South African-born Alan Heart has been DJing for over three decades, a journey that’s taken him from opening for Fatboy Slim and playing the 2010 FIFA World Cup to his current home in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand.
These days, Alan’s focus is the Ecstatic Dance community. Drawing from practices like the Five Rhythms, he blends downtempo, folktronica and world music into sets designed for intuitive movement and immersive listening. It’s an approach that aligns perfectly with what our Mix of the Month competition looks for: substance over trends, journey over hype, and technical skill in service of storytelling.
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In Conversation and Mix with Dimitri AndreasHis winning October submission demonstrates exactly that. The transitions feel natural, the track selection considered, taking listeners through a progression that works both for active dancers and attentive listeners alike. This isn’t about chasing plays or dropping familiar names – it’s about crafting a cohesive musical narrative that shows who Alan is as an artist.
When he’s not behind the decks or hosting sound journeys, Alan spends his time cycling the mountain roads around Chiang Mai, working on productions in his studio, or refining mixes over coffee. His music is available on Bandcamp, SoundCloud and YouTube.
Congratulations to Alan Heart, our October Mix of the Month winner.
Now let’s hear from the man himself…
How did you approach your mix from a creative and technical standpoint — what story were you aiming to tell, and how did that influence your selection, sequencing, and transitions?
For the past seven years, I’ve been hosting and DJing Ecstatic Dance events “silent disco” style — 90 minutes of conscious dancing in the dark where everyone wears headphones, and there’s no alcohol, stimulants, phones, shoes, or talking. The dancers commit to the journey from start to finish without knowing what to expect, and my role is to help them drop out of their heads and into their bodies.
When I first heard Luke Sanger’s Droplet, I instantly knew I wanted to build something around it for an Ecstatic Dance set. I decided to loop the track and weave it throughout the mix — sometimes front and centre, sometimes barely perceptible — teasing the subconscious and creating a sense that it’s always there. I spent about three months curating tracks that could support this idea, drawing from the kind of music I love playing at Ecstatic Dance — as far from mainstream as I can get.
I wanted the Droplets to interact and “play” with the other songs, creating immersion, as if these sounds were moving around you while you dance. At points there are three or four tracks layered together, and I love the polyrhythms that emerge from that complexity.
For me it’s a metaphor for life: no matter what’s going on, there’s always this constant, underlying, internal rhythm that we can connect with that brings us home.
Were there any particular production or mixing techniques you used to maintain cohesion or enhance dynamics across the mix? For instance, did you favour long blends, harmonic mixing, or any custom edits to help the narrative flow?
Ecstatic Dance sets naturally follow the concept of waves — stages of a journey. We start slow, like that first stretch in the morning when you open your eyes, inviting presence and awareness. The tempo gradually builds as the body warms up, usually peaking around 118–124 bpm, sometimes up to 130, before settling back down and repeating the wave. In this mix, the deliberate quiet fade-in of Phantom Mistress’ Insomnia marks the start of the second wave, just after Giri’s Sound Vibrations reaches its climax at 40:24, leading the tempo to rise again.
To make this journey seamless, I start with harmonic mixing, looking for elements in each track that naturally blend, while also considering tempo progression — in this case, starting at 80 bpm. The goal is for dancers to move deeply into the mix without noticing the transitions. Each song builds on the previous one rather than standing out individually. Mixed In Key has been my go-to tool for this process.
Custom edits, sampling, or adding drums and percussive loops help boost energy when needed. I produce and DJ in Ableton Live, using VSTs and my Push 2 to add pads, synths, pianos, or drums on the fly. For example, the buildup from 37:40 to 38:40 before the DnB section of Giri’s Sound Vibrations is a carefully crafted edit with a pinch of white noise for a riser.
Long blends are another technique I rely on. The transition from Barcelona Gipsy Klezmer Orchestra with Tikki Masala’s Shanti Chanting and DJ Drez’s Yearning into Deya Dova’s Serpent’s Egg lasts around 3.5 minutes. Later, the move from Sita Devi’s Gateway to The Cure’s Lullaby stretches to four minutes — I wanted Gateway’s guitar to interact organically with Lullaby’s chorus. These moments of overlap and interaction help create the sense of immersion I aim for in every mix.
How have your musical experiences and influences shaped your sound?
I grew up in the 1980s in South Africa, immersed in the sounds of Stock Aitken & Waterman and Frankie Knuckles. I started DJing at schools, weddings, and parties with a mobile rig of turntables and tape decks when I was 17 or 18, just before CD players began gaining momentum. Through the grapevine, I learned about a DMC competition being hosted at a local nightclub — a place I had never been before — and decided to enter.
As a South African, I was in the racial minority at that club, and I distinctly remember another DJ asking if I was going to play “white boy music.” I had no idea what he meant at the time, but I later realized that while I was drawn to hip hop, soul, and early house, many of my peers were listening to rock in bars. That DJ and I quickly became close friends, and he helped refine my skills in beat-matching, phrased mixing, and scratching. I was hooked.
By the time I landed my first nightclub gig, pitch-control CD players were becoming common, and 12-inch vinyl still ruled. I took the graveyard shift from 12–6 a.m., often playing B-side mixes of popular club hits. Six hours behind the decks meant I had to dig deep and think creatively to keep the crowd engaged, often dropping a classic when they least expected it. The 1990s house scene was incredibly exciting, and I noticed how dance music would evolve through different production phases, with new trends emerging every few months. These experiences shaped my sound and approach to DJing.
Over time, as my residencies continued, I stayed close to my roots while incorporating other genres like rock, alternative, and ’80s music into my sets. By the mid- to late-2000s, I stepped away from DJing as a main source of income — partly because a lot of popular club music being released at the time felt soulless, and partly because I had grown older while the club-goers remained the same age.
A personal shift then opened the door to a very different path: training others in heart-centered emotional self-regulation using biofeedback. About ten years later, I experienced a reawakening to the power of music through Secret Sunrise, an early-morning, non-stop dance journey with headphones, outdoor venues, and a focus on community and letting go. It was deeply appealing, and through Secret Sunrise I merged my new line of work with my prior experience in music.
Two years after that, I discovered Ecstatic Dance in Bali, or rather, it found me. I was drawn to the concept immediately: freeform, unchoreographed dance in a judgment-free environment, without alcohol, phones, or the usual nightclub distractions. I fell in love with the music — evolving ambient, deep tribal tech, world, downtempo, and slow organic house. It’s the kind of music that’s hard to find, not mainstream, yet emotionally stirring — conveying a heartfelt message of connection to self and others and rising above the human condition. Even when I don’t fully understand the lyrical content in different languages, the music moves me at a deep, soulful level. I shifted my focus to DJing Ecstatic Dance events, creating immersive headphone journeys where the music itself leads the dancers through a seamless, flowing experience.
For me, it’s now all about feeling, and I hope that sense of depth and connection comes through in the mix I submitted for this competition.
November entries are now open…. Find out more here. The mix will be aired on Golden Wings Radio, giving listeners the chance to experience the set that caught the judges’ attention.
Tracklisting:
- East Forest – Apana
- Luke Sanger – Droplet
- Barcelona Gipsy Klezmer Orchestra – Djelem Djelem (Nalin Edit)
- Tikki Masala – Shanti Chanting
- Dj Drez – Yearning
- Deya Dova – Serpent’s Egg (Axel Thesleff Remix)
- DJ Drez & Marti Nikko – Krishna Rain
- Irina – Hooka (Eastern Spirit Remix)
- Sita Devi, Ryan Herr – Gateway (Remix)
- The Cure – Lullaby (Alan Heart Edit)
- Beatfarmer Feat. Tikki Massal – The Tribe
- Basher Toe – Bhangra Step
- Giri – Sound Vibrations
- Phantom Mistress – Insomnia
- DTO Feat. Krista Richards – We Are Eternal (Entheo Remix)
- Liquid Bloom x Porangui – Eternal Horizons (Temple Step Remix Instrumental)
- Desert Dwellers Feat. Paul Stamets – One Giant Consciousness
- El Búho – Noche Tepotzotlán
- Iyakuh – Song of the Earth
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