Jo Lettenmaier, AKA Toni Yotzi, is constantly fielding mix requests from online platforms, so we’re pretty stoked to have made it to the front of the queue.
She kindly sifted through her collection of 2021 releases to mix for us the very best dance music of last year. The result is a seamless blend of broken beat techno and bass music, underwritten with that distinctive UK sound she has been known to blast on sound systems across Australia.
Jo is a regular on Australia’s festival circuit. She’s taken the stage at Hopkins Creek, Golden Plains and a Boiler-Room-cross-Pitch event. She’s as good a facilitator of music as she is player/performer, too. In Perth – her place of origin and home until 2016 – she studied radio and hosted RTR FM’s flagship electronic music program, Full Frequency. In Melbourne she’s hosted shows on Skylab, including her So Fresh segment – dedicated to broadcasting new releases – which, she told us, is due an imminent revival.
There is a vast array of attitudes and approaches to DJing live and on the airwaves. Some wing it; opting for little preparation and much spontaneity. “My brain doesn’t work like that,” Jo told us. Her track selections are “extremely considered” and she can spend weeks obsessing over the intricacies of a mix she is due to perform or send to someone. This thoroughness and precision really shows in her Beats by Beat mix.
In the interview at the end of the mix you can hear Jo talk about her DJing mindset, as well as the respective pros and cons of making or playing music in smaller-town (Perth) versus bigger-town (Melbourne) music scenes, and, of course, her own musical evolution.
Get to know Melbourne’s best emerging and established DJs and producers through our Beats by Beat series here.
