Avalon Emerson

Avalon Emerson crafts expansive techno and house that draws equal inspiration from the sweeping Arizona landscapes of her youth and the forward-looking energy of Detroit’s classic sound. Her productions stretch out with inventive architecture while remaining anchored in forceful, driving beats. As a DJ she has earned equal recognition, leaping across genres, speeds, and decades while deploying effects pedals and tailor-made edits. That inventive mixing style was documented on her 2020 contribution to the DJ-Kicks series. Teaming with Anunaku as the duo A+A, she issued the trance-tinged 060 EP in 2022.

Although born in San Francisco, Emerson grew up in Arizona and returned to her native city in 2009, where she began spinning records at house parties before moving into club sets. She soon turned to production, uploading tracks online from 2012 onward. After several independent house singles, her debut vinyl outing arrived in 2014 via the San Francisco label Icee Hot with the “Pressure”/“Quoi” 12". Two further EPs surfaced that year on Spring Theory, coinciding with her first overseas DJ engagements in Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands. In 2015 she settled in Berlin and released an EP on the Dresden imprint Shtum. Regular appearances at the city’s Panorama Bar followed, alongside performances across Europe, North America, and Asia. Two widely praised EPs appeared in 2016: Whities 006 on the London label Whities and Narcissus in Retrograde on Spectral Sound, Ghostly International’s club-oriented sub-label. In 2017 she received additional notice for a wide-ranging downtempo remix of Slowdive’s “Sugar for the Pill,” and Whities 013 followed that November. Continued touring accompanied remixes for Christine and the Queens, Four Tet, and Robyn, leading to her 2020 installment of !K7’s long-running DJ-Kicks series. Later that year she delivered the 040 EP for AD 93, the label formerly known as Whities. Emerson and labelmate Anunaku subsequently formed A+A, releasing 060, a nod to early-2000s progressive house and trance, in 2022.