Circuit

We sat down with SHADED ahead of his show in Phoenix tomorrow night and here’s what he had to say about the tracks that helped influence his sound:

“These are 5 tracks that have sound tracked my life while simultaneously influencing my own personal productions journey. Nostalgic, classic, and timeless music that I can listen to on repeat.”

Track IDs:

SUBLIME - DOIN’ TIME
AIR - LA FEMME D’ARGENT
DR. DRE (FEAT. SNOOP DOGG) - STILL D.R.E
DUBFIRE - RIBCAGE
TELEPOPMUSIK - BREATHE

Meet our sound selectors for this Saturday 09.26.

SHADED
A restless architect of nostalgic future music, Shaded fuses driving psychedelic grooves with funk laced basslines, remixing his own catalog live in real time and refusing every trend in his path to pull the dancefloor somewhere it has never been.

SEAN WATSON
A longtime force in the Phoenix underground, Sean Watson brings years of instinct behind the decks and a deep musical vocabulary to every set. Moving fluidly through house, deep grooves and left-of-center selections, he knows how to read a room, build momentum and keep the dancefloor locked in.

VICTOR CASTLES
A familiar face in the Phoenix underground, Victor Castles is all about the groove. Rolling through house, tech and late-night rhythms with ease, his sets are made for those after-hours stretches when the room locks in, the groove gets deeper and nobody’s ready to stop dancing.

DRYRUB B2B James Edwards
Fresh faces in the Phoenix dance music community, these two groovers share a deep love for the sounds of the underground. Making their debut behind the decks, they’re warming up the night with funky beats, and fresh energy. Get ready to move.

🤖 THE MACHINES ARE TAKING OVER.

Everyone is a DJ now. Not because everyone really loves the music, but because 'everyone' is a bigger market than 'DJs' ever was.

47 seconds is the average attention span on a screen today. In 2004 it was about 150 seconds.

That drop didn't happen because we got lazier. An entire industry figured out that faster and easier sells better, and content got built around keeping us consuming. DJ brands ran the exact same play.

Between 2004 and 2013 the gear got cheaper, smaller, and easier to use. Not for the culture but for the corporate machine.

Turns out you can turn any niche into a mass market if you strip away enough of what made it a craft in the first place.

No industry escapes the machine. Music, media, gear, eventually it all gets optimized for the widest possible buyer.

Is this level of accessibility progress, or is it just consumerism finding its next target? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

A little Phoenix dance-floor history coming full circle.
For years, Sean Watson’s BFF (Big Fun Fridays) BFF Phoenix at Bar Smith was part of the fabric of Phoenix’s underground electronic music scene — a long-running night built around good music, good people, and a proper dance floor.
In 2018, Sean brought SHADED to Phoenix for the first time for BFF’s 5-year anniversary. And on September 26, SHADED returns to Phoenix for Circuit at The Drop, with Sean back behind the decks on support.
--
SHADED + Sean Watson + Victor Castles + Dryrub B2B James Edwards
09.26 // Circuit at The Drop // Phoenix, AZ

He calls it nostalgic future music. Contemporary tracks built for how he wants to hear them. With roots in minimal techno on Dubfire's own label SCI+TEC. SHADED now drops deep grooves on labels like Dirtybird and Trick. He's never chased a trend once, and it shows.

Before dropping dope records, before three Xone K2 controllers and a rig small enough to stay flexible on stage, SHADED started in punk. Every set since has been a live remix of his own catalog. No two nights the same. Which means the version of SHADED you catch at The Drop PHX on September 26 exists exactly once.

Catch him LIVE at Circuit Presents Shaded September 26th.
Location: The Drop PHX.
Tickets Here: https://ra.co/events/2518653