Gene On Earth Will Usher in 2024 on a Sleek Note

Few are adept at blending minimal house sounds with chunky melodies like the San Franciscan turned Berliner Gene On Earth (real name Gene Arthur), who returns to Miami alongside his colleague Dyed Soundorom at Floyd on New Year's Eve.

"We first did an unofficial back-to-back in 2019," Arthur tells New Times. "Our latest set was in Albania, which ended up being one of the most magical sets I've ever done. The promoters even pushed the time back so we could keep playing."

Arthur began fiddling with electronic music as a college student in the early 2010s, connecting with the music of acts like Deadmau5. However, the development of his nimble style happened piecemeal. First, there was a trip to Bologna, Italy, as part of his Italian language minor, where he dove deeper into dance music. Europe wasn't as transfixed with big-room house music as American nightclubs.

But perhaps even more important was a later trip to Berlin. Arthur describes his current selection of spellbinding sounds as a natural progression after touching down on the German capital.

As a DJ, Arthur began exploring Beatport Top 100 to build a foundation and snuck into Berghain and Panorama Bar, whose booking focused on the Detroit sound and deep house. He eventually made friends who introduced him to minimal house and pioneers like Zip and Ricardo Villalobos.

Arthur also began crate-digging in Berlin. The rush of finding rare gems from Europe and the West Coast informed his decision to DJ using vinyl. "I go digital to check demos. That's pretty much the only time I do it," he adds.

The sound of Gene On Earth is stouter than the sinewy elements of minimal house or techno but deprived of the drops typically found on the Beatport charts. Instead, it's a syrupy sound that keeps going and going with a left-field ambiance and ambient tinges. A local comparison is the releases from Sports Records; you can also find similarities with Holland's Chris Stussy.

Gene On Earth marked his presence in 2017. He adopted an animated persona — a Hanna-Barbera-esque mustachioed man wearing a button-down and smoking a cigarette — on flyers and album covers. Arthur then launched his label Limousine Dream, which has released two albums from Arthur and a compilation series titled The Sound of Limo.

"During the pandemic, I needed something to do other than work on tunes," Arthur confesses. "So I made a compilation with a dozen or so friends and artists that I admired. It did quite well, so I thought it would be good to continue growing it from that seed because I wanted it to grow on the global playing field, and I felt like the only way to do this was to have more music coming in."
Releases from Limousine Dream are available on streaming platforms and vinyl. The latest compilation album, Purveyors of the Hypnotic Groove, features a collaboration between Tini and Arthur called "Piranha Club."

"Once the touring came back after lockdown, I was becoming overwhelmed managing the label, and combined with making my music and being in a serious relationship, I was heading towards some kind of burnout," Arthur says. "So I hired my first employee in 2022, and that made things a lot more possible, and combined with the label growing and a level of foothold meant a lot more was possible, and I started receiving a lot more demos, which led to many more releases."

In addition to Limousine Dream, Arthur manages five other imprints. There is a sublabel that features all other works sans Gene On Earth, which has releases coming next month. Aspiring producers can enroll in Nug-Net, a course meets label where Arthur teaches production while also gathering students' works for a compilation album.

"There will be two Bandcamp releases and two vinyls," says Arthur about Nug-Net. "I will also be making an additional label for slightly more underground, which I think will be only vinyl, out next year." And for good measure, there is Nuts & Volts, a digital-only label Arthur describes as worthy releases from emerging talent that are a little too risky to press onto vinyl.

"There's a two-month lead time with vinyl release, and it feels a bit complicated if I were to flood the market by announcing releases on one label," Arthur explains. "I like having different sounds that may not work on one particular brand."

Seven years in, Gene On Earth's mascot hasn't aged in the slightest, and neither has Arthur. His ambitions and sound remain the same: bringing a good vibe with something old, new, and sleek.

"These six years have been the best of my life. I'm looking forward to the next six," he says. "It's kind of about being on top of it and living the dream. Keep digging and keep paying attention to your brand."

Gene On Earth B2B Dyed Soundorom. With Natalia Roth. 11 p.m. Sunday, December 31, at Floyd, 40 NE 11th St., Miami; 305-608-2824; floydmiami.com. Tickets cost $27 to $40 via dice.fm.