Slowdive will play Fortress Festival at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth on April 30 The last and only time Slowdive passed through Dallas was August 1993 when they opened for Catherine Wheel at Trees. Back then, the UK shoegaze legends were touring behind their second album, Souvlaki. Now it’s…

Of all the Dallas crews, DJs and producers who dived head first into dubstep during its early days, Dragonman and his Fort Worth-based crew Dub Commission are one of the few who stuck by the genre as it got sucked into the mainstream and eventually faded from the spotlight. The…

Last weekend one of the cornerstones of Dallas’ DJ community unexpectedly died. Aaron Wilkerson, better known to his peers and fans as Squirt, rose to prominence in the mid to late ’90s. If you picked up a flyer for a party or a rave during that time, you likely saw his name…

There’s a lot of overlap between fans of indie music and fans of dance music, and Fropsi thrives in that space. As a member of DJ crew The Guild, he has a weekly residency dedicated to electronic music at the Nines, where he’s known to bring in other upcoming talent…

You can tell Chuk Scott is a consummate cratedigger when you listen to the samples on Kemet, the 32-track experimental hip-hop opus he released on Bandcamp. Scott, who produces under the alias Arkatype, has a lot in common with other trailblazing producers such as Madlib, samiyam or Flying Lotus. On this…

Aleah Axiom spent the past 15 years focused on the many forms of electronic music, but techno appears to be her true calling. Now it’s a full-time obsession behind the decks as a DJ and behind the pen on her blog Robotic Peacock. She travels to watch and interview techno…

Hip-hop’s pulse is strong in Dallas and Deejay Mike B wears his love of the genre on his sleeve, although like any hard working DJ, he plays a little bit of everything. Although Mike B has deep roots in the crate digging world of vinyl, he’s also interested in what…

Troy Wodsworth has come a long way. Once a music nerd living in a small Texas town, he’s now running Seattle-based label Medical Records, one of the cornerstones of the modern synth and shoegaze music boom of the last decade. Alexander Robotnik, Seefeel, Rollerskate Skinny, Severed Heads, Laika, Gina X…

Matt Newman is one of the key players in the highly influential Dallas DJ crew Soundslike, but his roots in dance music go back to his days slinging records in Michigan. Newman’s career began in Chicago and Detroit, epicenters of techno and house, and those cities had a lasting impact…

Rick Simpson is a veteran of the Dallas DJ scene dedicated to the old school craft of mixing tracks. He is most often seen playing with his crew Disco’s Revenge, who have had a vinyl-focused, monthly residency for the last few years that recently moved to The Nines. Simpson’s focus…

Daniel Cortez is a recent transplant to Dallas from El Paso who is making waves as half of production duo Prototype. He’s had a hand in putting together some of the most exciting techno parties to pop up in Dallas recently, for which he brings in international artists from boutique…

Brian Armstrong has spent the past two decades as a dedicated apostle of DJ culture. At various points he’s been a budding dance music fan, an MC, a record store employee and a full-time track slinger under his alias DJ BrianPibb. Like any good working DJ, Armstrong is not one…

For 15 years Cyberina Flux was the reliable voice from the underground on KNON’s Rocket Radio show. There, she pushed the envelope for radio in Dallas and gave an on-air presence to some of the fringiest electronic music and rock. For this week’s mixtape she brings an eclectic mix ranging…

Kerim Bey is part of a techno subculture that has been re-emerging in Dallas over the past year. He brings a depth of knowledge about this legacy genre that has not been seen in this region in more than a decade. Bey mostly operates in the darker post-industrial side of…

Last month, people from all over the world traveled to Day for Night Fest in Houston to see art installations by Bjork and hear Aphex Twin’s first U.S. performance in 23 years. But there were some homegrown acts on the bill, too. One such Texas act was MNYNMS, who stood…

Eric Arnold is part of a new generation of DJs taking up the techno torch and infiltrating dance floors. As a member of the ever busy Disco Initiative, Arnold has been a key player behind some of the most memorable events of 2016. As a DJ he is tapping into…

Jeff Parrott is a prime example of what can happen when visual art meets its auditory counterpart. Parrott pursues his music in an approach he calls “Psyexpression” where his two artistic outlets feed each other. His contribution to the Dallas Observer Mixtape series strikes a balance between DJ set and…