Avalon Emerson

Avalon Emerson’s musical identity was forged on the dancefloor, but her outlook has never been limited to the confines of the club. Quite frankly, it’s not limited to anything. A San Francisco native who grew up in Arizona and first found her artistic footing while DJing at raucous Bay Area warehouse parties, Emerson—who moved to Berlin in 2014 and quickly became a regular behind the decks at the city’s famed Berghain—now stands as one of dance music’s most celebrated contemporary figures. Having played all around the world, she’s the rare DJ who can move seamlessly between the sweaty confines of clubs like Nowadays and massive festivals like Coachella, Primavera Sound and Glastonbury, and though she’s known for her intensely technical approach to the craft, she’s beloved for her melody-rich, genre-agnostic selections. An Avalon Emerson DJ set will weave together house, techno, disco and rave obscurities, but she’ll also move from Talking Heads to Two Shell and Nine Inch Nails to Underworld, and once she gets into the studio, her production work employs a similarly free-flowing philosophy

On her new debut album Avalon Emerson & The Charm, she’s left the DJ booth altogether, venturing into an intimate strain of synth-pop informed by her love of avant-pop auteurs.