Interview with DJ Inbetween: 'Stopping and Listening, Together'

DJ Inbetween is a musician’s musician; he wears many musical hats—and somehow, wears all of them well. A longstanding staple in the New York City music scene, who regularly DJs across the city (notably at Treasure Club and formerly Hi-Note and Botanica) and is a member of BRBRCK, just released a new album. LIP/Stationary proves to be his best yet, a tender, strange, melancholic, and reflective work that interrogates what it means to stay still in the face of emotional upheaval.

[This interview has been edited for clarity.]

1. Recommend three albums or musicians that you've been listening to on repeat lately.

It's always changing based on what I'm doing musically, but recently songs for headphones especially are up there (headphone dynamics played a big part into my newest album):

Latryx - The Album (1997)
Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds Of... (2001)
Kruder & Dorfmeister - 1995 (2020)

2. How would you say other art mediums, such as film, sweep into the way you make music?

When I'm watching something, I'm also listening for tonality; not tonality just in terms of how something can it into something else musically, but of course the emotional tonality of it too. This applies to strictly visual mediums as well and what they evoke.

3. If you identified as a particular song, what would you choose?

This changes all the time, but based on life currently: Aphex Twin's Alberto Basalm from his 1995 I Care Because You Do album; it's simultaneously calm and kinetic, which I feel accurately defines my personality.

4. For your new album, LIP/Stationary, what would you like listeners to come away with? it could be a mood, image, dream, emotion, etc.

That there is power in stopping and observing what's happening around you, in being mindful. The LIP part of the album's title, which I purposely obfuscated, stands for "Locked in Place;" that phrase can have negative connotations, which is why I shortened it. But it's meant to remind someone to put the phone down, walk away from the inbox, forget the appointment: to just listen.

I find it incredibly grounding and empowering to do so, and designed each track on the album to be thematic variations on a single musical motifinto how to do that; whether it be listening to your heart, storm sounds, moving water, your partner... what you hear and see may not always be positive but there's power in paying attention. Basically whatever returns you to the present moment and provides peace or clarity until the world bustles about you again.

5. As someone who has seen you DJ, and knows how wide-ranging your selections and use of samples are, how do you merge such distinctly different sounds into something not only cohesive, but dynamic?

I always have a vague idea of the mood I'm going to want to convey during a set ahead of time, but it really ties into all of the above: to stop and listen, in this case, to the people in the room and then use that to set the emotional and musical tonality of the room going forward. Using many genres and tempos can help tap into an overall collective unconscious and get the room to do what I'm doing: stopping and listening, together.

Check out this playlist DJ Inbetween created for Y/P:

Find him here and here.