Al de Leon

Pop quiz: name the top 10 female DJs in the world. If you're having trouble coming up with a full list, don't fret. Despite the fact that everyone wants to be a DJ these days, very few women have achieved the superstar status bestowed on their male counterparts. The DJ profession is still an old boys' club. Take a look at BPM magazine's annual "Who's America's Favorite DJ?" poll, published in the April issue, and you'll find only six females ranked in the list of 150. Luckily for local dance-music heads, one of those six is DJ Heather, and she just happens to call Chicago home. She performs at Smart Bar on Saturday, celebrating this week's release of her new mix CD, "Fabric 21," part of the renowned compilation series that has previously featured legends such as John Digweed. All of the Fabric compilations are mixed by DJs who have played at the London club of the same name; Heather has held a residency at Fabric for the past two years.

Heather began deejaying on the weekends at the Artful Dodger, but what started as a hobby eventually became a full-fledged passion. She landed a residency at the now-defunct Red Dog and also worked as the hip-hop buyer at Gramaphone Records, a rite of passage in Chicago DJ circles. Evolving her sound from hip-hop to house, Heather still likes to mix it up a bit and incorporate a variety of dance music into her sets, which should be clear from the first spin through "Fabric 21."

One of the biggest positives about "Fabric 21" is that it captures the essence of seeing Heather at peak time in a hot, sweaty club. Some DJs treat their compilation efforts as vehicles to experiment with songs and styles they normally wouldn't play. The good thing with this strategy is that it exposes listeners to new styles and underground records they may never have heard otherwise. The bad thing is that these CDs often sound nothing like the DJ's typical live set. With "Fabric 21," Heather takes a refreshing approach by remaining faithful to what you'd hear if you saw her live. "I wanted to be true to what I do music-wise in my DJ sets," says Heather during a phone interview. "I wanted to be true to the club, and 95 percent of the songs have been tested out at [Fabric] and other venues."

The album starts brilliantly with Marko Militano's "Good People," a warm, feel-good track that sets you up for a solid 75-minute ride through bumpin' Chicago house. Taking a cue from fellow Chicago luminaries Mark Farina and Derrick Carter, Heather progresses into some jazzier grooves and hip-hop elements, typified by the stellar "Back to the Program" by DJ Mes, which features one of the CD's best vocal loops: "Y'all motherfuckers really don't know what it's all about...all about."

The disc then progresses into deep house, including some brilliant remixes of old favorites--Kaskade's hit single, "Steppin' Out," gets a dub job, while Justin Martin's "Snow Day" goes disco house with a superb treatment by JT Donaldson. A Chicago DJ mix wouldn't be truly Chicago without a harder edge, and Heather incorporates a darker tech and acid sound toward the end of the CD, including Cpen's "Puffin Stuff."

Throughout "Fabric 21," Heather displays an ability to take advantage of all the tricks of the trade, layering additional sounds and tweaking the EQs. It's an engaging style that Heather attributes to her "traditionally Chicago approach, which is making records sound like no one else makes them sound--incorporating effects, a capellas, playing doubles, or using certain things to make the way you play records different from the next person."

And despite the variety of music she's working with on the compilation, Heather's topnotch mixing ensures that the transitions are tight, a skill that should be clear when she plays on Saturday. "Whether it's a techno record or a straight disco track or jazz samples or hip-hop samples, it's incorporating all of those sounds in the course of a set and trying to give you different textures or feelings," she says. "It's taking it under the guise of 4/4, but at the same time, the sounds you're hearing aren't necessarily regimented for 4/4."

Although it's usually hard for DJs to put their own creative touches on a mix of songs by other artists, Heather recorded short a capellas that she dropped into a few of the tracks on "Fabric 21," adding a little bit of her own personality to the music. On the first vocal, Heather coyly asks, "You know where I'm from?" Judging by the mix's pulsing basslines and four-on-the-floor beats made just for jacking, it's clear that she's from Chicago, and she's making the city that built house proud.

Heather plays a record-release party at Smart Bar, 3730 North Clark, on April 23.

(2005-04-19)

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