creatrix poet friend of humanity lover of all life

Lo-fi garage rock, with minor complexities

"This 45 hoarder made soul music fun again with his Soul Clap & Dance Off parties, where five-hour sets of rare grooves and B-sides provided a fleshy alternative to the club scene’s industrial snarl. Instead of bucking the trends of American pop music for some underground alternative, Toubin has made his name by embracing pop’s connective tissue, tracing the rhythm and blues, soul, and rock and roll of the nineteen-fifties and sixties. " (The New Yorker)

"The most-liked man in the soul music scene" (Rolling Stone)

"Jonathan is pretty much the only DJ we actually like." (VICE)

"Particularly chic... one of the most popular spinners in Williamsburg and the founder of the New York Night Train dance parties. His fare is already cleaner and more appreciative of American pop music history than much of the rest..." (NY Times)

Awarded "BEST DJ" in "The Village Voice" 60th Anniversary “Best of NYC”: "We might live in an EDM world, but Jonathan Toubin has no truck with today's musical whims. Since 2007, Toubin's Soul Clap and Dance-Off has brought throwback pizzazz and retro cool to New York's late-night underground. Culled from an endless array of long-forgotten Sixties soul singles, Soul Clap is pure musical dynamite, the kind of after-hours party that exposes today's iTunes-bred, press-play DJs for their relative lack of roots and ingenuity. No fist-bumps or atomic bass drops here... You can try to put your moves to better use, but you'll be hard-pressed to find more cathartic, sweatier fun elsewhere in the city." (Village Voice Critics Choice Award, 2015)

"BEST DJ" (Village Voice "Best of NYC" Readers' Choice Award 2014)

"Jonathan Toubin is the reigning king of the sweaty, non-stop super-fun dance party" (Paper Magazine)

"Jonathan Toubin is a multihypenate in every sense of the word... Toubin fuses obscure rhythm and blues from the '50s and '60s, with rock 'n' roll and soul 45s. His ongoing New York Night Train parties easily draw those typically found sulking in corners of bars out onto the dance floor." (Interview Magazine)

"Jonathan Toubin is New York rock and soul DJ who plays his collection of original 45rpm records to packed dance floors all over the world." (BBC World Service)

"Most fun ever!... Jonathan Toubin is one of our all time favorite DJs who spins rare 45s and travels around the world making people happy" (BUST Magazine)

"The long-running Soul Clap remains one of the sweatiest dance parties to be experienced in New York City. Fueled by his rare and raucous 45s collection, DJ Jonathan Toubin draws on raw soul and the most feral strains of rock 'n' roll from the early 1960s to power the nights." (Wall Street Journal)

"Few people recognize the roaring, crackling songs; even fewer can really dance the blues. It doesn’t matter. The evening’s not about proving you know the most obscure records or looking good; it’s about some kind of soul-shaking alchemy. Before you know it, it’s the opening scene of “Dirty Dancing,” all swerving hips and bare shoulders—you would’ve sworn you’d be the last to dance, but there you are, breathless.... Spellbound bodies slip into the song’s shuffling rhythm, and Toubin reaches for the next bit of black magic." (The New Yorker)

"Soul Clap is the most popular soul dance party in the world, playing to more people in more places than any other... Toubin plays all original soul 45s from the 1960s and uncommon upbeat cuts." (SXSW Music News)



"Indeed, Toubin's 45 r.p.m. record-fueled, rock-and-soul heavy dance parties were some of the best, sweatiest nights we've had in this city." (Gothamist)

"Jonathan Toubin is the only person we can call a "professional DJ" without involuntarily making a jack-off motion with our hand... His parties are like what Ancient Stonehenge was like if it was, as archaeologists theorize, filled with people dressed many times better than you completely losing their shit." (VICE)

SUTEKH HEXEN

There are in the abyss architects building great temples - spaces accessible to those who have the mind and fortitude to transgress the seen and pass into the unseen. There are those who know foundations, and those who further know adornment, where the subtle and the profound gnash their teeth. Amid splinter and nail, among cavern and spire, we find the black temples of Sutekh Hexen. Here, finely woven shrouds of static hang from clattering bones. On blinding pyres, offerings convulse, open into screams. The labyrinth collapses as soon as its center is found, and when you are offered this chance to catch your breath - take it. You will soon find yourself blindfolded, fingering crossroads, filthy with the marks of shadows older than the sun.

But savage territories yield, ultimately, to a grace of their own, discernible to the eye refined. Herein lie the guts of Sutekh Hexen's power. These are ruins reimagined, anarchic entities restrained -- though they twitch in their bindings and blister beneath our gaze. A way has been cut, yet we see that it is faceted, that it will never betray anything so evident as a single path. As bottomless as the abyss is, neither does it have a crown. The empyrean here is severe, the pits heaving and rich. The greatest subversion affected, then, by Sutekh Hexen, is the making unknown of the known, of offering a body upon which you may scratch and scratch until your nailbeds bleed and still believe you're digging at something holy.

And for all that is here profane, dead sacred are the rites of each of these offerings. These are no self-referential mirrors intended to seduce the ego. Instead, each demonstrates, unflinchingly, an encounter with those rare entities that have the power to haunt the haunted. Slippery are these altars, like honeyed knives to bone.

Grind that ear upon the temple door, and hold your teeth in your head. This exorcism's going to find its way back in. Receive it. Let it leave a mark.

Info: sutekhhexen.org
Contact/Booking: info@sutekhhexen.org

Emma Swift is an Australian-born songwriter, currently residing in the USA. A gifted singer inspired by Joni Mitchell, Marianne Faithfull and a plethora of dead poets, her sound is a blend of classic folk, Americana and indie rock.

In August 2020 she released the critically-acclaimed “Blonde On The Tracks”, a Laurel Canyon inspired reimagining of some of her favourite Bob Dylan tunes on Tiny Ghost Records. The album received Best of 2020 accolades from Rolling Stone, Nashville Scene, No Depression, The Guardian and more.

“Her high, clear voice highlights each syllable, letting you hear the words form, one seemingly following inevitably from the other, until they feel handed down, fragments of old songs now speaking to each other.” - Greil Marcus, LA REVIEW OF BOOKS

“Swift navigates Sansone's majestic folk-rock arrangements like the able captain of a frigate sailing over shimmering seas.” - Bud Scoppa, UNCUT MAGAZINE

“Nobody has ever sung Dylan quite like this Nashville-based Australian singer-songwriter, nor with such a rare interpretive gift…comparable to Emmylou Harris’s Wrecking Ball in its intent, execution and intimacy.” - Andrew Stafford, THE GUARDIAN

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