Darvin Knorr - Kultura - 2007

Biography of Darvin Knorr

I am intense, affectionate and need to be in the middle of things. Does this make me a good DJ? You can be the judge! Music, all forms and styles, makes me complete. It is a powerful cohesive agent, a moment of escape, a reason to gather and a vehicle for growth. I am extremely honored whenever I get the chance to stand in front of a group of people eager to join me as I play for them the tracks that make my heart sing.

I was born in Kelowna, BC, Canada, but spent my entire childhood after the age of three in the Yukon Territory. Living in Whitehorse, the Capital of the Yukon, was simply incredible. As a child I thought that it was normal for the sun to disappear for one whole day every winter, and to not go down for one whole day in the middle of each summer. Music was not a big part of my life, but being surrounded by one of the largest wilderness areas on our planet did bring out my passion for the out-of-doors.

As I finished high school I was already very seriously immersed in outdoor sports, and it was only natural that I ended up going into the University of Calgary Outdoor Pursuits Program. My life became consumed by ice climbing, mpuntaineering and telemark skiing in the winter, and by kayaking, white water raft guiding, climbing and mountain bike racing in the summer.

It was in my last semester of University that I attended an all night tekno-rave, and thank God it was at the end of my Kinesiology degree because it had a big huge my life. As soon as I was finished my degree I left Canada to live in Australia for a year, and Sydney, a clubbers paradise, was an incredible place to explore the world of crazy electronic beats.

Over the past nine years I have, as is my nature, totally thrown myself into the culture and music of what I can only sum up as electronica. I have evolved from being the last guy dancing at every party every weekend, to a kick-ass house party host, and then a promoter and a DJ, a club resident DJ, an artist group/promotions group collective member, and now have my energies focused on music production and the area709 project.

I am not so much into risking my life climbing frozen waterfalls or rafting body-breaking rapids, but I have still kept myself busy!

And how do I feel about music? Well, music for me is... intense. There are times when I am dancing or mixing that I can barely stop myself from exploding; my heart races and my throat aches from holding it in. As cheesy as it sounds, I am haunted by my desire to find those moments of auditory enlightenment; like reaching a type of sonic escape velocity in which my spirit breaks free from the gravitational pull of this crazy world. If I can share this with even one other person then I am content.

I consider myself a dancer first and a DJ second and because of this I tend to be more conscious of the sounds in a track than tracks as a whole. The fusion of two tracks which other people have made into something uniquely 'more' is for me the essence of great mixing and I am constantly seeking out truly inspired mixes.

My goal when I mix is to offer myself and anyone else listening the chance to explore the more thoughtful side of electronica. I am a huge fan of psytrance, deep progressive breaks, progressive house, psydub, downtempo and ambient. When I perform as Nokturnal I do so as a Zenon Records label DJ, with a focus on the Zenon sound: dark, intelligent and most definitely nothing but psytrance. When I play as myself, Darvin Knorr, or with Norris as Sons of Aurora , I often try to incorporate a variety of sounds and textures into a set, while still having an ear for the main thematic elemtents of the set as a whole. For me, contrasting tracks, subtle transitions and long twisting monumental mixes are where it's at.