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Aaron J

16 listings in 5 named rooms, over the last three years · one ahead · 388 following on RA

also plays Berlin — 1 night

Aaron J has been quietly reimagining the deeper currents of dance music for over a decade. The seasoned DJ has cultivated his own milieu of lucid, empathic sound both through his renowned work as a selector and as curator of the record label, podcast, and event series Sure Thing.

Currently based in Brooklyn, Aaron has been a pillar of scenes throughout the US including Boston, LA, the Pacific Northwest, and San Francisco, where Sure Thing was founded. He draws from these experiences across the continent to develop his distinct sound, synthesizing an expansive set of environments and sonic sensibilities into a new whole. He grounds the rhythmic language of bass and dub in the personal and ancient, beguiling listeners into states of hypnosis through tracks marked by intricate sound design and a delicate romanticism. Aaron’s expert control of narrative is particularly showcased in his longform sets, where he challenges listeners into unfamiliar places of feeling and movement while holding just enough space for them to do so.

The rest of it — two more paragraphs

Aaron’s masterful sense of pacing and his emotional acuity as a DJ are inextricably linked, as evidenced by highlight performances at Sustain-Release and Monument Festival and a nod from Resident Advisor as one of techno’s “best kept secrets.” Feeling is at the core of his work, expressed and explored through endless variation of texture and rhythm. Sets move through distinct passages distinguished by hazy boundaries. Tracks are layered atop one another, with a constant consideration to balance, between energy and restraint, momentum and introspection, turbulence and relief. The flow of time becomes obscured in a phantom forest of sonic patterns that push at the edges of perception, acting as a foil for one’s own latent feelings to unfurl. Beyond the boundaries of tempo or genre, Aaron brings listeners fully into their senses by tying together subtle threads of emotion, with the poise of a DJ who can at once witness past, present, and future affective states of the dance floors he guides.

Biography by Raag Bhatia.

Their Resident Advisor profile, in full and unedited.

The nights

2026

2025 — 3 nights
2024 — 8 nights
2023 — 3 nights

Their rooms

One tick a night, on the one axis this page has — Aug 2023, where the listings start, to Jan 2027, the last night anybody has announced. The shaded end has not happened yet.

Aug 2023Jan 2027

Once each: Bossa Nova Civic Club, Camp Kennybrook and Trans-Pecos. Six of the 17 listings never named a room, and are not counted as one.

Who they play with

Counted from the bills themselves, over bills of twelve names or fewer. A pair's count includes a night that is announced and not yet played; where there is one, the row says when.

  • LycheeJupiter Disco ×3, an unnamed room ×1 · Apr 2024 – Aug 20244 nights
  • Clarisa KimskiiNowadays ×2, an unnamed room ×1 · Oct 2023 – Jul 20263 nights
  • JuanaNowadays ×2 · Feb 2025 – Jul 20262 nights
  • Polygoniaan unnamed room ×1, Nowadays ×1 · Oct 2023 – May 20242 nights

The nights, the rooms and the bills are the listings themselves. The biography and the photograph are Resident Advisor's. Nothing on this page was written for it.