Akua, Juana, Sassmouth

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Tatsumi Matsumoto

A person leaning on a car.

Akua

From the folks behind the Musique Électronique stage at La Fête de Marquette every summer, the Remain in Night concert series regularly brings international-level talent to play Madison clubs. That's certainly the case with this triple bill of producers, including rising techno star Akua, whose busy 2022 included sets at various festivals in Europe and club dates across the U.S.; D.C.-based house and techno expert Juana; and the return of Sassmouth, a 2019 La Fête performer. More info at remaininnight.com.

Remain in Night. $25.

media release: Remain in Night returns for another unforgettable evening of pulsating psychedelic techno. Come explore the rhythms and textures of the night within our totally transformed space while immersing yourself in a world class VOID sound system. For this edition we welcome three of our favorite underground artists from across the US... Akua (Brooklyn) has been making major waves across the globe with celebrated sets at Dekmantel, Draaimolen, and a legendary closing set at Berghain this past year. Juana (DC) plays music that makes you lose your mind on the dance floor, this Unter resident and Discwoman stalwart is the real deal. Sassmouth (Chicago) is the founder of the God Particle label, a former Smartbar resident, and has played many outstanding DJ sets over the last decade plus at our festival, Musique Électronique.

Full Bios:

Akua is a Ghanian-American artist based in Brooklyn. Her practice as a DJ and producer has developed throughout the years to uniquely encompass her passion for music – not only as an apparatus for dance, but one of self discovery, community building, & unrestricted knowledge. Drawing influence from the kinetic freedom of 90s Midwest techno, the unifying velocity of dancing, & the frenetic pace of life, Akua has since helped redefine the techno sounds emerging from NYC through the multitude of her evocative, mind bending sets & exuberant mixing techniques. Akua’s tireless dedication to more freakish strains of techno & finesse encapsulates the sublime, chaotic potential of the present, while harkening back to the innovative methods & experimentation of DJs throughout history. Weaving threads of sounds new & old into a signature style of supersonic rhythm shifters, every mix of hers courses with timelessness & the most empowering qualities of rave – time dilation, expanded perspective within the mantra-like repetition of electronic rhythms, & the continuum of black futurity at dance music’s core.

All this plays out in Akua’s blazing sets heard around the world, from a residency on London’s beloved Rinse FM station, playing forward thinking European festivals including Dekmantel, Draaimolen, and Horst along with a bombastic closing slot at Berghain for Berlin’s CTM Festival, to all across North America at hot spots like NYC’s BASEMENT and Nowadays, Pittsburgh’s Hot Mass, & the annual Sustain-Release festival. Further praise for her work has come from publications Crack Magazine, Pitchfork, & Resident Advisor. Original productions of hers have appeared on compilations via platforms including Electronic Beats & HAUS OF ALTR, further giving form to the inner velocity & metaphysical momentum Akua seeks to cultivate. Through her journey in life & music, Akua aims to help others find understanding within themselves by harnessing their personal power & channeling it into the power of dance. Her message through techno represents a deep dedication to research and bringing forth narratives about the genre’s history. Her work honors the original, authentic, and rebellious old school values of techno – the sort that luminaries like Underground Resistance defined so early on – while also breaking modern expectations with a fresh sense of attitude. Her recontextualization of techno centers it’s long lineage for contemporary audience, transmuting the boundless genesis of rave onwards towards buoyant possibilities for the future.

Juana is a DJ and producer hailing from the city of Chicago. She started out like most, as a random kid on the dance floor every week at places like The Generator and Boom Boom Room, and has been DJing house, techno, and disco parties since roughly 2001. Juana moved to DC in 2003 and began hosting weekly live internet radio shows on HandzOnRadio (Baltimore) and Cyberjamz (Tampa) and playing parties in the DC deep house scene, upping her skills alongside legendary DJs like Sam “the Man” Burns,” and at clubs including Red and the DC Sanctuary. Juana started obsessively collecting disco and early house records in the late 90s and eventually developed an undying penchant for straight-ahead techno and darker shades of Chicago underground acid and deep house of the 80s and 90s.

Over the past several years, Juana has made her mark in DC as primarily a techno DJ, becoming a weekend fixture at local venues like Flash and U Street Music Hall and as a member of the founding squad of the Sequence collective, led by Ron Jackson. Sequence was the first underground party committed to consistently showcasing local and global techno DJs and crafting a dark, dangerous, sometimes hellishly uncomfortable party vibe hitherto unavailable in the DC area. Juana has enticed crowds all over the world at venues such as Berghain’s Saule, Flash, WAS, De School, and numerous underground warehouses. Over the past several years, Juana has played alongside DJs such as, DVS1, Perc, Headless Horseman, I Hate Models, and DJ Stingray.

Juana joined the Discwoman roster in 2017 and is a founding member of the DC QT BIPOC collective NOXEEMA JACKSON. As a producer, her first release “Discipline Issues” was released as part of a compilation on Katie Rex’s Bound label, and her first independent EP “Floating” landed in 2020. Her most recent EP “Peaks” was released in July 2021, and she also appeared on the TRAX ONLY Soft Touch compilation in spring of 2021 and the Neighborhoods Vol. 1 compilation on World Building in fall of 2021.

One of the fascinating creatures that our Planet houses is the ever-elusive Sassmouth. Fortunately, the Planet Chicago recording crew caught some sounds from her natural habitat, and we just finished listening to the entire Sassmouth ‘Collected Mixes’ and ‘Selected Productions.’ The music explores all aspects of our Planet. Mind the abundant basslines, dazzling melodies, and unparalleled orchestral score. I was absolutely gobsmacked from start to finish indeed!

As of her ‘god particle’ label launch in early 2013, and ‘Planet Chicago’ club night launch at the legendary ‘Smartbar’ in early 2014 where she continues her Chicago residency, one can say that she is quite simply the inimitable nature/wildlife/DJ/producer. Following the similarly paramount achievement of being enlisted as a resident for the San Francisco based ‘As You Like It’ production group in early 2013, this colossal cephalopod continued to so sensibly organize each and every impromptu mix whilst covering specific genre regions and/or habitats (deep oceans, techno, Great Lakes, house, shallow seas, electro, urban rivers, experimental, etc.) until the entire Planet was magnificently represented by the most astonishing sounds you’ve ever experienced from the comforts of home, club, or NBFC underground party. -Sir David Attenborough