Scott Zacharias is Detroit’s best kept secret. A true cult DJ, a DJs DJ and a true legend in the Detroit underground today. In fact, within Detroit, he may be the busiest DJ in the scene.
Scott isn’t like anyone else. He doesn’t copy or play to another code, he’s a pure original. The amount of music styles he synthesizes into a solid whole is astounding, what he creates is simultaneously psychedelic, deep groove, an exploration of human freedom, and a finely curated expression of endless human curiosity. He never stops digging for new records from “the trash bins of history” to endlessly find new gold. His collection has created such a footprint that like Daniele Baldelli, he has to keep these records at a second property.
Scott Zacharias has moved around the Detroit music subculture, defying genrefication or grouping, moving freely between scenes. From his younger days of being a drummer in Detroit’s fertile Space Rock scene, to being the first resident at Oslo, and co-founding Disco / Secret and Macho City, to being the resident closer of the Outer Space Room at No Way Back, Scott always is finding a way to spread the message. Scott is also co-founder of the Fantasy, a project with BMG of Ectomorph and Interdimensional Transmissions. To date The Fantasy have reshaped and recontextualized many hidden gems, reshaping them for the all night ecstatic massive sound system experience. Besides their 4 records on the venerated Secret Mixes Fixes, they have also remixed original 70’s Funkadelic from the original master tapes for Westbound, and have done a hypnotic remix for Teleseen on Goldmin. Watch this space — new original music from The Fantasy is forthcoming.
Scott Zacharias’ residency at No Way Back has had a large impact on the Detroit scene, and continues to resonate around the world. The set itself is a unique concept, his own original interpretation of Sleaze, a lost subgenre on late 70s early 80s gay leather disco, a special kind of low-tempo disco usually played in a euphoric post coitus way towards the end of the night, deeply lost in the groove, very hypnotic and sleazy. What began at 1515 Broadway as the ending come down of No Way Back took on a whole new life when the party moved to The Tangent.
The Tangent had the space to do two rooms, and IT built the concept around how we experienced John Elliott’s music, true cosmic ambient experimental music. People laid down on the ground and vibed with the music, it was beautiful. At dawn, Scott comes on and does a DJ set unique in format to anywhere in the world, a DJ who raises a crowd from laying down to standing up and dancing. He invented a style that keeps evolving and resonating with people that starts with ambient and jazz and builds through a freeform take on sleaze into whatever and wherever he goes — it’s magic. Words can’t really describe it, it must be experienced.
The core idea of these sets come from a David Mancuso concept, that if you take people to the stratosphere, then at the end you have to land the plane. That’s what these sets are. A DJ set to land the plane.
