Resident Advisor’s Aurora Mitchell meets UMFANG,the rising New York techno producer and DISCWOMAN co-founder striving to bring more representative lineups to dance music.
“UMFANG’s trajectory as a producer and DJ has soared this past year. She made her debut at Berghain in September of 2016, less than a year after quitting her job managing a thrift store to focus on music. She has toured the world, playing everywhere from Colombia to Porto’s oldest club, Industria. And she’s also a cofounder of the rapidly expanding collective and booking agency Discwoman, which highlights and amplifies female and non-binary artists. The initiative started in 2014 and they have since worked with festivals and venues across the globe to bring more representative lineups to dance music. In the past two years alone they’ve assembled a booking roster of eight closely connected artists, produced events in Mexico and Detroit and hosted their first Boiler Room with UNIIQU3, Shyboi, Bearcat and Juliana Huxtable in New York.
Olson has had less time to dedicate to Discwoman now that playing records is a full-time job. At this point, she sees herself as a representative of the collective, leaving the day-to-day running to fellow cofounders Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson and Christine McCharen-Tran. This rapid shift in recognition isn’t something she anticipated. Our first conversation happens the day after the announcement of Symbolic Use Of Light, her album for Ninja Tune’s sister label, Technicolour. She stares at her phone for a moment and looks up, overwhelmed by the volume of notifications.”
UMFANG takes the Rewire 2018 on Friday, 6 April alongside fellow DISCWOMANaffiliates Volvox, Ziúr and Deena Abdelwahed. Listen to ‘Weight’ below and learn more about her show at: UMFANG.
Festival passes and Club tickets are available at:Tickets.