DJ Troxell’s Big Apple Baptism
Troxell's DIY entry into the NYC DJ scene
Picture this: You're in Prague with nothing but your decks and barely-conversational knowledge of Czech. You want to play a set. You know absolutely nobody. What's a wandering bedroom producer to do?
If you're Kurt—also known as Trox—you tap your good friend Jean to email every freak they've ever met until someone knows someone who's also raving their way through Eastern Europe. Enter Devin. Before you know it, you two are packing clubs full of fellow lost souls for your first gig abroad. Not bad for a Tuesday.
Back on American soil, Trox meets me off Myrtle and Broadway, at High & Dry Coffee Bar. He's running late and visibly twitchy, the kind of nervous energy that suggests either too much caffeine or not enough sleep. Probably both, given we first met at 3 am on a weekday (shoutout to Rocka Rolla’s $3 Bud goblets and Toby, our mutual connection and Mansion Studios producer/engineer).
We start at the beginning, back home in Montreal. Troxell was entirely self-engineered, born entirely in the past few years. “I spent the first 18 or so years of my life thinking that I had to grow up and be a doctor or something.” His upbringing didn’t exactly scream “music scene” — no one handed him a CDJ-3000 and deemed it his calling. Now, he’s working with producers who started making income from music during middle school, skipped college, and work at Flux Studios. It's enough to give anyone imposter syndrome.
He started through late-night rabbit holes and Discord fever dreams. Watching 2hollis and Jane Remover go from 30-person livestreams to world tour announcements? "That was everything," he says. "Inspiring and terrifying."
COVID lockdown livestream raves were a different beast entirely. Some baked sourdough, others solved crossword puzzles. On the other hand, Troxell saw an artist’s path to human connection on a massive scale.
With lockdown restrictions easing, he emerged a different artist — one that was ready to go live. Naturally, he packed his bags for New York.
Trox’s first NYC show was typically twisted. His friend Max Valentin played GeoGuessr on a projector while he spun open format, his sandy hair bouncing under strobes as the crowd’s shouts of "South Africa! Minnesota! Portugal!" cut through a mashup of Rico Nasty’s “OH FR?” and Joy Orbison’s “Pinky Ring.”
Troxell production is always genre-bending: ranging from hip-hop to techno to electronica to indie with bass that drags you underwater before surfacing for air with POSIC’s alluring voice, then straight into hypnotic emo ambience. Fair warning: don't listen while driving unless you’re looking to dance with a lamp post. Do listen if you just picked up some good weed.
Here’s the catch: Trox doesn’t want to pick a sonic corner. Marketing demands artists pick a niche: are you trance or hyper-pop? Vinyl or digital? As if mixing methods and marrying tracks isn’t what makes the greats so great. “I would get bored with myself if I just played one genre or sound all night, and if I’m boring myself up there then we really have a problem."
"Everything seems to be about content, not art," he deadpans with distaste. "I've never spent hours doomscrolling and felt it made my brain healthier." Social media transformed his heroes' careers, now it feels like a fight for water when the well has run dry. He wants to make music, not play influencer. Isn’t that enough?
Lucky for him, New York and Prague don’t demand singularity.
"Everywhere I’ve played, people fuck with me!" he grins.
Electronic music's delights are reaching every demographic now, rolling out of basement raves and into the mainstream buffet where anyone can sample the goods. Collectively obsessive, this generation demands radical energy.
And as long as New Yorkers aren't too cool to move their feet, Troxell will keep supplying the soundtrack.
Catch our golden guy spinning as Troxell: find him @1troxell or at 1troxell.com, assuming he's not lost on the A train.
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