Blurring the lines between the avant garde and the mainstream
Few artists can claim to have truly revolutionised nightlife: Jazmin Venus Soto might be one of them. The influence of her party GHE20GOTH1K, run since 2009 with Hood By Air fashion designer Shayne Oliver and producer Physical Therapy, doesn’t stop in Brooklyn, or even at music: its aesthetics have extended deep into fashion and culture in general. Dedicated to self-expression; multiplicity and removing the walls between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, the underground and the mainstream; the party has acted as an incubator for some of electronic music’s most radical artists over the past decade. Just as GHE20GOTH1K has continued to challenge preconceptions and prejudices even as its profile has grown, Venus X has retained the same reckless, take-no-prisoners approach as a DJ. Her sets explore the shared spaces and gaps between avant-garde and pop culture, rough and ready edits rubbing up against global club sounds and 2000s anthems, full of unexpected sharp turns and jagged twists.