The 25-year old DJ/producer from Monterrey, Mexico, got his start as a heavy metal drummer. Since going solo, Estrada has written more than 700 tracks, roughly 430 songs in the past three years. His work recognizes that most of the social, geographical and historical forces that shaped ideas of genre last century cannot be transferred across the narrow bandwidth of cloud-stored musical conversations in the 21st century – where clicking a slightly different snare drum pattern on a screen is sufficient to transform a song from one style to another. Estrada uses a wealth of regional Mexican genres (his beloved pre-Hispanic, norteño, banda, cumbia, danzón, tribal guarachero, bolero, mariachi …) to frame explorations of international club sounds (primarily moombahton, dubstep, pop hits and, as of late, dance-rap). Although his work circulates in digital networks, it foregoes standard approaches to musical contemporaneity to inhabit a version of Huitzilopochtli’s – Aztec god of sun, war and human sacrifice – non-linear float.

One of DJ culture’s most common maxims states that the act of remixing old or ethnic music operates as a bridge connecting folkloric sounds to ecumenical dancefloors around the world. When done correctly, the story goes, reverence and renewal unite in a single gesture that makes the old new. Estrada’s music suggests otherwise.

For the first time in Spain, the origin of the Spanish colonization, Dj Javier Estrada will present his set with pre-Hispanic music.

Texts from “ The Aztec imagery and digital soundworld of Mexican producer Javier Estrada” by Jace Clayton (DJ/ Rupture) in Frieze Magazine.