TJ Hertz grew up without a clue electronic
music existed. Now he’s the genre’s most cutting-edge star – but the studio still gives him the jitters
It is 4am on a balmy June night in
Barcelona, and on a beachside stage at Primavera Sound festival, one of the finest talents in electronic music is leaping into the unknown. TJ Hertz, AKA Objekt, is one of the most beloved DJs and producers around. His tracks and albums routinely top end-of-year lists in the dance music press; their density and technique pleases the chinstrokers at the back, while their goofiness and fun gets hands in the air down the front.
And yet this is his first ever live set, a show he brings to the
UK this week. Hertz stands behind a bank of equipment playing crystalline, deconstructed club music and singing through a vocoder while Ezra Miller, a young
American visual artist, stands opposite triggering mesmeric visuals in time with the staccato beats and broken melodies.