NCM GUEST MIX 013: MANTHONY
Anthony (2021)
Manthony, (aka Matt Pierce), has been quietly refining a dance floor vision in Salt Lake City since 2014, when he started a weekly deep house rinse-out called Camp Ymac at Club Try-angles.
Since then, he has taken detours through Washington, D.C., where he held down a Saturday night residency at Uproar, and Moab, Utah, where he played a Friday night slot called Vibe Cycle on the community radio station KZMU and was the featured DJ at the Trashion Show, a local pre-season throwdown.
Matt’s musical throughline has been rooted in house, disco, and techno. All-things friendly to the queer experience and positive connection on a dance floor.
This mix is his most polished statement yet—an hour of dance floor therapy that revels in the power of dancing, love for self and others, desire, longing, and resilience in the face of loss.
Can you give us a general sense of your musical journey?
My first obsession was “Smooth Operator” by Sade. My parents bought me Diamond Life on cassette. I must have been 3 or 4. I would “perform” it on my little Casio and my sister would shine colored lights. My parents didn’t really know what to do with that--I was born in a Mormon household in Utah County, so beyond like the Jets and some other Mormon-approved pop music I was in the dark until my teenage years, when the Internet really blew everything open for me. It’s funny, I was really into top 40 radio as a kid, then around 15 or 16 I became obsessed with Radiohead, then Sonic Youth, then anything and everything experimental after that. Even now I’m into Autechre and Jim O’Rourke and stuff at the outer reaches.
My history with dance music started when I became obsessed with disco 15 years ago. I was buying every late-70s, early-80s 12” I could find at Randy’s Records and like piecing together this whole history of four-to-the-floor, referencing things like Vince Aletti’s The Disco Files. I got pretty deep into reggae, soul, jazz, rnb and house from there, just having my mind routinely blown by a million artists and DJs past and present. I think the latest development in my taste has been re-embracing the pop music that I loved so much as a kid. I’ve really come back around to artists like Sade and Janet Jackson (both all-time for me), Kylie (duh!) and more recently Róisín Murphy and Jessie Ware.
I should also say that online groups of music enthusiasts have always been a big deal for me, especially the message board I Love Music. I wouldn’t be nearly the listener or DJ I am today without the people in that community.
How would you describe your style of DJing and mixing?
My DJing is all about communicating a positive and inclusive vision on the dance floor in the form of a story. I like to tell musical stories with these themes: spiritual centeredness, pleasure, humor, sadness, ecstasy, social wit and archness, desire, gender, and love for self and others. I try to vary the mood and message from track to track and refresh people with changes in pace and perspective. I also can’t help but stay in touch with dance music’s black and queer roots.
As far as mixing goes, I would say I’m pretty song-focused. I believe that any dance track, even a minimal one, is ultimately a song. I base my cue points around that song structure. My effects are pretty basic, the minimum I need to effectively serve a transition.
When did you realize you wanted to DJ?
I caught the last year of the W Lounge before they closed, and that whole vibe was just wonderful and totally infectious.
Do you consider yourself a queer DJ? What do you think about LGBTQIA+ dance music past and present, here vs. abroad?
I do think that I bring a queer sensibility to my DJing. I like playing emotional or vulnerable tracks, feminine tracks, and tracks that exhibit “gender trouble” in some way. I also like playing fiercer music. I’m not sure how much of that is queer and how much is me. I guess If big- and tender-heartedness are queer then that’s what I am!
I think that there’s a huge variety to the kind of music I’ve heard in queer contexts but maybe one unifying thing is that it’s always “extra” in some way. It can be extra trendy or extra obscure or extra hyped-up or extra sexy, dramatic and deep. I think there’s always this energy of creating a whole new sensibility from disparate parts in the best queer music like disco and house were, originally. I believe that straightness is an ideology, that everyone’s a little bit queer. So really it’s just tapping into all the passion and drama of human experience, making a form of art out of that and giving people the chance to be human together.
Does your background in archiving influence how you organize your digital collection and what system(s) do you use with your tracks?
I am probably one of the least organized librarians/archivists you will ever meet. Not to get too into the boring details, but archiving is actually different from organizing. You don’t want to organize too much when you’re archiving, because the idea is to preserve context, which in the case of my music collection would be how I discovered a song. So beyond date created, date added, and playlist chronology, I don’t do much organizing. Being an archivist does mean I’m interested in the people who make the music. That context definitely informs what I play.
Were there any mix tapes that were influential to you in the past or present?
Yeah definitely, a lot! Not actual tapes, but online mixes. I love listening to them. The last one I really loved was a Todd Edwards Rinse episode from a month or two ago.
One mix that felt like a guiding light to me was a 6-hour Move D set from 2015. The range of records he plays, the deep sensibility, the mix of vocals and instrumentals all felt like a “proof of concept” for me at the time. The spirit of it feels very related to what I want to do and what I want to play.
What have been some of your favorite moments on the floor and behind the booth?
On the floor: seeing Octo Octa at the second Honcho campout. Hearing and dancing to Ben UFO in a fairly small club in D.C. was incredible.
Behind the booth, I had a blast playing “Woman” by Kesha to a young, queer-friendly bunch in Moab. At Uproar in D.C., one highlight was watching a bunch of boys lose their minds to all 9 minutes of Danny Krivit’s edit of “My Love Is Free” by Double Exposure.
A recent bright spot was playing one of the Techno Taco Tuesdays that Telepath Twins did at the dearly departed Tinwell. Really nice folks and the crowd was very enthusiastic.
How did you create this mix and what are your thoughts on format?
I created this on a Pioneer XDJ-RX2. It’s the first Pioneer-based setup I’ve had and I’m very happy with it (thanks stimulus money!). I’ve also mixed with Traktor and Ableton.
Regarding format, I love vinyl but I've had to sell a lot of my collection because of recent moves. So I’ve been focusing on building my digital collection of lossless audio files. There is so much amazing stuff out there right now on sites like Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST:
1. Move D - Cycles
2. Jinjé - Big Skies
3. Soul Clap, Nona Hendrix, Hot Toddy - Shine (This Is It) (Hot Toddy Marimba Message Vocal Mix)
4. The Juan Maclean - Feel Like Movin’
5. Dua Lipa - Hallucinate (Tensnake Extended Remix)
6. Róisín Murphy - Incapable (Dmitri From Paris and Aeroplane Remix)
7. Robyn - Honey (Avalon Emerson’s Deep Current Reroll)
8. Depeche Mode - Surrender (Catalan FC Out of Reach Mix)
9. SeeMeNot, Roman Flügel - Borderline (Roman Flügel Remix)
10. Jessie Ware - Ooh La La (Honey Dijon Extended Mix)
11. Cakes Da Killa x Proper Villains ft. Nomi Ruiz - ICU
12. Octo Octa - Move Your Body
13. Deetron ft. Jamie Lidell - Cry With the Stars