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I think the mark of a good song is one that you can play acoustically, or that you can cover, where it’s not too reliant on the vibe of the production where it can stand on its own two feet.” “I was just trying to make things that sounded good in this lo-fi beats kind of way, so there’s room to expand on it and put different dressing on it. “It purposefully sounded like shit so I wasn’t distracted by doing too much sound design,” she explains. Most days she’d start with some chords in Ableton and sketches in a Drum Rack. Once that was in the bag, she rented a basement studio in Clinton Hill, New York. The album began life during the pandemic, once she’d finished her critically-acclaimed DJ-Kicks mix. We’re going to put some of the new song stems in, record loops, and create a truncated version of one of the new songs and play it live – real world feedback loops of ‘did this feel good?’ ‘Was it too long, too short?’ I’m pretty excited to do that.” Image: Jennifer McCord for MusicTech Guitar and bass can go into that, with loads of effects, so we can hear that in our headphones in nice quality. We all have our in-ear monitors so we can hear the stems coming from Ableton.

The Charm currently comprises her wife Hunter Lombard, who plays guitar on the album, and old friend Keivon Hobeheidar on cello.

“We’re going to build in some interludes where we can enter into a loop portion,” she says, along with road-testing brand-new productions with the band. One of the ways to counter the separation involves “live vibe management” which is mostly, Emerson says, about “navigating the negative space between the songs.” It also involves additional production techniques. It’s not just transactional: ‘Here’s this thing I already built and you receive it, and then the night’s over.’ It’s a journey.” Image: Jennifer McCord for MusicTech I’m trying to figure out how I can let them know that I feel them here and that we’re contributing to this vibe together. “They’re standing there, watching you with their beer. With shows, it’s a bit more like people in their own enjoyment bubble,” she says. “With DJing, it’s very communicative and the crowd knows they’re in on the community vibe of the room.

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It’s been fascinating, she says, thinking about how to build a more participatory relationship with the crowd at her live shows.

have one album, we don’t have tons of songs, and we use Ableton as the bedrock and the timeline of the show. “I’m really struck by how different it is playing live versus a DJ set,” she says. But the US-born, Berlin-based internationalist is pouring her years of DJing into a band environment, even as she notices the differences. It’s not an entirely new musical space either, given that a teenage Emerson played in freak-folk and noise punk bands.

It’s not a complete pivot from the DJ booth to the stage – her many fans will also be able to see her at the decks during Glasgow’s Riverside Festival in June. I’m not a new artist, I’m just a new band.” “We’re starting in a high-tech way,” she says, “and I think that’s appropriate for what I want to do. On the other, it’s about triggering myriad stems in Ableton Live, using a MIDI controller stomp box, amp modellers for bass guitar and cello, a bespoke in-ear monitor rig and an elegant light show. On one hand, taking her sun-dappled and critically acclaimed debut album on the road involves playing rustic, grassroots venues like London’s Shacklewell Arms. Except, it’s with the digital edge that you’d expect from a trailblazing DJ and producer who started out in coding. Avalon Emerson is going back to her DIY beginnings with her new band, The Charm.