Illich Mujica - Live Sunrise DJ Set At The 747 Art Car @ Burning Man 2019

Description

I’m back from the Burn and the very first thing I want to share with the default world is the biggest DJ performance I’ve ever played in my life: The sunrise set at the 747 art car at Burning Man! This was challenging in many ways: I had had very little sleep as we were working HARD to build our 747 camp and art car, while trying to finish the 747 project in time for the Burn. There were also some challenges during the set, for instance: a pendant getting entangled with my headphones post head-banging, and having to pull a radical self-reliance move with my Swiss army knife to cut the pendant string off before the next mix was due. It was epic, it was beautiful, it was emotional, it was incredible to see so many of my friends in there, it was full of chances I decided to take as a DJ in terms of track selection (trying a bit of a cosmic/rocktronica approach) and... On my days before the Burn I was re-reading/re-visiting the book “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran. At the very last minute I decided to bring it to the Burn to read while on the playa. It was gifted to me by one of my best DJ friends who passed away 10 years ago around the time of the Burn. In the last Farewell chapter of the book, there is a passage about sunrises and reconnecting with others in future places. When I had to reach into my DJ bag mid-performance to look for the Swiss army knife I realized the book was there with me on stage, and also that the sound engineers had provided a microphone… So I started fantasizing about taking advantage of the perfect breakdown/drop from any of the tracks I was about to play, in order to read a part of the book and dedicate it to Navid. I took the chance to read this poem to him in the middle of the set on playa when the breakdown to Einmusik’s “Serenade” kicked in... For those of you who can’t (or couldn’t) understand what was read during the moment, this is what the passage of the book says. There was a crackle in the mic and I accidentally said the word "ring" instead of "sing": “It was but yesterday we met in a dream. You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky… The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part. If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall (sing) to me a deeper song. And if our hands should meet in another dream we shall build another tower in the sky.” Lastly, as always there was one last track that I really, wanted to play for all but in the overwhelming ending to it all I forgot about it, so I added it to the recording at the very end at home. I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did and thank you for being inside the plane at the very end, I wasn’t aware of how many of you were still there, and it was then that I became overcome with tears of joy. (I did cry in public at the end of the DJ set, and I am ok with that, so as they say… “fuck your Burn!” hehe) And HUGE thank you to Gunita, Nikki and Ken of Big Imagination for providing me with this monumental stage to craft something as meaningful as our plane, you guys are family to me, this one was for you as well, love to you all! Until the next sunrise at the Burn! ❤️ (Direct download through the ...MORE button)