Eclectic may well be the most overused word in music journalism when it comes to describing contemporary DJ sets. But there’s often no way around it: everywhere you look, dancefloors are filled with genre-hopping sets that treat stylistic range as a basic expectation rather than an exception. Not so with Mary Yuzovskaya. »My taste is very specific and super narrow. I’m not eclectic at all,« she says of her musical inclinations.
And she’s not wrong. Anyone diving into her productions and DJ sets will quickly realise how single-minded her vision is. Her sound is hypnotic and driving, intentionally bypassing trends in favour of deep, pulse-based techno. The name of her label, Monday Off, says it all. This is not music for fleeting, Instagram-friendly club moments. Yuzovskaya sees club culture as a matter of devotion, not hype.
A straight line through time
Her trajectory reinforces that commitment. Active since the early 2000s, she earned her stripes playing vinyl-only sets in Berlin and New York, where she was a resident at the Unter party series in the early 2010s and worked at the now-closed Brooklyn record store Halcyon. Since returning to Berlin in 2020, she’s played all the right rooms in the top tier of underground techno – consistently, uncompromisingly, but never without imagination.
Over nearly two decades, Mary Yuzovskaya has carved out a sound that blends techno with abstract psychedelia and subtle industrial overtones. Her sets are clearly directional, yet they avoid well-trodden paths without relying on theatrical surprises. The kick drum anchors you when the rest of the soundworld disorients – which it often does. After all, there’s nothing shallow about being super narrow.
Translated from the original German. Some phrasing may differ due to the nature of translation.
