Infectious rhythms and warm house vibes from Dig Deeper co-founder Alison Swing.

A passionate crate digger and selector at heart, Alison Swing evolved as an artist in LA’s vibrant scene and is known for serving up feel good sets that bring wide smiles to the dance floor. Alongside Masha, she co-founded the acclaimed LA Dig Deeper party series, which has seen a plethora of DJ’s from the local scene plus international guests such as Axel Boman, Omar S, Tornado Wallace and Shanti Celeste, amongst many others, delight crowds in venues and warehouses across the city. Then a few years back, she made the move to Berlin, where she started her own night ‘Uforia’ and became a regular fixture at a number of the hottest parties around Europe. One things for sure, when Alison’s behind the decks, good times follow.

At the time of writing she’s back in LA, we caught up with Alison to hear about what’s she’s been busy with and what lays ahead.

Hi Alison, how are you? Do we understand correctly that you staying in the US at the moment? Looks like you’ve been enjoying some really nice trips in to nature with friends?

Hi Tom! I’m doing great – hope you’re doing well. Yeah I am back home with my family about an hour outside of LA. It’s been a really wild time because when I left Berlin in May it was super locked down and being over here is like being in the future. I was so excited to do anything (once I was vaccinated) so I’ve been buzzing around a ton here with all my friends. Already made it to Hawaii, the Sequoia National Park and Palm Springs.

As we now start to see the light at the end of the tunnel, what are your plans and /or hopes for the coming period? Will you be returning to Europe or splitting your time either side of the pond? And has there has been a change in your outlook or priorities as an artist over the lockdowns?

So I’ll be returning to Berlin at the start of August. Being back here with all my friends has definitely made me reconsider things so I’m going to try spending more time here in the future. This past year was really hard but it also made me reflect on everything and I just feel so incredibly lucky to be a part of this global community. I want to cherish that more. I have been messing around with producing my own music which has been really fun and frustrating but I really want to express my perspective that way so we’ll see what happens.

We’d love to hear more about LA event series Dig Deeper which you co-founded, firstly how did that come about and what kind of vibe can people expect? Also we saw you have a private event coming up on the 27th of this month, where you will play back to back with Masha Mar. Bet you’re looking forward to that, what are your feelings on it and getting back to playing for crowds?

So Masha and I met when we were just baby DJs 7 years ago. We both loved warm euphoric house music and we felt like that wasn’t being properly represented in LA. So we slowly built Dig Deeper together across various warehouse spaces and some rooftops here and there. It’s funny because when you build these things it’s hard to guess who’s going to come and we just got this lovely group of people coming so it’s really special to be able to do it still and see those same faces. This Sunday the 27th we’re doing a day into night extended b2b – we’ve done it once before and it was such a blast so I feel very excited. A couple weekends ago I also got to play at Surround (Heidi Lawden, Jeniluv and Masha Mar’s new series) and it was really heaven. It was my first real gig since March 7 2020 so I got a bit teary eyed.

Great to see your new residency with Dublab too, would be great to hear a bit more about that? How did it come about and what kind of artists are you curating?

I’m so happy to be a part of Dublab now. It was always such a dream for me after playing guest spots for years. Everyone there has been so lovely and supportive. For the first few shows it’ll just be me so I can set the tone but I plan on bringing artists I’ve met around the world to showcase there as well as local gems here. I’m trying to stray away from club music with this radio show but we’ll see. I’m also designing the artwork so I look forward to developing that further.

Finally what kind of energy are you bringing us with this mix today? Any favourite bits in there?

I made this mix with a lot of the music I played out at my gig the other week so it’s a lot of fun stuff that makes me think of LA. I was also really happy to include music from so many great compilations from DUSK, Trax Only and CC:Disco – highly recommend checking those out!

Photo credit header image: Kasia Zacharko
Photo credit other images: Michael Gushansky