A vinyl set, I realized at DJ collective On&On Radio’s all-wax DJ lineup Saturday evening at Downtown’s CITA Park, turns the disc jockey into a magician. One second, they’re bopping along to the music. The next, they’re nowhere to be found.
Did they abandon the decks? Are they in the bathroom? They were just here, right?
When On&On co-founder Jeffrey Cisneros, AKA DJ nusnce, popped up again from behind the booth like a groundhog promising not six weeks of winter but 60 minutes of fresh beats, the answer to his disappearance was in his left hand: he had been retrieving the perfect vinyl to play next. A treasure worth crouching down and hunting for among his hidden stash.
It was a common sight throughout On&On’s first-ever all-vinyl night, part of their “On&Outside” collaboration with CITA Park’s beer garden setup on the corner of Orange and Chapel.
With almost two years of experience under their belt, On&On can now “take creative liberties,” said co-founder Luke McDonald. On Saturday, those liberties came in the form of restrictions: limiting the DJs to vinyl only for a retro take on an ever-changing medium.
Nusnce took over after Rick Omonte, or DJ Shaki, closed his set with a bass-heavy Brazilian funk track. The funk singer’s raw voice shouted out with a blown-out speaker sound that must have been baked into the recording itself, as Shaki’s other songs had come through smoother than smooth.
Nusnce leaned one ear to the black headphones resting on his shoulder to get closer to the music, paying close attention as Shaki’s last record echoed out and faded. Then a cool, synth‑y beat filled the space, a single voice ringing out over it. With disco chords and punchy percussion, nusnce had the park bouncing to a new rhythm in no time.
Ruben Kwigwasa, an off-duty DJ for the night who goes by Comet Trailblazer when he’s spinning Amapiano, UKGarage, and experimental Afrobeats, told me “there’s definitely a difference” between vinyl and digital, calling the vinyl sound “way more organic.”
“It’s material,” said attendee Maura, taking a break from dancing. “There is that thing, bringing it somewhere.” An all-vinyl night, she said, brings together different generations of collectors and prompts audiophiles to “reflect on what it means to collect, to curate, to share.”
DJ Unionautomata, visiting from the Neubody DJ universe, said there were two things to know about vinyl. First, it’s warm. (He left me on my own to figure out what “warm” meant, though somehow I already agreed.) Second, it’s “impossible not to make a mistake.” The vinyl warps over time and degrades. It’s not consistently the same speed all around. The tempo could wobble when you’re trying to transition.
The slight misses in tempo and slight errors are what make the sound human, DJ Unionautomata said, making the experience “much closer to playing an instrument.” Taking it a step further, in this era of AI, he said it is “counter-cultural in this moment” to play music in a way that is so human.
As I sipped a Best Friends Lunch Husky IPA and tried to listen for the human element, the DJs kept their poker faces on, looking down at the table and up toward the sky. Perhaps through the human touch, they were finding a way to reach the divine.
Sometimes the tracks’ beats cut out for dramatic effect. I felt the inertia in the crowd as we kept dancing, like Looney Tunes characters walking up a set of stairs long after the actual staircase has stopped. The tunes at On&Outside were just the right amount of looney.
From cumbia to old-school house to modern electronic beats, the beats flowed like honey from one DJ to another, giving the CITA Park crowd a little something for everyone.
On&On DJ Dana Game, who plays “dance music and everything that’s soulful,” told me she started out on vinyl in the early 2000s. It was how she first learned to mix.
When I asked her if she had a prepared mix for the night, she said, “Absolutely not, I don’t do set lists.” The night could end up going places no one expected. She laughed, saying, “Hopefully I don’t throw everybody for a loop.”
After hearing a few sets, I still wasn’t sure whether I was hearing the vinyl difference or just making it up in my head. It was a relief to hear my thoughts echoed by McDonald, a tried-and-true music lover.
“I don’t know if I can hear the difference,” McDonald said, “but knowing that there is, makes me feel like there is one.” And what else is there besides the subjective experience?
A motorcycle revving outside hit the beat perfectly. Was it part of the set? Now it was. The night was a world we were creating through our perception, the ways our bodies moved to the beat, and most importantly, our tastes.
