Birdlips – Home
Medications – Brasil ’07
Wytold – Titania
Nick Hakim – Heaven
Drop Electric – Brooklyn’s Nightmare
Mud Rey – Never Satisfied
Sweetnova – Soldier
Will Eastman & Caleb L’Etoile – We Gon Make It All Happen
Lands & Peoples – Colleen’s Wedding
Middle Distance Runner – Brother John
Near Northeast – North Star
Mathugh – THe! Fearsome Twosome.
Warren Wolf – Natural Beauties
Pete Frassrand – Special K
Fugazi – Break
Shark Week – Desire
Damu the Fudgemunk – Overtime Intro – Instrumental
Raw Feels – Waiting / Wasting
Ben Dransfield – Nostalgia
More Humans – You’re a Liar

There’s a good reason for that transparency: Eastman, a founder of U Street Music Hall, has spent much of 2015 clarifying who he is as an artist. He handed over day-to-day control of the now-landmark D.C. dance club in January to concentrate on making music, and “Sugar” marks the beginning of a new era, he says.

“It was a long-overdue thing,” he says. “U Street Music Hall sort of absorbed my entire life for the first five years of its existence. I love that place, and I’m very proud of it. But as a career move for DJs and producers, I’d say, opening up a club can be one of the worst things to happen to your music career.”

The new track isn’t the only big marker in the process. Saturday night, Eastman will DJ a six-hour set at his club (he’s still majority owner) to mark the end of Bliss, the party night he’s been running since 2000.

“I love [U Street Music Hall], and I’m very proud of it. But as a career move for DJs and producers, opening up a club can be one of the worst things to happen to your music career.” — Will Eastman

Bliss, with a history of blending of punk and dance music over the past 15 years, is considered a crucial element in the development of D.C.’s DJ scene. He started it partly because he thought D.C. needed it, but now that it’s ending, he hesitates to say what the city needs next.

“There’s a lot of things that I think could be done better. But I’ll leave that question to come back to later, because part of the process of what I’m doing now with ending this is to sort of free up my brain for fresh inspiration and new ideas,” Eastman says. “So maybe ask me again in six months when I’ve had some time to really think about it. I feel like nothing lasts forever. You shouldn’t try to drag every last ounce out of something that you can.”

As for “Sugar,” Eastman says it’s one of two tracks that he’ll release this fall as a ramp-up to an album next year. It’ll feature D.C. vocalists, but he won’t say who. “Sugar” is on Nurvous, a sub-imprint of legendary New York dance label Nervous. Eastman declines to specify which label will release the next track, but it’ll have a decidedly different vibe: “French house and big-beat sounds from the ’90s,” he says. The purpose is to channel the sounds he loved “when I was very young and first excited about dance music.”

His next single will be released under the name “Will Eastman.” He’s basically retiring the moniker Pentamon, which he’d been using on techno tracks over the last few years.

“I spent some time with that, and I sort of got that out of my system,” Eastman says.

Also, the trio that he formed with D.C.’s Micah Vellian and Outputmessage — Volta Bureau — is effectively on hiatus, he says.

“My attention had been divided for years. I spent all of my energy in 2011 and 2012 on Volta Bureau, and a lot of it in 2013 on Pentamon, and I got sick of dividing my attention,” he says. “I thought, ‘Well, what if I released all of this s*** under my own name — it might not all sound the same, it’s counter-intuitive in terms of a branding strategy … but that’s not how my brain works. I like to make disco, I like to make house, I like to make techno, I like to make ambient electronic music, and if people can’t wrap their brain around that, I’m tired of trying to brand to meet them.”

The good vibes in “Sugar” seem to spring directly from what’s inside Eastman.

“All of my tracks are optimistic tracks. I am a glass-half-full sort of guy,” the producer says. “Even if it’s a track that is sort of in a minor key or is sort of somber, everything is designed to be uplifting. And I firmly believe that music is better now than it was five years ago, and it will be better five years from now than it is right now.”

The final edition of Bliss takes place Sept. 26 at U Street Music Hall.

The compilation includes previously unreleased tracks from producers with ties to the D.C. region, including Outputmessage, Will Eastman, Nacey (of Misun, now in L.A.), Thomas Blondet and Wave Age, who also records as Caleb L’Etoile. For the most part, it’s sunny, accessible stuff that skews toward lightweight house.

Jake Komara — aka DJ Reed Rothchild — helped organize the compilation, which began percolating in February. That time of year “really got me thinking about summer,” Komara writes in an email. “I wanted to put out a music compilation that would capture the feeling of what it’s like to be in D.C. during the summer months. From brunches, to pool parties and rooftop afterhours, D.C. has a pulse during this special time of year.”

Though, at least one song on the collection has origins outside the party: Outputmessage (Bernard Farley) says his track, “Gladys,” is dedicated to his grandmother. From his Facebook page:

This song is particularly special to me. Last year, my grandma Gladys passed away after a long battle with lung cancer. Before she moved on though, she asked me to write her a song. I knew she wouldn’t want a sad song, but a song that was full of life and that’s how “Gladys” came about.

Stream District Summer below.

Flickr photo by William Neuheisel used under a Creative Commons license.

Like the legendary electronic ensemble from Düsseldorf, Paperhaus’ members are audiophiles who can recognize a good sound system. Frontman Alex Tebeleff—who’s put in years playing through crappy PAs in basements and rock clubs—came up with the idea to cover Trans-Europe Express around the time he played a Madchester-themed DJ set at the U Street club in September. After his set that night, he spent some time admiring the venue’s sound system with U Hall co-owner Will Eastman.

“Me and Will were talking and I made a comment like, ‘Can you imagine something like Kraftwerk coming out of these speakers?'” says Tebeleff, 27. “It just came out of a conversation between two music nerds, basically.”

A Kraftwerk superfan, Tebeleff cites the German ensemble’s influence on pop music of all kinds, from hip-hop forebear Afrika Bambaataa to dance-punk ensemble LCD Soundsystem to his band, which usually plays a fairly straightforward strain of indie rock. When he spins music for his pals, “I always enjoy surprising people playing ‘Trans-Europe Express’ into [Bambaataa’s] ‘Planet Rock,'” says Tebeleff. Plus, Paperhaus used to cover “Neon Lights,” a melodic cut from Kraftwerk’s The Man Machine.

Paperhaus doesn’t plan to alter the record or put a unique stamp on Trans-Europe Express, save a few minor tonal adjustments. He says the group will play 85 percent of the melodies on the record, but expects to add live drums and bring new timbres and textures to the songs. The Petworth band recruited neighbor and Br’er keyboardist Erik Sleight to play a synthesizer, and they’re plotting to stack the stage with twice the amount of normal Paperhaus gear, including drum samplers, bass synths, poly synths, a vocoder and effects pedals.

Tebeleff says Paperhaus wants the audience’s focus to be on the music and not the band’s image onstage, but it wouldn’t be a Kraftwerk-inspired act without a light show. Accordingly, Tebeleff says, there will be one—though something more low-key (and low-cost) than Kraftwerk’s spectacular recent performances.

The one-off December show promises to be a dramatic detour for Paperhaus, which is currently recording its new album, scheduled for a Feb. 10 release. All of this electronics-tinkering probably won’t show up on the record; Tebeleff says that the band’s latest songs represent “some of the dirtiest, nastiest rock ‘n’ roll that we’ve done.”

While Paperhaus has already started practicing for the Dec. 14 gig, the group still isn’t sure how it’ll turn out.

“Part of the fun of getting to see us play it is seeing how the [hell] we pull this off,” Tebeleff says. “I’m not even quite sure how we’re gonna do it yet.”

Paperhaus performs Trans-Europe Express Dec. 14 at U Street Music Hall.

“I just need to get these things out,” says Lacsamana, 38, who has been posting his new output on Soundcloud. (Lacsamana has also worked on Bandwidth videos with his friends at Wilderness Bureau.) The latest spans just two tracks: “Never Gonna Get It” and “Crystal Clear”—but it represents a playful period of experimentation for the producer and his self-described “party persona.” He calls the new tunes a “weird hybrid” of house, indie dance and nu-disco.

“It’s dancey stuff…part pop and part weird electronic stuff,” Lacsamana says. “It’s not necessarily something that I’m completely invested in.”

Still, for something he’s not invested in, Lacsamana spent a lot of time remixing and editing the tracks with precision. Named after Crystal City, “Crystal Clear” uses the famous hook from DJ Kool’s sample-driven “Let Me Clear My Throat“—and it wasn’t as simple to make as it may sound. Instead of borrowing the track wholesale, Lacsamana deconstructed the three main elements of Kool’s pastiche: the introductory horns from Kool and the Gang’s “Hollywood Swinging,” the funky sax loop first constructed by 45 King and DJ Kool’s original vocals. The resulting samples came out cleaner and more malleable. “I basically tried to recreate what DJ Kool had done,” he says, but in a different, poppier context.

Doing things differently is a kind of mantra for the Arlington-based artist, who first broke into D.C.’s electronic music scene in the mid-1990s. While other DJs spent time honing their skills, Lacsamana was partying and trying to find himself. “I was kind of a late bloomer,” he says.

As a college student in 1996, Lacsamana had his first epiphany after dropping acid in the parking lot of the now-defunct D.C. nightclub Tracks. “I listened to Daft Punk’s Homework. It was a mind[freak],” he says. While tripping, he realized that he felt drawn to making music. “I was like, ‘Hey, I think this is what I want to do,'” he says.

Skip ahead to this year, and Lacsamana, who swore off drugs and alcohol in June, isn’t done discovering himself. That’s what this solo project is for. He’s not sure he’ll release more music under the Micah Vellian name, but even if he doesn’t, he says, it was worth the effort.

“I had to push through my ego,” Lacsamana says. “That’s what these [songs] are. Sort of the detritus of that journey.”

Saturday, a couple of thousand people flocked to Dock 5—the warehouse venue behind Union Market—for the first Union BBQ, a daylong festival booked by U Street Music Hall.

The lineup united a few different strains of local and international electronic music: The xx’s Jamie xx headlined the outdoor stage, with warm-up sets from former locals Tittsworth and Nadastrom, among others; the inside stage hosted a full and diverse slate, including Animal Collective’s Geologist and Deakin, Virginia resident (and Netherlands native) Martyn, and event co-organizer Will Eastman, alongside acts like Montreal’s Kaytranada and San Francisco’s Viceroy.

Below, scroll through Bandwidth’s photos from some of the night’s performances.

U Street Music Hall co-owner Will Eastman, one of the architects of Union BBQ, DJed the indoor stage.

Washington, D.C. local Steven Faith briefly joined Will Eastman on stage following his set.

Producer, DJ, and U Street Music Hall co-founder Jesse Tittsworth spun a set outdoors.

Tittsworth

Tittsworth and crew

Turnout skewed young, as demonstrated by the high number of X’s on hands

Dutch producer and DJ Martijn Deijkers (Martyn) performed on the indoor stage.

Martyn

Martyn

Martyn

Brian Weitz (left) and Josh Dibb (right) of Animal Collective collaborated on a DJ set.

Brian Weitz and Josh Dibb (right) of Animal Collective

More young fans

Jamie Smith, better know as Jamie xx of London band The xx, played the last set of the night outside.

Jamie xx closed out the evening with a stunning performance and light show.

The crowd during Jamie xx’s set

Much of the night probably wound up on YouTube, Instagram, and Vine

… and good night.

Yet D.C. producer, DJ, and venue co-owner Will Eastman has gone and done that anyway—and it somehow works. Eastman’s energetic remake of “Imitation Air” preserves a few elements from the original tune, and spins the rest into a dizzying, acid-burned floor-filler. It even has drops. Drops!

The Caribbean’s Matt Byars says that’s what the veteran indie-rock band wanted. “We’ve known Will for a while, [and] think he’s an extremely cool, fashionable guy, and wanted him to do something from the new record,” Byars writes in an email. He calls the remix “exactly what we were looking for from Will: something that would sound great in a club with a fantastic sound system (e.g. U Hall) and that, yes, people can dance to.”

The Caribbean has been remixed before—numerous times, in fact. Producer/engineer Scott Solter produced an EP of remixes based on the band’s 2007 album, “Populations.” Byars points out that other tunes from the band’s recent LP, “Moon Sickness,” have been reworked by Brad Laner of Medicine, Jimmy Ether of Headphone Treats, and Mike Shiflet—and more are forthcoming from D.C.’s Outputmessage and Thomas Wincek of Volcano Choir and All Tiny Creatures. Byars says the band is also working on a release for D.C. label Bad Friend Records that includes Deleted Scenes, Tereu Tereu, and The Caribbean remixing each other.

While that’s all in the oven, absorb this transformative take on an already vibrant track.