Avalon Emerson & the Charm

Avalon Emerson’s musical identity was forged on the dancefloor, but her outlook has neverbeen limited to the confines of the club. A San Francisco native who grew up in Arizona and first found her artistic footing while DJing at raucous Bay Area warehouse parties, Emerson—who after moving to Berlin quickly became a regular behind the decks at the city’s famed Berghain—now stands as one of dance music’s most celebrated contemporary figures. Having played all around the world, she’s the rare DJ who can move seamlessly between the sweaty confines of clubs like Nowadays and massive festivals like Coachella, Primavera Sound and Glastonbury, and though she’s known for her intensely technical approach to the craft, she’s beloved for her melody-rich, genre-agnostic selections. Her DJ sets transcend the confines of time or genre by recontextualizing dance music from previous eras among contemporary sounds weaving together house, techno, new wave, disco and rave obscurities with her own productions and edits. In 2019 she launched 9000 Dreams, her own international series of events, as the curatorial expression of her musical vision. Showcasing the breadth of her eclectic taste over the course of a club night, artists on the lineup range from heavy hitters to exciting new names. Once she gets into the studio, her production work employs a similarly free-flowing philosophy.