Welcome to Dazed’s PC Music takeover, a two-day guest edit celebrating 10 years of pop music’s most exhilarating label. Head here to check out exclusive mixes, an oral history, and in-depth profiles with some of its key players.
“Most people are surprised to hear that I don’t have a lair,” DJ Warlord tells us on the eve of dropping his exclusive Dazed mix, before adding, somewhat surreptitiously, “at least not anymore”. It’s a characteristically mystifying statement, especially from a musician who spent the best part of ten years with their identity shrouded in secrecy. In 2013, the year of PC Music’s founding, Warlord dropped their Meat SS14 Embassy mix, and back then little was known of the mysterious DJ. Furiously combining Cameo’s “Back and Forth”, Janet Jackson’s “Lonely”, and snippets from the Metal Gear Solid 2 soundtrack, the mix was quintessential PC Music, full of slick R&B edits and blistering bass mash-ups. Today, Warlord’s identity is shrouded in a little less secrecy, but he still tries to stay as lowkey as possible, whether that’s cooking up a storm in the studio, or quietly leading his pack of PC Music compatriots.
Describing the story behind his new mix ‘DJ’s Lair Revealed’, it’s a “dreamlike mega-vortex, like a memory palace or Borges’ Library of Babel, but with vinyl instead of books,” says Warlord. “There’s a separate chamber for every possible audience, club or fee”, he adds, before concluding that, “it’s infinite, and I lie awake at night roaming its corridors like an anthropomorphic leopard.” While this new mix contains relentless Warlord edits of artists like Hannah Diamond, Babymorocco and Caroline Polachek, Warlord is keen to let us know that he’s actually arrived from a different time altogether. “My favourite live show was ‘Yes’ at the Grünau Restaurant in Gerlafingen, Switzerland, November 1969,” he tells us. “I can't explain how or why, but DJing was invented that night, one way or another.”
But when he’s not time-travelling or pacing the halls of his infinite lair in feline form, what can you find DJ Warlord listening to? “Just stuff that’s easy to mix really, whatever gets people going,” he tells us. “Ciara and Future’s ‘Where You Go’, ‘Do While ⌘X’ by Oval, ‘Surrender’ by Cheap Trick. All the classics.”
For a peek into this eclectic world of influences, listen to DJ Warlord’s brand new mix below.