Round off 2025 with this masterful mix by Om Unit
Reminiscent of those sunny, bass filled festival days we saved this one as a special winter treat.
After a full day of sound system music at Freetown Christiania, Om Unit played a two-hour closing set. Not only was it a journey through his sound; it felt like a step by step demonstration of how to reset a vibe and build it back up. With a refined sense of how to scale and intensify a musical storyline, this set exemplifies how some DJ’s have that special gift of feeling the vibe. Along with the mix we caught up with him to talk more about DJ’ing and his thoughts about the craft post-pandemic.
As a producer and DJ, Om Unit’s persistent presence in an ever-changing musical landscape has solidified his place as a known electronic music innovator. Beginning this project in the late 00’s, the English producer has sought to challenge himself and his audience by going beyond the confines of typical genres and styles. In the process he has found success by striving for a more human approach to connecting styles of electronic music in unique and daring ways. He has been known to distill and cross-pollinate breaks, techno, downtempo, dubstep, ambient, jungle, footwork, and dub into a fluid take on electronic sound system music that sidesteps the pitfalls of pastiche. He has created new potentials for exploration and inspiration with many following in his footsteps. This recording from Strøm Festival earlier this year is no exception.
Hi Jim, thanks for sharing this recording with us. The crowd at Christiania were absolutely buzzing to it. How was your experience?
This was one of those good ones where you are in the moment, it felt very flowstate. A lof of the time i’m blending things pretty quickly after a certain point just pulling stuff in and not thinking too much and people are really locked in. The first section i’m just dropping some of my favourite reggae and dancehall, and then we go into the mix fully. It was a sweet memory of the summer and i’d love to come back again sometime, the crowd were really great and the venue is also a really authentic place.
Listening to this set got me thinking about how you prepared? Perhaps you had thoughts regarding the cultural heritage of Christiania and sound system culture, the fact that it was an open air free party, or something else?
I certainly did! I love to play 80’s Dancehall tracks and other types of reggae on sound systems like this when I get to play on them, so I had to drop some of that to honour that aspect of Jamaican Soundsystem culture that this whole thing is from. It was interesting because some people were very confused to begin with and I find that interesting because to me it shows us that even though there’s this giant hand-built rig there, that maybe their association with that is really something far removed from its roots and so It’s doubly important to remind people where this comes from and also to hear this music in way that it was intended too.
I also intentionally played some original Copenhagen dubstep tracks from Kraken Recordings like ‘Eye Of The Demon’ which has been a big favourite of mine since back in the day,
Free party vibes wise it was nice to end with some faster techno stuff and kinda make a ‘journey’ between all of those elements. I love to connect the dots between music resonated w me and I had a great time doing it as hopefully people can hear.
Speaking of journey and DJ’ing – I’ve heard several DJ’s talk about how to structure their Rekord Box to be able to flow through playlists, vibes and genres – could you give us an insight in how you’re organizing yours?
I generally make folders with a few playlists inside for almost every gig I play so that I have a shortlist taken from various other style folders that I keep adding to. Usually one of those playlists is what I call a ‘spine’ list which could be up to 200 tracks which are in BPM order and tend to be my more central go-to tracks. Other folders will be more like shorter folders with different vibe themes to create pockets to dive into, usually like 20-30 tracks with a more defined theme that I predict (not always accurately) will work for that event.
You’ve been producing and DJ’ing for almost three decades(!) so fair to say that you’ve witnessed the scene evolving from the inside. Especially during the pandemic, the number of live-streaming DJ’s (and their followers) multiplied. But how are you supposed to feel the vibe if you’ve never had the experience of those weird bar gigs or emptying the floor peak time? Seems like this new era calls for something else? Where do you see the craft of DJ’ing going?
Well, we are in a place where music technology companies have essentially increased their yearly profit margins for their shareholders by filling every gap in the market they can find, and in turn whilst this has an effect of removing barriers to entry financially and culturally by making new technology more accessible and affordable. This has absolutely led to a total saturation of people making music, releasing it and being able to play that audio in venues and online using DJ equipment. There are positive and negative connotations to this much like anything.
I do think it’s useful to have gigs where you learn the ropes and struggle in terms of being a performer and those problems that arise help to give you a good grounding in how to handle yourself in public spaces, for example dealing with people in a crowd who make insane requests and behave in chaotic and dysregulated ways in a non-confrontational and entitled fashion, or maybe learning tricks to cope with bad tech and winging it (I once did a last minute boiler room set on one turntable with serato for example and thankfully I knew how to use it in such a way that you can mix 2 tracks!) I think it’s good to have a grounding in community as well, being part of a local scene and movement teaches you a lot about social life, scene politics as well as the business of running events and all that goes with that too. I do think there’s a perception now that if you buy a piece of dj equipment and just get hold of an aesthetic that you like, you’re instantly a DJ and this will only be reinforced by this ridiculous move by Alpha-Theta and others to allow people to DJ with streaming platform audio (thereby diminishing digital income from places like Bandcamp and Beatport)
At the end of the day though if you truly love music and want to share it that’s the best intention, if you want to be the next fly-by-night hot genre kid on some boiler room set them great, just get good at social media or have rich parents and invest in a marketing vehicle but you’ll be old news in 2-5 years max if you don’t really love it max because there’s no soul to it. Ultimately though I feel none of the above matters that much because people that truly love performing and love to share music have longevity on their own terms and shine through, especially those that can navigate the landscape authentically but aren’t afraid to sell themselves a bit. The rest is kinda just noise really I think.
Tracklist
“Not this time, but Shazam could be your friend! :D”
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Listen to the previous Strøm Mixx with nugget – or browse the full archive here.