While riots tore through the streets of Brixton in August, a burgeoning Toronto quartet found themselves taking refuge in an unlikely place. “We holed up at the Basement Jaxx studio during that last debacle,” Alixander III of Azari & III says. While the boys were rather secretive about what went down in the studio (other than ‘madness’, according to Dinamo Azari), we can expect that some slick, synth-heavy house tracks fit for a sweaty club were laid down.

Had they somehow found themselves lost in a 1970s riot, they might just have holed up in Italian record producer Giorgio Moroder’s studio instead. The beats that producers Dinamo and Alixander create are the type that would get Moroder’s approval, especially when topped off with soulful melodies from bandmates Fritz Helder and Starving Yet Full on vocals.

The four released their eponymous debut album just this August. But they’ve been garnering considerable attention since 2009 from tracks released through the blogosphere, and also for the impulsive nature of their live shows.

“[There’s] a lot of spontaneous redirections in the arrangements,” Alixander says. “We love performing in real time and having that tactile connection to our instruments.”

Hongkongers will have to wait a bit longer to experience their live concerts as Alixander and Dinamo are slated for a DJ set at Volar this fortnight. But their DJ setup still allows for plenty of creativity from the two producers. Alixander says they’ll use four decks with two mixers to ‘really work off each other’ during the set, which we imagine will get a rise out of Volar’s dancefloor.

But, considering the demographics and mental state of most dancefloor occupants, we wondered whether Azari & III felt discouraged about playing their deeper-than-usual songs to a group of mostly drunk and/or high party people. Alixander, at least, wasn’t: “That sounds like our type of crowd! Let’s do this.”

Andrea Yu

Volar Fri Sep 29