIST / WATERFALL
DIAMOND / SIT THE FUCK DOWN
@CLUBATHLETICS / BURKA FATALE
@CIRQA / LATTICE
@CLAMMYCLAMS / HAUNT
TEYANA TAYLOR / BUSINESS
@KAMIXLO / MATA LO
@THAST / STOP HATIN (@GETFACE HATERADE REMIX)
ARCTIC / PAGE WRITTEN
@WWA / NO REASON
SHALT / GANYMEDE IMPACTOR
@ARCA1000000 / XEN (@FALSEWITNESS REMIX)
GRACE JONES / SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM (ACAPELLA ANONYMOUS VOL 02. VERSION)
@KID-ANTOINE / NIGHTVISION
GANGSTA BOO / PUSSY TASTE LIKE KUSH

Huxtable says her Discwoman mix is a mèlange of different tracks she's been listening to lately, starting with M.I.A. because "she really embodies so much of what I like about the idea behind Discwoman: female authorship, an awareness and consciousness of the relationship between music, how it's represented and distributed, and the structures that shape the world." Although her initial idea was to mimic the Discwoman model and only include female producers in the mix, Huxtable decided that seemed "over-thought and untrue to what I play."

Read our interview with the Discwoman crew

"I have this instinct to avoid reproducing the male producer/female vocalist binary in my mixes, but I actually feel like so many women are defining that space as a place of power, and the way that so many artists on SoundCloud demand this sort of respect and have producers really vying to work with them is emblematic of that," she continues. "I do wish there were more female producers, which is why I'm so happy Discwoman is establishing a place and presence for that. I guess the mix is my own reflection on the state of things in music culture, finding moments of power within it and looking forward to something else."

Catch Juliana Huxtable, Honey Dijon, Sandunes, Star Eyes, Katie Rex and Shy Eyes at Discwoman's One-Year Anniversary party on September 19 at Bossa Nova Civic Club. More info here.

Tracklist

M.I.A. / SWORDS (@STEEZIE_WONDER RE-SLASH)
@EVIANCHRIST / WATERFALL
DIAMOND / SIT THE FUCK DOWN
@CLUBATHLETICS / BURKA FATALE
@CIRQA / LATTICE
@CLAMMYCLAMS / HAUNT
TEYANA TAYLOR / BUSINESS
@KAMIXLO / MATA LO
@THAST / STOP HATIN (@GETFACE HATERADE REMIX)
ARCTIC / PAGE WRITTEN
@WWA / NO REASON
SHALT / GANYMEDE IMPACTOR
@ARCA1000000 / XEN (@FALSEWITNESS REMIX)
GRACE JONES / SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM (ACAPELLA ANONYMOUS VOL 02. VERSION)
@KID-ANTOINE / NIGHTVISION
GANGSTA BOO / PUSSY TASTE LIKE KUSH