Today NYC DJ/Producer Scotia drops her hot’n’sweaty Lithophonix EP. The four-track collection includes two new tracks as well as remixes courtesy of Octo Octa and DJs Pareja of Scotia’s 2025 tracks, ‘Chicka Stick’ and ‘Sylvia Rivera.’
The EP is inspired by sex and death and on the title track she is serving up some Late 80s Freestyle replete with horns, 808 drums and the funkiest of bass lines. ‘Lithophonix’ is backed with ‘Timbale Kosmiche’, leaning more into Scotia’s speciality, a genre she’s coined ‘transssexual acid’ and it’s squelchy.
LGBT icon Octo Octa has poured all her divine energy into the Gay Power Remix of Scotia’s tribute to the legendary activist Sylvia Rivera featuring clips from her specches and protests. DJs Pareja coming from the Buenos Aires underground build the tension on their ‘Chikka Stick’ remix, incorporating bright shards of synth.
To celebrate the release Scotia is introducing us to five tracks that continue to inspire her…
Decius – ‘Werk This’
The boys of Decius mangle up all the best samples from golden-age dance music, artists like ESG and Liz Torres, and whip them into these intensely addictive grooves. I just love the alchemy of resurrecting old voices and bringing them into new grooves – ”Lithophonix”, from my record, does the same thing with The Salsoul Orchestra and a certain cult classic 90s video game!
Baby Ford – ‘Plaza’
Listening to Baby Ford – gosh!! The rhythms sound so primordial that they’re going play onwards into eternity even after you stop listening. That inertia is something I’m always trying to engineer in my work, and very much what the track “Timbale Kosmische” hopes to accomplish.
LA-4A – ‘Understand’
LA-4A is the acid-soaked alias of the techno producer Kevin McHugh, aka Ambivalent. He was part of Richie Hawtin’s crew for a time, and then moved to Berlin and started anonymously releasing stripped-down machine funk as LA-4A. There’s a simple minimalism in his work that changed how my body responds to dance music – and it is always showing up in my music. Fun fact: Kevin mastered this new record!
Secret Identity – ‘Body To Body’ (Underground Mix)
I heard my friend, the great DJ Jeffrey Sfire, play this once and it knocked me right out. Basslines are more or less always the stars of my tracks, this record included. Growing up in school I was a band geek – playing the bass guitar in bands and trombone in orchestra – so with a life spent in the Bass clef, I suppose I was a natural for dance music production. I always start with the bassline and this 90s gem just might contain my favorite bassline I ever heard – no kidding!
Roberto De Simone – ‘Secondo Coro Delle Lavandaie’
I first heard this one at the legendary Detroit party No Way Back some years ago. The human voice is the most kaleidoscopic musical instrument of all for me. I love the use of voice in dance music – not in a verse-chorus way of course – but in exploring what moods different vocal sounds can conjure up. I just love how hypnotic the vocals are in this one and I would say it really informs both my new record and all my past records.
Scotia, we are named after the biggest selling single of 2001, so we always ask what is your favourite Mariah Carey track?
A track that’ll forever make my heart swell to the moon and back is ‘Someday’ (New 12″ Jackswing)! I grew up in the middle of nowhere, as far as dance music culture goes, so bar gigs were where I learned my craft. With gigs like that, you’d inevitably get restless and try to test the crowd with what you could get away with – the weirder & darker stuff. If I scared the patrons, this is one of those tunes I would rely on to warm them back up to me!
