by RAF KATIGBAK

When describing DJ/Rupture's music, most critics would use analogies like "the sound of a speeding car smashing into a van full of dancehall, hip hop, North African and IDM records that subsequently shatter across the highway at 100 miles per hour," or some other, equally evocative metaphor. The truth is that DJ\Rupture not only sounds like that, he's lived that.

"Yeah, a couple of days ago, a car doing 100 miles per hour slammed into the back of our tour van and scattered my record bag across a New Mexican highway," he tells me groggily over the phone from a Motel 6 outside his next tour stop, New Orleans. "It wasn't actually that bad. We had sore necks for the next few days."

DJ/Rupture is probably used to the sore necks by now. After all, his first mix CD Gold Teeth Thief blew up more than a few heads in 2001 with its inventive blend of hip hop, drum & bass, experimental and world music. One of those heads belonged to Kid 606, who promptly re-released the mix as well as the killer follow-up, Minesweeper Suite. The Mirror chatted with DJ/Rupture (aka Jace Clayton), currently on a four-week tour with the Kid.

Mirror: At a time when there seemed to be more generic mix CDs than proper albums, Gold Teeth Thief really stood out. What makes a good mix CD?

DJ/Rupture: A good DJ navigates his or her way through the records in a way that transcends the source material, in a way that says something new or interesting with other people's sounds. A good mix CD does that too.

M: While people call your mix of Missy Elliott, Moroccan music and U.K. drum & bass "radical," this sort of cultural cross-pollination has really been going on forever.

DJ/R: Sure, that's the nature of music. Take, for example, flamenco - it's really Spanish music but you can hear the Arabic influence that came up through southern Spain in the guitar playing and time signatures. Jamaican reggae tuned into U.S. R&B stations and nowadays that loop is feeding back into contemporary R&B production. It's non-stop pluralism.

M: I find that also applies between pop and experimental music.

DJ/R: Yes, but look at the ways in which mainstream black pop keeps on changing whereas all these IDM and electronic music subcultures are "experimental." It's very conservative experimentation, and very predictable. It just slips into a formula. There are so many people making the "whoosh" washing machine, post-Autechre beats saying, "Oh yeah, it's experimental electronica." It's like, no it's not! Then the Neptunes will bust out the Clipse's "Grindin'" with that crazy rhythm pattern and all these random sounds going on.

M: While I find most "ethno-techno" acts resort to cheap cut 'n' paste, like putting an Indian tabla loop over a hip hop beat, your sound comes off as much more whole - what's up with that?

DJ/R: I love the influence of Arabic music, but it comes up in a way that's not necessarily audible. If it's not fusion on a sort of structural level, then it's not interesting. Certain Arabic music is very loose, flowing and spontaneous, but on the other hand there are also these very strict rules guiding it. That's what I put into my DJing.

With Kid 606 and Dwayne Sodahberk at La Sala Rossa on Sunday, August 17, 9PM, $10-$12

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