- When it comes to long DJ sets, Far Away is at the forefront of LA's underground club scene. Following memorable all-nighters from Floating Points and Young Marco in the past year, the party's latest installment presented British-born, Stockholm-based DJ/producer Mark Seven, booked for a marathon seven-hour set. A well-known digger who makes frequent record buying trips to the US, Seven runs the online shop Jus Wax and releases vintage house music on his labels, Parkway and Parkwest. He last appeared at Far Away in 2014 to celebrate the release of his cassette for the party's mixtape series.
Attendees were required to RSVP for directions to the afterhours event, and the all-night bar—a rarity for LA—seemed to draw as many indifferent party people as informed music heads. Though the warehouse space in a dilapidated downtown alley was familiar to Far Away regulars, a clever repositioning of the DJ booth, plus a booming Funktion-1 system and E&S mixer, made for better sound and a more spacious dance floor. A massive disco ball hung from the ceiling, bringing the bare room to life.
Pulling primarily from a crate of records, Seven demonstrated clean mixes, exciting transitions and tasteful EQing throughout. As he nudged the tempo up over the course of several hours, he maintained a constant sense of forward motion that never meandered. Warming up with 707-heavy house and synth pop selections from the likes of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Fad Gadget, his tone evoked a SoCal Balearic sensibility, recalling the 110 BPM chug of Daniele Baldelli's cosmic cassettes.
Later, Seven sprinkled in some US soul and disco selections such as Aurra's "When I Come Home" and LaBelle's "Messin' With My Mind," but he largely avoided the East Coast proto-house sound championed on his Parkway Mastermix series. By dodging expectations he showed range, forging ecstatic moments from well-worn classics. One particularly slick manoeuvre saw Seven fade from British darkwavers Visage's "The Anvil" into Midnight Star's West Coast radio favorite "Freak-A-Zoid," exemplifying his blend of freewheeling selections and rock-solid mixing.
While the crowd grew steadily across the night, the absence of set times and headliners made for a rotating cast of dancers on the floor. With no defined peak time to anticipate, I felt my listening habits change, enjoying the tracks in the moment rather than hearing them as building blocks to a bigger payoff. Because he had seven hours to play with, Seven steered clear of the typical sustain-release trajectory, opting for something with more depth and less predictability. It was a true feat of DJing.
Photo credit: Michael Melwani