Herb Sundays 140: Nick León
A "love through the noise" playlist from Miami Producer/DJ, Nick León. "I tried to include music I have revisited over the years that gives me that comforting melancholy I crave from time to time."
Herb Sundays 140: Nick León (Apple, Spotify)
Art by Michael Cina.
“Things have been feeling a little somber recently and I think this mix definitely reflects that. I tried to include music I have revisited over the years that gives me that comforting melancholy I crave from time to time. Love songs and wistful beats, lots of guitar on tape. I also wanted to include some artists that were pretty pivotal for my musical upbringing and who I’ve felt always brought emotion to electronic music. I included a photo from the time I discovered a lot of this stuff when I lived in Boston in 2013 (this playlist is what he would be listening to most likely haha) Also had to include Jaco Pastorius who is a hometown hero for me (shout out to Oakland Park).”
- Nick León for Herb Sundays
Nick León often describes his sound as “dystopian” or picking up on a "moodiness in the club,” reflecting a dissonance in his travels. His Herb playlist clicks into this romantic expanse too, a nod to a younger self (see pic above). His catalog of production, remixes, and DJ mixes chronicle Florida’s various musical pathways. He came of age in South Florida’s Soundcloud rap scene but has since reflected Miami’s diverse electronic sound, releasing music on labels such as TraTraTrax, Future Times, and NAAFI, and producing for artists such as Rosalía, Denzel Curry, Tama Gucci, MJ Nebreda, and Empress Of.
I met Nick in 2023, inviting him to our Lot Radio show, and was really moved by his humilty. León is quickly ascending the global ranks as an electronic music producer, DJ, and a go-to for others, or as (who has an ace new substack) said in Resident Advisor: “It feels like the zeitgeist, whatever that means, is converging on Nick León. Miami's bustling dance music scene, with a host of producers making new names for themselves, is on everyone's lips, as Latin club sounds—from reggaeton to dancehall to dembow to perreo—have captured the attention of DJs from across the globe.”
Indeed, Miami has begun to stick its neck out as a global scene leader again this decade, after years of being assumed as a simple pleasure Xanadu from its South Beach-centric image or the big stage theatrics of Ultra Music Fest. However, there’s always been great dance music culture embodied in festivals like III Points and in the hands of promoters like Safe and Jezebel. León runs in an elite crew of locals and ex-pats, including the great DJ Python, with whom he released a collaborative EP in 2023, up and comer Jonny from Space (named for yes, his residency at Club Space), whose 2024 album on Anthony Naples’ (Herb 99) Incienso label, Back Then I Didn't But Now I Do was one of last year’s best and the scene stalwart and den mother Danny Daze whose 2023 masterclass :BLUE:: (released on his own Omnidisc label) features both Jonny and Nick, amongst others.
Indeed, León’s sound can appeal to a packed terrace at Space, but he’s come into his own weaving something odder in his mixes; his best DJ sets have a stroboscopic effect like Tron’s (1982) Flynn character being pulled into the game grid, never losing its groove, but creating something stranger than you can find on most major dancefloors. León’s success has only multiplied since picking up on the trace minerals in Miami’s waters or as he told RA in 2022:
“I used to think I was more of an outsider amongst the Miami scene as a large chunk of it is more electro or tech house-influenced. However, after doing more research and uncovering a lot of older Latin house records as well as IDM and breaky stuff from labels like Schematic and Merck, my eyes were opened to a sort of lineage that's been happening on a subconscious level in the city. I also think that during quarantine a lot of my peers had time to hone in on their sound and experiment so it's made for some amazing club music over the past two years. I feel like we are just getting started so it's exciting to see what comes next.”
Miami’s history in American underground music, outside of the powerful House music of Murk and, of course, the God Tier genre of Miami Bass, is underappreciated. Indeed, Miami’s oft-overlooked spirit of experimentalism made it an original port of call for incoming waves of IDM/Braindance from the UK. Some of the genre’s most influential American groups came out of the American south, namely Miami’s Soul Oddity (later becoming Phoenicia), and their Schematic label (b. 1996) which was one of the era's most impactful labels debuting artists such as Richard Devine, Scott Herren (Prefuse73, Savath & Savalas), Otto Von Schirach, Push Button Objects and more. The label is now back up and running beautifully, mashing up electro, noise, bass, and more with a personality to spare. León hosted Schematic co-founder Romulo Del Castillo (on his excellent NTS Show, Beach Noir last year.
On a personal level, Miami looms large for me as a pivotal inspiration for Ghostly, and as a melting pot for the disparate sounds I loved from Electro to Hip-Hop to Bass. I brought copies of the first Ghostly 12” (Hands Up For Detroit) with me to the Winter Music Conference (think SXSW for dance music) and tried to get it into DJs hands, I’ll never forget that excited loneliness of those moments, and the headier times to come years later. There’s a WTF-ness to Miami that is often lost in mainstream media, for all its glitz, there is a strangeness to the place, and the WMC adjacent events in the early ‘00s (I had to resort to the Way Back Machine to find one of our early gigs there, held by Schematic) felt like the perfect melting pot of the emerging scene. Laurent Fintoni captured this duality to Miami in his essential 2018 piece for Fact, which was inspirational to León:
In March 1996, Autechre came to perform at the Surfcomber Beach Hotel for the WMC alongside Carl Craig, Space Time Continuum, and Soul Oddity. Though only the first two ended up playing, new friendships formed after Edgar Farinas [Push Button Objects] shared a joint with Autechre’s Sean Booth and Rob Brown, the other half of the duo, aintroduced himself to Soul Oddity during sound check. “They needed weed, trainers, a square meal,” says Del Castillo. For his part, Farinas was “stoked these guys from England were all about hip-hop, yet made this cool sound I hadn’t even heard before.”
2022 popped for León with his single/EP “Xtasis” (TraTraTrax) which Philip Sherburne flagged for Pitchfork as “sleek, pan-Latin club hybrids that sail over choppy beats like cigarette boats slapping whitecaps in Biscayne Bay. Venezuela’s DJ Babatr helped out with the percussion and arrangement, as well as contributing a head-turning vocal sample, and there’s clearly an element of Caracas’ “raptor house” (or changa tuki) sound in the song’s staccato snares and tightly syncopated drums…”
León had the rare distinction of being not just Resident Advisor’s 2022 song of the year for “Xtasis” but also 2024 for his collaboration with Herb-fave Erika de Casier (come on the podcast Erika, we need you), “Bikini,” which arrives sonically on land from the water at dusk, at say, the Standard Miami, whilst watching your new paramour take a dip as the sun explodes the sky, wondering how you got here and how you could be so lucky. The sleeve itself is indeed a photo of De Casier at that hotel (I had just guessed this), and enhanced by designer Ezra Miller, another artist with a deft touch like León, who achieves something amazing with the art, turning the view into a Sam Gilliam painting, the clouds as hyperreal wisps of stretched canvas, further distancing us from said reality.
It’s a rare feat for credible dance music to ascend to pop heights while keeping the tires inflated, and “Bikini” achieves this, or, as Hattie Lindert grokked for RA’s best of 2024 review for the song: “A great pop song is like a charm: compact and entrancing, a daydream corked and uncorked at will. If it can't guarantee good fortune, it can at least transport a listener somewhere they feel lucky to be.”
Indeed, it is the p-word that may be what León can affect most in his production work for others in years to come. With his increasing role as a producer, brought in to add his “sprinkles” to other’s productions, he might be at his most devastating to music culture if he keeps this up. León appeared in ghost mode on Casey MQ’s (a producer and performer I adore) album release for Ghostly on the closing track last year, a collaboration with Oklou, “The Make Believe.”
Casey MQ then tapped León to step back into the room to sparkle up Oklou’s recent “harvest sky” (her new album arrived Friday to great acclaim), a brilliant cut that grafts ‘90s trance-pop’s magisterial pomp onto a more liquid grid. It’s what you want that Teenage Engineering medieval box to export on a whim.
With a new album on the way León is set for another big year, in public and in stealth. We know he’ll be in the cut, in the booth or the studio, scanning the room for vibes. Pulsing the feeling for something deeper, weirder, and better to infect the mainstream with.
Bonus Beats:
Ghostly’s reissue of 2009's Marry Me Tonight by Melbourne’s HTRK (pronounced “Hate Rock” for those not initiated) is out now, a rapturous ode to the Art Life. My Herb Sundays 30 post on co-founder Jonnine Standish is here as well.
Herb Sundays 30: Jonnine Standish
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Herb Sundays 30: Jonnine Standish Apple Music / Spotify / Tidal / Bandcamp via Hypem’s Merch Table. Art by Michael Cina.
I wrote a bit about real/fake for Why is this interesting? last week, or the weird inversion of what is credible, from the authentic object to the symbolic ode.
Flow State posted a Ghostly catalog mix, as well as spotlighting a Ghostly deep cut project, The Sight Below this week.
Looking forward to this one...thank you!