Dylan Drazen

Set live tech-house by Hugo Dhorne

Coors and Mixmag teamed up this winter for a one-off party and charity fundraising event: Coors Presents Mixmag Live at E1 on December 17.

All of the performances took place in front of bespoke AV backdrops, designed especially for the night for an immersive experience.

On the night, alongside Cox’s special headline performance, sets from across the musical spectrum were performed by Solardo and Manda Moor in the Warehouse room, while in the Peak Room Catz ‘N Dogz, Emerald and Melle Brown brought the heat.

Listen to Solardo's set now.

Solardo at Coors presents Mixmag Live

Green Velvet - Space Miami - 1st hr of 4hr set Dec 10, 2022

Pig Dance at Ramrod Fort Lauderdale was the most important gig I had since deciding to come out of DJ retirement 18 months ago, never preparing so hard for an all night set. It’s the culmination of 18 months of learning, by trial and error, curating the best of what has worked, knowing I didn’t have to hold back—and I didn’t.

While I’m fairly new to playing for gay crowds, I have the benefit of literally decades of experiencing the gay nightlife in multiple cities around the world, but mainly all those New York experiences that have left their indelible mark. This set brings all those experiences together, culminating with these recent months of living life as a local DJ, something I’ve always wanted to experience.

Hopefully those who have stuck by me have benefitted in some way. I did not come up in the DJ world playing gigs like this. It’s definitely been a learning experience but it has made me stronger. The narrative in this set is the vision I’ve had for many many years of what I’d personally want to experience at a major gay party. Some of the tracks in this set you might not expect from me, but I’ve been holding onto them in my back pocket with this vision in mind.

I know it’s long, but there isn’t some peak 1-2 hour stretch I could edit out for your convenience. It stands alone as a single statement.

Pig Dance (Feb 4, 2023)

This is Dylan's first attempt at creating a mixtape. He was 19 then, fresh and new full of ideas. Even then you could see he had his tastes set out - comparing the mixes from today to this one shows lots in common. Part one is hard and fast, while part two shows his early influences of the detroit style - the melodic and soulful techno sound from the early '90s. 

dd01 - No Hope (Part 1) - 1995

dd01 - No Hope (Part 2) - 1995

Things were getting hot and heavy in Spain, and the music was getting relentless.

Performed April 1999 in The Cervix, Brooklyn

 side a

Martial - Meteorite Wave - Taka 
Oxia - Fresh - GoodLife 
Grain - B2 - Fat Cat 
Sapiano and the Partycrashers - Body Parts - Klang 
Punisher - Extinction - Seismic 
Chris Jackson - Make 'Em Work - Resource 
Visco Space - Part 3 - Konsequent 
Pitch Invasion - In The Box - Core 
Petter Fripp - Structural Pump 
South Operations - Draining Faces - Evil Deception 
Cari Lekebusch - This Way - Access 58 
Olga + Josef - A1 - OJ 002 
M. Lloyd - The Jump - Sub Octave 
Clemens Neufeld - Impact - POD 10 
Smith & Selway - Thunder - Primate 
Raoul Delgardo - Steelworks - Sheep 

 side b

Alba Patera - Tog - Monoïd 
Umek - Halcion - XS 
Inigo Kennedy - Preliminary Statements - Aesimetrik 
Cio - Talkin' With Juanito - Ongaku 
Oszillator5 - S8084#02 - Planet Pump 
VCO - Mind Test - Thrust 
Stanlee - Klangphase - Planet Pump 
Icepack - Schwama - Solid 
P. Leroy - Outlast - Gelstat 
Tomito Satori - Manalive - Exhibit 
Olga + Josef - A2 - OJ 002 
Clemens Neufeld - Inappropriate Relations - Spiel-Zeug Schallplatten 
Musicolor - Violet - Musicolor 
Photonic - Impact - Universal Prime Breaks

dd19 - The Matrix (1999)

What was originally created as a promotional requirement for a small gig in Budapest became one of my more talked about mixes during the hard techno years.  I don't play like this anymore, but I can still appreciate the insanity.

In 2002, I wrote:
"this little promotional mini mix CD was given to the first 100 entrants into the coldwar party in budapest, hungary on december 14, 2002. it's unsettlingly hard."

recorded at tetanus studio, december 2002 - brooklyn 

AeoX - Nuclear Winter - Null 
Boss - Jahoda - Palica Vonzvreca 
Andreas Kremer - Rock Them (DJ Boss rmx) - Lifeform 
Dylan Drazen - Baba - Remains 
Simon Krach - Current Value - Null 
Polytechnique - Free Mind - Salpeter 
Next Level feat. Dylan Drazen - Doch - Unreleased 
Henrik B - Seven A - Illgo Rhythm

20 Minutes of Hell (2002)

ODIUM

Apple Music

My first live performance in Holland in three years, this set was played on 100% vinyl, comprised of my favorite techno from the last decade. I went through my entire record collection and found the best of the best. Apologies for the crappy sound quality; the turntables used at the event must have been shot, despite having new needles.



Dylan Drazen - Concept - Live at Ahoy, Rotterdam

No discussion of underground techno purism and technical DJ mastery would be complete without the mention of Dylan Drazen’s uniquely remarkable life and career, and the myriad of musical influences it has brought. Conforming to no one person, genre or entity, Dylan has fiercely charted his own path since his sonic journey began over thirty years ago.

With the outset of Drazen’s path arriving in the early 90’s at the age of 18, a crescendo would already manifest by the late 90’s when Spain took note of his visionary methods and pioneering sound during the earliest days of the Internet, and he quickly became an originating stalwart of its nationwide underground techno scene for years, putting in over a million air miles commuting from his New York base, crisscrossing the Iberian peninsula many times over, as fans couldn’t get enough of his relentlessly energetic, organic and authentic rhythms that were so novel to a generation of partygoers.

Yet at the height of all this in the mid 2000s Dylan became swept up in the worldwide poker boom and found himself at a crossroads with dual careers. Maintaining both for nearly a decade, he decided to relocate to South Florida in 2012 to take poker more seriously and music took a back seat. By 2020, Dylan’s poker talent would bring him over $1 million in cash and tournament winnings. Then the pandemic hit, the world ground to a halt and everything was reset as he noticed fans begging for his return, bringing him to yet another crossroads…

So let’s reset.

Dylan’s exposure to multiple forms of music began at the age of 16 getting his first job working at his local record store on Long Island, NY. He quickly gravitated to electronic music, heavily inspired by what New York’s FM airwaves had to offer well before the hiphop era would take over. That summer he would sneak out to NYC and into his first club experience, The Limelight, where he instantly fell in love with its debaucherous environment and DJ booth, which he vowed to get into.

By graduation in 1993 he was beyond hooked. Before heading off to college, he took that summer to intern at a few Manhattan based labels: Todd Terry’s Freeze Records, as well as Astralwerks and Instinct Records. All the while insatiably crate digging through NY’s various vinyl shops, Dylan’s teen self was already swimming in local contacts and influences.

But college awaited, and throughout his time at Boston’s Emerson College (obtaining a degree in audio engineering) he launched a weekly radio mix show called “Underground 88” on WERS 88.9 FM through 1997, working his contacts and continuing to hone his technical skills live on air. During these formative years Dylan maintained working at various vinyl shops in NY and Boston doggedly advancing his exposure to every genre imaginable, thus contributing to his encyclopedic knowledge of electronic dance music and all of the wide-ranging influences it would bring him. As a byproduct, his position enabled him to recommend tracks to and influence the taste of bedroom DJs and a myriad of luminaries alike.

Through these years, he even made good on his promise to play at The Limelight before it shuttered, as well as other infamous New York megaclubs like The Tunnel, Twilo and Save The Robots. And thanks to his stint as assistant engineer at The Looking Glass Studios where David Bowie was recording his latest album in 1997, Dylan was hired to DJ Mr. Bowie’s private 50th birthday party after his sold out birthday performance at Madison Square Garden.

But by the turn of the millennium it was off to the races and Dylan was spending more time on the road than at home, as he found himself in demand not only in Spain, but also in The Netherlands headlining the Awakenings festival three times, as well as other major events and festivals in Germany, Brazil, Japan, and Colombia, spreading his unique form of techno gospel one city at a time. 

Between journeys Dylan made the most of his audio degree by building out his own studio in Brooklyn, releasing a handful of original releases and remixes on some of America’s more influential labels of the era: François K.’s Clicktracks; Ascend; Blueline; Remains; and Ultra Records. Even after moving to South Florida in 2012, Dylan continued to work on remixes for other Spanish and European labels.

Then as Dylan began to go dark quietly diving head first into South Florida’s world of high stakes poker, he made sure to finalize the curation of his life’s work on his website and SoundCloud page, with that nagging feeling he would one day return…

That day arrived in 2021 when Dylan decided to look for work as a local DJ in Fort Lauderdale and its saturation of gay nightlife. His bimonthly residency at the legendary Ramrod helped pave his way back, growing just as comfortable in today’s booths as he did 20 years prior.

After a couple years of this and then launching The Techno Files podcast, he realized it was time for more. So in 2025 Dylan decided to relocate once again, this time to the birthplace of where it all began: Detroit.

Within his first year as Detroit resident, Dylan was already playing events for Detroit Techno Militia & Bang Tech 12, along with multiple appearances at Spot Lite, Spkrbox & TV Lounge.

New York-born, Miami-tested, now Detroit-welcomed: Dylan Drazen is primed and ready to return to the world’s electronic stage showing modern audiences how 30 years of sonic mastery, experience and musical influence can be put on brilliant display in a single set.