Montreal producer TDJ brings things full circle with SPF INFINI 3

TDJ. // photo credit Xavier Cyr

Montreal producer TDJ dropped her new “trance-infused audio visual experiment” SPF INFINI 3 in October. The third installment of a trilogy which began in 2021, it’s more than just a mixtape, album, or music video. It’s “an immersive audiovisual experience–a convergence of art, music, and storytelling that transcends conventional boundaries” and takes the standard “DJ behind the decks” POV videos which litter YouTube and turns them into something massive, taking the listener/viewer on an immersive journey.

TDJ hits the Encore at Uptown Theater on Thursday, December 7, so we hopped on Zoom with the producer and DJ to discuss her creative process and traveling the world.

The Pitch: What was the process for you of putting together all of these videos?

TDJ: Yeah, well, it was a definitely a long process that evolved. At the beginning I just wanted to do a mixed compilation of original music inspired by like the old mixtapes by Tiesto, like In Search of Sunrise. But then I thought it would just be more interesting to have a long, long video clip to go along with it, just to make it more like a 360 art project. That was the idea/dream behind it because it kind of was an impossible idea, but with a lot of work, it does work.

Who assisted you in this? I have to imagine that it requires a bit of a team given the makeup and the settings and things like that.

Oh, yeah, for sure. All this concept was developed by a team with a main asset to it the director Laurence ‘Baz’ Morais. We had everal meetings in which we discussed what kind of project we were aiming to do and we developed all the moods and the inspiration behind it and all the color to the project we gave it along the way. The team ended up being like, probably 30-40 people or something.

When you’re putting together these mixes are these things that you think will work with a visual accompaniment or was the album created first and then the visuals second?

It was definitely the music first and then when we had a first demo of the first mix, we showed it to Laurence and asked him if he was inspired to create some visual over that with the themes we had in head and everything. But yes, the music where it came first. Without it, we wouldn’t have thought of anything visually.

What is the difference for you when you’re creating something for a mix versus what you’re creating when you perform live?

Well, I perform as the DJ, so it’s kind of similar. I would say it’s quite similar, just choosing tracks that kind of fits for dance venue.

What is the appeal when you’re creating your albums and your EPs of doing things as trilogies?

I don’t really know. I feel like triangles in life were just really satisfying. I just love the fact of having a full circle, but instead of a circle, it’s a triangle. Closing the loop, you know? It just kind of happened naturally when I release three EPs and then I compiled them into a mixtape that was called TDJ123. And then, yeah, I did SPF INFINI 1, SPF INFINI 2, and I was like, “The logic would be to make it three editions,” so I made the third one to close the loop again. I just love doing three things of everything.

You are known primarily as a trance DJ so I am very curious about TDJ-182, because that just seems like that exists adjacent to, but separate from, the rest of your discography.

TDJ-182 was the first mixtape of edits I released. I love making edits of songs I loved when I was a kid, or songs I like right now, like cheesy pop songs. I just have a lot of fun making those for my DJ sets I play along the year. TDJ-182 was the first one. And then I made the TDJ Baby and then I Love TDJ. I made like three edit mixtapes to date. I do one every Christmas, so I’m going to do another one this year.

You get to travel the world performing. You’re in France right now. What does traveling offer you as a musician, in terms of exposure to new performers and genres?

I would say over the music inspiration, it’s more about seeing things I would have never seen and meeting people I would have never met. All of that builds up inside of me without even realizing it and I accumulate things that are going to inspire me in the future when I sit in front of my computer and want to make a new song. It’s really impressive the way it works, ’cause I don’t have like much time to make music when I’m traveling that much, but the second I do have time and I sit down in front of my computer, I feel super-inspired because of the million things I’ve seen in the past weeks and months. I feel really like lucky for that.

Is there anything you can point to that inspired you recently?

It’s really hard to point out. It’s more like a feeling I have. I feel like I need to make music because of all the things I’ve seen, but it’s nothing like particular. It’s just like, I would say my subconscious even, you know?

Oh no, that totally makes sense. I would imagine that like being on the road or traveling and things like that, you’re just trying to be in the moment more than anything else.

Yeah, exactly. It’s just like painting pictures here and there and like experiences I live that lives inside of me and they just go out and into a music track at some point.

How do you find audiences change the world over, or do they?

I feel like they do for sure because every country have their particular culture. But I would say that it’s really impressive to see how a certain genre of music like trance kind of attracts the same kind of–not the same kind of people, but like a very similar energy, I would say. I noticed that the crowds I play to are quite various. There’s young people, older people, all kinds. There’s no limitation in the crowd and that’s really fun to see. This is anywhere I go, so that’s cool.

TDJ plays the Encore at Uptown Theater on Thursday, December 7, with special guests N1N4 FREAKQNCY and Dewey. Details on that show here.