A conversation with BIIANCO.
Photo: Derek Bremmer
BIIANCO is the multi-instrumental music producer, vocalist and overall mad-scientist in a new era of electronic music. The past year has seen them stride into dance music, championed by the likes of BBC Radio 1, BBC 6 Music, BBC Introducing, Kiss FM, KCRW, KEXP, Diplo’s Revolution on Sirius XM and more. The common threads of playful acid, breaks and trance that run through the punchy productions are reminiscent of the Chemical Brothers with the mainstream appeal of a more emotional Jamie XX. They’ve garnered press from outlets like NOTION, Wonderland Mag, Billboard, EDM Identity, tmrw and more, while also catching the attention of pioneering tastemaker labels such as Armada, This Never Happened and Part Four. They continue to tour globally, supporting big names like SG Lewis and Dusky, while their festival slots — Secret Garden Party, Body Movements and Outloud among others — clear the way for their high energy and technically mind-blowing hybrid DJ performances. As a queer, partially blind femme producer, BIIANCO has quickly become a symbol of inclusion in a music industry that is too often lacking in it. BIIANCO creates art from a place of raw, emotional movement. They make music to dance and ugly cry to.
We asked DavidXDaisy to dive into BIIANCO’s artistry with them on a video chat. The following interview is edited from their conversation as BIIANCO prepares to headline UltraMaroon on Sunday, Feb. 11, at Blue Midtown in New York City, along with resident Someone From Berlin and an opening set by Mike Schreder.
DXD: How would you best describe your sound?
B: Recently I've been saying that it's fast and furious and full of feels. My Aries has really come to full fruition in the past six months. In my sets, I've become really entranced with trance as well as that rave sound of 1999 to 2005. I think there are a few people doing it. You have your Marlon Hofstrats and your DJ Heartstring, but I think the difference between my sound and theirs is that because of my Scorpio moon, I am an emotional person. So my music (especially the stuff that's not out yet) is tending toward having that energy – that fast, trance energy, but still being really emotional at the same time.
DXD: A phrase that stuck out to me was, “emotional authenticity,” which resonates with everything you produce from the words to the visuals and the sounds you create across genres. What does that phrase mean to you as an artist?
B: I would say that until a year or two ago, emotional authenticity meant that for me that I was going to make decisions that tried to pull at people's heartstrings in an authentic way. Instead of falling into the gimmicks often heard in dance music, especially in dance pop music, I was trying to get away from appealing to those gimmicks. But recently I found that I have a physical response when things are emotionally authentic. I don't know if it's a symptom of synesthesia or something, but I start getting to the point where I’m going to cry.
The same thing happens to me when I'm watching a really good Boiler Room set or there is a part in a song when I start getting choked up. Some people see sounds or taste colors, you know? I think I have this physical response when the sounds and the emotions are in sync. I've been trying to get myself to a place where if I take a day away from a mix or something then come back and have that knot-in-my-throat feeling, that usually means I'm hitting the mark. It's really weird.
DXD: Do you find you are able to lean into your emotions when DJing for an audience as much as when you are producing music in the studio?
B: I’ve always played music and done live shows, so when I decided to start DJing, I kind of went backwards. I wanted to do it in a specific way where I could still tap into that energy at a 2am warehouse rave where people want to be in their own experience. I wanted to make sure that my sets captured the same emotional arc that I did with live shows. When you're building a live show, if you're doing it the right way, it's like writing a novel in this hour that you have in front of the audience. There is an emotional arc, the climax, and a place we go together. So I think about my DJ sets the same way, but I'm also very cognizant to not take people out of their own experience.
I feel like with DJing, it's a lot more about the audience and their experience than it is about the performer. Whereas with a live performance, when people have bought tickets and are going to see a show, it can be a bit more egocentric toward the artist. So I try to make it about the audience, but I still always wanna preserve that emotional arc that I have in my live sets, which means just a lot of planning. I'm very particular with choices or which edits or IDs I play. Every time I'm making a decision, it's often like a puzzle. I think of what the audience needs in this moment emotionally and I'll look for an ID that will fit there or I'll make something new if I can't find one that's perfect.
DXD: You were a producer first and more recently began DJing. What do you feel about your production mind was the biggest asset that most DJs may not have when they start without having ever produced music?
B: I think that the most important skill I had before that has helped me with DJing is my understanding of music theory. Because I spent a decade and a half in jazz bands, every party I went to in Los Angeles had people with guitars and keys sitting around and singing and drumming, and we would all just jam, and you have to pick up what key you’re in. After decades of playing, improvising, and understanding music theory, I actually found that it has been so fun and has allowed me to mix in a complex way that I feel is a secret weapon.
For example, if I'm playing a track that's in F minor, I know that because of the circle of fifths, C minor goes really well with F minor, so if I have a track that is C minor, there might be this really beautiful, harmonic blending between those two keys, especially if I could come in with the vocal line there. There’s many technicalities that when you understand music theory, it makes DJing really fun. It's very similar to playing in a jazz band and using chords based on what the other person is playing on the bass, you know? From a skill perspective, that has been the best asset, but now that I'm touring a lot, the ability to make my own ideas whenever I'm missing something that I need for the puzzle is also a skill. But I love mixing in key. I like complex mixes like that.
DXD: What instrument or program might be next for you or is there one you already work with you want to dive into more?
B: When I started DJing, I said that it would be really cool to be the only DJ out there that plays their breakbeats occasionally on an actual drum pad. I have this idea for when I'm headlining my own tours that I have a drum set and there's a whole moment in my set where I can go straight-up Danger Mouse and play full-blown. I can play drum pads really well and I can play a really fast breakbeat on drum pads, but when it comes to your foot playing the kick and stuff, I definitely would need to practice that a lot.
I have come to find that if you do something every day for three hours for like two weeks, you'll be good at it. I blitz-rehearse sometimes like that. Your hands and the muscle memory just learns it. I love playing drums and it's always about what people want to hear too. Obviously a drum kit would never work at 2am in the warehouse, but it would be really cool on a festival stage in a midday set. So maybe that's like a 2025 goal.
DXD: You exist at the intersection of artistry and activism. How do you feel your music helps you amplify your voice and others’?
B: Well, that's the best. I often find myself writing these entire posts or captions, and then deleting them to go write a song about it instead. I feel like my most valuable voice is what gets put into music, and I've found a beautiful conduit for that. There's a lot of other womxn and queer people that I've worked with over the past four years, and we've been able to use activism and music together. I also have said recently that my presence in this space is like an act of rebellion, an act of revolution, because there's not a lot of femmes in this space doing what I do. I've really felt lately in negotiations the the huge labels that represent some of the world's biggest artists in dance music will take big risks on boys and then have this hesitation with me, even though I am so much further along than those boys were when they had these conversations with those A&Rs. It's really interesting.
While I use music as activism because I'm an outspoken person and because I feel like that's my duty, I also feel that my presence in this space is activism because that hesitation from labels destroys people's careers, especially womxn's careers. It honestly does. Although I am about to sign a big record deal, I really wonder if it would have taken half of the amount of time if I had a penis or was male-presenting. It's so interesting that hesitation that we get.
I don't know if it's because of the extra standards that we place upon femme-presenting people or if it's the fact that we don't trust them as much. Maybe we're expecting so much more; we're expecting a star, we're expecting Madonna, we're expecting everything to be meticulous. We don't expect that of male artists. I've come face-to-face with that. I think the industry does not know how to reconcile two things together like glamor and technical prowess – the choice to care not only about fashion or how I present, but also to know how to turn knobs, know how to use my compressors, know how to produce, and all the technicalities. I feel it is my life calling to be an example to the world that you don't have to be a dude in a big T-shirt to be really good at the technical side of things. You can also dress in Mugler. You can also look like this and be really good at modular synths. If there was more of that, you would see more girls buying modular synths.
DXD: To that point, in a 2021 interview with Lyndesy Rhoades for Audiofemme, you described the biggest problem in the industry for womxn/femme producers as: “We might have more exposure, but when it comes to money, like when it comes to getting in the room, the labels and the publishers and the big time managers are still fucking choosing the men to produce.”
How can we as an audience help to create that necessary shift at the highest levels of the industry?
B: I think it's all about being cognizant and deliberate about sharing something twice. If everyone gave a tiny nudge to the femme artists they love and go out of their way to be slightly more vocal about their support, that translates when it's done hundreds of thousands of times. It translates into the only thing that the industry cares about, which is virality or social media power. It's funny that I said that in 2021, because now in the past six months, I have lived that virality. I've learned how it feels to have many labels come running as soon as you have those eyeballs on you, and how fast they will look away when something else distracts them or something else goes viral. Until the industry catches up, if audiences go out of their way to more deliberately reshare sets, save posts, and comment on things that are by marginalized artists, that will translate into more influential capital for those artists. It's ultimately the label A&Rs that are deciding that Fred Again is going to make the next Ed Sheeran album when the reality is that I could make the next Ed Sheeran album when put in the right studio. I know a lot of femme artists that could make that album.
I think that's probably the best way right now that audiences can have a direct impact, because I watched audiences have a direct impact on my career. People were saying I have an interesting sound that is fast, meaning it's too hard for the radio at 145 BPM, but it's still very melodic. So labels said they liked it, but it was a risk. When audiences said they don't care about formulas, they just like it, then suddenly all the labels were willing to say they knew they liked it. There was so much hesitation beforehand because it didn’t fit into their box, but I watched them all change their minds because of my audience and the power of them. That's probably the best army that any artist can have.
DXD: As a queer, non-binary artist, what do you feel is your biggest asset in taking your space on the global stage in a cis, male dominated industry?
B: Straight dudes don't know what they don't know, right? It's like being a white person. I'll never know what it's like to be a person of color, but I can surround myself with people of color and listen constantly and try to get some type of knowledge, hear them, and hold space for them. If you don't do that, you don't know what you don't know, and can’t speak anything of that emotional language. I think that cis men in the industry don't know what they don't know, and they don't try to change that, right? They don't try to become fluent in that language.
That is something for me as a white person that I am very cognizant of. If I'm in a room with mostly white people, I feel kind of uncomfortable because I find that when I'm surrounded by people from all backgrounds that the experience in that room is richer. I'm constantly trying to know what I don't know. I find that is a strength. I think that probably comes from being queer and non-binary. I think that our biggest strength as queer people is that we often seek out what we don't know. That language is what connects people and the ability to learn other people's experiences or having a rich myriad of emotional experiences from being a part of all these communities.
Speaking that language is becoming so important with Gen Z. It's so funny that Baby Boomers make fun of Gen Z as if they're these really delicate, ridiculously progressive snowflakes, but it's really that they see things so complexly. Nothing is so simplified for Gen Z, whereas baby boomers can oversimplify the entire world. Gen Z sees endless facets of the world, which is what we're seeing. They're immersed in complications because they see everything as shades of gray, right? I feel like you're seeing the millenial men in the industry become more and more detached from how to speak to that generation. Whereas the queer writers or the womxn are more tapped into learning that language, which allows them to speak to younger people, and it allows them to speak to queer communities and womxn in a better way. Any songs that you're hearing where the emotional message is so simple and feels watered down was probably written by a dude.
DXD: Before living on the West Coast and now London as well, you were a New Yorker. How has that mix of locales influenced your wide range of musicality?
B: That is a funny question. I've been having this conversation with labels because they want to know how I landed on this sound. I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s in the New York metropolitan area, and spent every weekend in NYC. My sister lived on 89th and 2nd for fifteen years too. Growing up in that environment, we were exposed to so much great house music, hip-hop, and other genres. At the same time, I was also classically trained in piano and was getting so much rich experience from that. I think that New York is such a culturally rich, diverse area that it really rubbed off on the type of music I liked. Then it was a shock to move to LA where it was all about indie rock and ska. That sound was so dominated in my 20s, but I never really resonated with it as much. It was like my New York roots really stayed true.
Moving to London, my partner is from Northern England and the birthplace of donk music. The further north you go up in the UK, the faster they like the music. Everything is hard house and has this Eurodance feel to it. It’s more playful and a little bit rough around the edges. Being tossed into that world three years ago, it immediately felt so Aries. Everything's on 10. It moves fast and is so high-energy, which really felt like New York. I think the New Yorker in me loved that because when it's fucking cold or dark during winter months and you’re on the platform getting on the train and you're like, “Fuck it, this sucks,” you also have those Knockdown Center or warehouse moments where you can really lose your shit. That is exactly how it is in England. You need that catharsis when the weather is kicking your ass. That's the thing that the two regions really have in common. And I really like that. It's interesting to me that the hard sound hasn't exploded in New York yet. I guess Detroit and Chicago techno makes sense in colder cities like those.
Honestly, if it wasn't for every single thing that I did, I would not have this sound. And what’s interesting about my sound is that it has been so much easier for me to break through with it in Europe and the UK, which is why I live in the UK now. My sound is so tied up in my experience.
DXD: UltraMaroon had four UK guests in 2023, and you moved to London to get closer with the music and scene there. What do you feel makes the UK such a strong taste maker in the global dance community?
B: The UK nurtures their artists so much. They have invested so much energy and money into an infrastructure that supports musicians in general, and especially the dance music scene. The thought that the BBC Radio network puts into its radio presenters and the influence that those radio presenters have on the national taste of music is phenomenal. I have to shout out Jess Iszatt, Danny Howard, Jaguar, Arielle Free, Sarah Story, and Annie Mac. They launch people's careers and take so much time to not only find good music, but also then go out of their way to introduce those musicians that they're supporting on their radio shows to other musicians that they collaborate with. The only reason I ever even met 1111, with whom I made the viral song, “Against the Wall,” is because of Jaguar on BBC Radio 1 Dance. She has her show as well as a WhatsApp group she uses to connect people. She connected me with 1111, and that is how that whole session came to be. I think that there is no place in the world that supports the music community the way that the UK does to all of England, Scotland, and Ireland too.
It's also so complex. It's not just one radio station. Every city has its own radio station tied into the same network. There's dance shows, there's alternative shows, there's indie shows, there's pop shows, there's hip-hop shows, there's everything. It has so many hundreds of DJs, and their whole world is supporting the scenes and locations that they're in. It's phenomenal and the result of all of that is that it’s not just the BBC; it's also the way the festivals work, the way the booking agencies work, and the way the community is so supportive. For example, I am often compared to Hannah Laing sonically, which is a huge compliment because she's insanely talented. She and I have never met in person, but the scene is so beautiful and supportive that we text and send each other things. We're like, “Oh hey, thanks for sending me that track ID.” And that is so normal.
I've experienced the feeling of competition with maybe two people out of hundreds in the industry in the UK. There is such a fabric of support that is so beautiful, truly. To be from the US and to go there, it is phenomenally different. I think that the womxn in the dance music industry in the US are literal angels, like Anabel Englund and Kaleena Zanders; they are the womxn in music in dance music in America that are phenomenal and so lovely and like a family. But it's the whole music industry in the UK that is so loving and so supportive, and the government subsidizes it. They are the best at supporting and investing in the arts, and the result is an amazing community.
I can walk down Kingsland Road on a random Saturday night and wander into Dalston Superstore, which is the most infamous queer inclusive dance club in all of London. It is a cultural institution. It’s tiny, but on any given Saturday night, the people that I see playing in the basement are so good that they could change the way that I need to make a track because I need to have a moment like that in my sets. I once wandered in on Michelle Manetti’s night, who is also such an amazing queer femme DJ in the UK scene and throws a queer dance party called Fèmmme Fraîche. I went into the basement and saw this DJ duo, FAFF, and it was the fucking best set I've seen in so long. Two years later, and now they are blowing up. They're playing every festival and they’re phenomenal.
I just wandered in that night because I told my friend Michelle that I would stop by, but I think that's the difference. If you were just to wander into any club in Brooklyn, we don't have that same almost revolutionary talent, and it's because our infrastructure makes it so hard for artists to survive, but it's very different in the UK. I think that's why they're superior, because they can put so much thought into it.
DXD: You also work with Colluded Talent, the agency side of Defected, which has been an industry leader for inclusive artistry. How did that come about for you?
B: So that's also really interesting because I don't really play house music, right? My sound, especially as I define it more and more, is not house whatsoever. If anything, it's playful techno, it's trance, it's ravey. So honestly, first and foremost, that is a mark of how amazing they are as reps that they don't feel any pressure to fall into the Defected house sound for their booking arm. It's very independent from Defected, but the one thing that you can really feel about the Defected culture is that inclusivity. It feels like a family. Everybody knows everybody, respects them, and loves them. They have such a great reputation for being wonderful patrons and supporters of the arts. For me, even though I am not a house artist, Defected has always held such a special place in my heart in my exploration of dance music. Defected is such an incredible proprietor of the most culturally authentic house music and they've stayed true to their sound while supporting those artists and that inclusivity, especially with their Glitterbox arm and all of the queer talent it promotes.
Honestly, I feel so honored. I know it can get confusing because people would expect me to sound like Sam Divine or some of the other artists that they support, but once people hear my music, they get it. I'm so honored to work with them because you can really feel that they get it, specifically my agents Andy and Lucy that have been with me from the beginning. We were introduced and they believed in the project when nobody had heard any of my new music, and this was early 2023 when people were still trying to reconcile that I'm making dance music now compared to the indie electronic music I released back in the day. They heard all the demos and they believed in the project, so to be with those OGs as I go through starting to make a name for myself feels so good. They've been with me from day one of my introduction into dance music and that really says a lot about the company and how authentic they are. I probably was not a safe bet when they first signed me because I could have easily gone back to a non-dance sound, and now I think they’re like, “We knew it was going to go this way.”
DXD: It's refreshing to hear that they really do live up to the standard that they set in industry.
B: Yeah, really. I've had A&R meetings with them where we've played my music for them and they're so beautifully particular. The conversations are that maybe something is a bit fast for Defected and we talk about it, and I think it's so beautiful how dedicated they are to the label side too as well and making sure that they continue to hold space for this specific house sound in the world. If house ever fades away and there's nothing left, Defected will always hold space for that authentic house sound. And you know you can go to Defected. It's so beautiful to know that they will fight to the last day and they will hold space for that sound.
DXD: When you are working low-light clubs as a partially blind person, do you find that event producers/promoters ensure you have a booth setup that helps you?
B: No, actually. That's something that I need to get a lot more vocal about. Being blind in one eye is interesting because I still get light through it, which looks very distorted. Your brain can shut it off when it's flat daylight. If I close the other eye, it looks as if somebody smeared Vaseline all over a camera lens or something, but the brain shuts off unuseful information from the eyes if there's a working eye, right? The brain will lean on that, and you almost forget that you have one eye that doesn't work during the daytime.
But at night in a club, especially a darker, more underground club, a smaller capacity event, or a rave is so challenging. I have to cover that eye because the light, especially the little red lights or the CDJ lights, are really smeared and it's really disorienting. Covering the bad eye with my eye patch is extremely helpful for precision, but that destroys all depth perception and makes it a lot harder to see in low light. I think the combination of two working eyes does wonders for the details. I actually don't even think anybody thinks about it. So it has become a struggle in low light, but I also have not always been the best about asking or vocalizing what I need.
I do also find for visually disabled people that navigating really crowded places is very hard. I think that promoters could do a better job of helping get a DJ who's visually disabled in and out of the booth a little bit easier. It's really hard to navigate through a lot of people when I have an eye patch on and it's low lighting like that. I don't even get asked, but I also don't ask for it. So I think that on both sides, when it comes to ableism in the industry, there should be a standard of asking if there is anything that we need to do to make it accommodating for the artist or are there any disabilities that we need to accommodate.
DXD: What vibe can our dancefloor expect you to bring to UltraMaroon?
B: I'm bringing a fast, furious, and full of feels set. There's gonna be a lot of new music. Honestly, I would say probably like 65-70% of my set features IDs made by me. The rest of it are IDs that I've meticulously combed through. A lot of them are songs that are historically significant to the sound that I play now. I'm very meticulous and deliberate about what ideas I bring into my sets. I would say that all of my IDs will take you on an exploration through this sound that I think is having a revolution right now.
I have been making, “Against the Wall,” a really special moment in my sets lately. There's really cool lights and live sampling, and I love to do it from within the audience because it's so cool to have the audience all around me while we do it. Sometimes people like to hit the pads themselves and I'm like, “Whoa, all right, we're there now,” which is funny, so there will be just a little bit of live instrumentation.
DXD: Speaking of IDs, is there a particular track you've produced that's really close for you?
B: I think that is a song that I haven't released yet. I’m an Aries, so every single time I write a new song, it becomes my favorite for a minute. But there's a song that I've created that I actually haven't played. Ultramaroon will be the first time I play it in a set because I only made it this month, and it is really influenced by Paul van Dyk’s, “For An Angel,” and the music from that era, but it still feels modern. It doesn't feel like a nostalgic throwback. It's called, “Like I Need You.”
I'm really excited to incorporate the seven-minute club version of it in my sets. For some of my hybrid sets, like an upcoming festival in Australia, it's going to probably be the only moment that I actually sing during my DJ sets. It's a really beautiful vocal moment and the synths are so epic. It was the track a lot of the labels that we've been talking to this month have all named that as the standout track, and it's very emotionally authentic. This one has a special place in my heart. I'm excited to see how audiences react to it.
DXD: We love a bit of anticipation! What are you looking forward to most about your upcoming Sunday at UltraMaroon?
B: I am so looking forward to being in a beautiful vibe and a beautiful queer environment that loves music as much as I love music. Also, I've heard such wonderful things about the energy of the party, so I'm really excited to be a part of that. And also I can't wait to go back to New York, to my people.
Thank you BIIANCO! Keep up with them on Instagram and Soundcloud. You can hear them live on Sunday, Feb. 11, along with resident Someone From Berlin and an opening set by Mike Schreder. Doors open at 5pm at Blue Midtown with our 2-4-1 Happy Hour until 6pm. Get your tickets here!
Xx,
DavidXDaisy
Photos: Derek Bremmer