JDL
QUAKE

Juan Coleman, known to the floor as JDL Quake, has been behind the decks since 1995, running the full range: hard-hitting drum & bass and breaks on one end, sunset chill and ambient downtempo on the other, with techno, dubstep, hip-hop and everything between. Sets have landed across South Africa, Singapore (The Best Elements, Kilo Lounge), Sweden and London.

By trade he's a digital technologist; by instinct, an analog obsessive, as at home behind a reel-to-reel as behind a laptop. Vinyl's still the weapon of choice, but the tool changes with the room.

Along the way he's shared stages and decks with Scratch (The Roots), Luke Vibert, Cut La Roc, General Midi, Krafty Kuts and Cypress Hill, and spent years coordinating the DMC DJ Championships in South Africa alongside Tony Prince of DMC International, before handing the reins to the African Hip Hop Indaba in 2011.

DMC SA — documentary

In 2005, Juan co-founded Sound Squad with Yalena Razis and Grant Mason, throwing New Year's Revolutions, an outdoor festival built on the idea that electronic music didn't have to mean one genre. It grew from a single stage and 20 DJs to 45+ artists across three: a main stage for drum & bass, breaks, electro, techno and dubstep, and a chill stage by the river for reggae, dub, ambient and downtempo.

JDL Quake played nearly every edition, solo and back to back with Microstripe. That same instinct for genre-blind, sunset-to-sunrise programming carried straight into Cold Turkey, Cape Town's long-running bass night, where the two have thrown down together many times since it started in 2010.

Sound Squad Revolutions — archive footage

Vinyl is still the weapon of choice: technique pulled from the greats, DJ Kentaro's Tiger Paw scratch, Q-Bert's cuts, but the sound's never been precious about the medium. Reel-to-reel tape, digital rigs, whatever gets the room from A to B.

A background in technology and years in pro audio (he ran Choice Records, a Cape Town record shop, and the outfit 24audio) means the gear talk goes deep. On the night, though, it's just about what moves the floor.