Jump Split Mix by Ariel Zetina & Miss Twink USA
Chicago Full Throttle
BUTT is back in the mix! (The mixtape business.) And what better way to start off the new year than with a bang? ...an hour-long sonic gangbang from Ariel Zetina and Del Hale aka Miss Twink USA, whose full-throttle blend of techno and cunt-pop keep it fast and fun. Their b2b at last summer's WHOLE Festival inspired a frenzy of queer ecstasy and definitely some cocksucking on the dancefloor. The title of this mix is inspired by Rumors, their party in Chicago, where queens have been known to dive right off the bar. Colin Murphy sat down with them to talk "Chicago style." We hope you're feeling limber...
Colin: How would you describe the Chicago sound?
Del: Chicago is like bursting at the seams with just this kind, free energy. That’s why I always like Chicago. You can get away with so much there. And people embrace it, just because they want to hear different sounds.
Ariel: It’s funny, I think it’s now trendy to throw a bit of pop in a set. I feel like a lot of people would be like, against that before, especially in Berlin.
Last year when y’all played at WHOLE, I had one friend who came up to me when I was back in Berlin afterwards, and she was like, ‘Is that the future of club music?’ I said, well, yes. But also it gets so fucking stale here in Berlin sometimes. And y’all brought this poppy, fun, chaotically mixed beautiful disaster of a set that had everyone going nuts. It was super dynamic, and every moment was giving new energy. It felt full. Bursting at the seams, like Del said.
Ariel: There are so many deejays that I love in Chicago who inspire us a lot. There’s this new promoter in Chicago, Jennifer Fauxpez, I feel like her style is explained as techno, but then she throws in Crystal Castles.
Del: And there are so many sub scenes within the club scene, especially now. So you can really hear anything on a night out if you look for it. I just wish we had more than, like, three venues.
How did you both come to play together?
Del: With Rumors, the Chicago party collective. I was a really young deejay the first time I played there. And then I came back for another show. And I think it just hit right on the money. Then they asked me to join the collective. It’s one of my favorite parties. It was the first party I ever went to.
Ariel: We started Rumors in 2014. Or 2015 Maybe? I never know the exact date. My friend Bo was the founder. And then he asked me and Claudia, another deejay, who used to live in Chicago to work with him. Del and I started playing because it was just more fun to play together. And we really understood how the other likes to play.
Del: That was always the Rumors style. Everybody would bounce around all night. Even when we had 5 deejays playing in a night, everybody would just bounce around and share music together.
What do you mean bounce around?
Del: Like we literally don’t even make set times. We just put “Rumors DJs” on the flyers.
Ariel: Yeah. And lately Dutchesz (Gemini) has been starting to deejay more and so we’ve kind of added her into the mix. She’s so funny, she performs as well and her signature at the venue, Dorian’s, is to jump into a split off the bar.
Oh my god.
Ariel: We use the bar as a stage, the venue is this cute old record shop but has the flair of a Japanese-style record store bar. Usually it’s like jazz and vinyl and stuff there. But then we kind of like shake it up, and it’s been pretty successful.
Del: It’s been really successful!
Ariel: The bar also went viral on Tiktok so it’s been really crowded lately. And people always demand a drag show now. It’s really funny. People come specifically for the drag and keep asking when it will start, but you know, it’s impossible to get drag queens anywhere on time.