In recent years, Harriet Jaxxon has become a mainstay on the DJing circuit in both the UK and Europe, with an aggressive yet party-heavy mixing style that seems to be authentic to drum and bass while still having universal appeal. She’s played Ibiza, Boomtown, Let It Roll…you name it, she’s dropped a set there. Since the lockdown, Jaxxon started a regular interview show on her Instagram and YouTube called Harriet Jaxxon Locks Down.
Jaxxon really should be just as well-known in the US but if you’re coming from the UK these days, US promoters really only book artists who’ve released tracks, and now there’s the event lockdown which will last until at least early 2021. Luckily, that was next on the agenda for Jaxxon as she’s just released her first single on Drum&BassArena called “The Sound.” Now US fans can hear what everyone in the UK has been curious about for at least two years: Harriet Jaxxon’s production sound.
As listeners will see in this guest mix, Jaxxon’s track selection is really diverse so it was really anyone’s guess what kind of style would settle on for her first track. The answer is, not surprisingly in hindsight, a diverse and complex one. Jaxxon is classically trained and so “The Sound” is really less about a specific style and more about composition. It’s clear that she really took her time to create and layer bars of sound so while very ravey, fun and very much drum & bass, “The Sound” is almost orchestral in its construction and that makes all the difference when blending so many sounds here. It’s a truly comprehensive, solid track that pays homage to all the “sounds” in the drum & bass “sound.”
In her spicy guest mix for Your EDM, Jaxxon unconventionally presents “The Sound” front and center and then mixes it into some more dancefloor hits like Metrik’s “Ex Machina” and Io Fitzroy’s “Red Line.” Then things get progressivele darker and more amen-y with The Prototypes, DC Breaks and Skanita. The 28-track mix runs the gamut of liquid soul like Charlotte Hanning to heavy leftfield stuff like Halogenix. This is what Jaxxon is so good at: all these styles and she makes it look effortless, just like the construction of “The Sound.”
While no one’s sure of an end to the event lockdown in the US, it’s great that in the meantime artists are reaching across the pond with more and more releases. With Harriet Jaxxon joining that brood, it’s more than likely that when things do open up, US fans will be seeing her soon. In the meantime, there’s this fabulous mix and, of course, “The Sound.”
“The Sound” is out now on Drum&BassArena Records. Click here to stream or buy. Track list for the mix is below.
