When he’s not aiding the local scene through Carbon Sound, Julian Green DJs under the alias echo. With five years of experience, he’s DJ’d everywhere from sweaty basements in Como to the main stage at First Avenue. Through the years, he has released many mixes and mashups on Soundcloud, building a following on the platform. Recently, he’s been focusing more on live performances.

Due to complications with the schedule, he decided to test out some new tracks he bought earlier in the week with a mix in the studio to fill the empty space. We chatted with echo about his background and intentions for the mix. Read a transcript of the interview, edited for length and clarity, below:

Who are you?

My name's Julian, I go by echo when I DJ

What brings you in today?

Well, I took a trip downstairs and this DJ controller looked mighty interesting, so I figured I'd give it a go.

When did you start DJing?

My first memories with DJing were way back in 2011, 2012. A family member had the DJay app on their iPad. They had me mess around with it, and I remember I got one transition right. I was like, “Oh, this is cool.”

I had the Traktor app on my phone when I was, like, a freshman in high school. You could set cue points and do little remixes — slow stuff down, speed it up. I thought that was cool.

My first actual start was back in 2018. I would go around with a DJ that used to be around here. He would bring me out to some of his shows. One day, he just showed me the ropes. So, in late 2018 I got my first DJ controller and started doing house shows with a couple people here. And yeah, I guess that's how I got my start.

What’s the most gratifying experience you've had DJing?

That's a really good question. I have to go back to the 2021 Pierre Bourne show. I got asked to open for that a couple days before it happened. This was 2021, too, so right when concerts were starting to really be a thing again. It felt good because I was a big fan of the music and I felt like I could serve the audience well. Also, it was the first time you could hear a song like “Stop Breathing” or so many other songs that came out in 2020 on a big sound system. It was definitely the biggest crowd I played to at that point as well. People still come up to me about that show

How do you describe the Twin Cities DJ scene to someone who's not from here?

It’s like one of those pictures that gets more detailed the more you look at it. Surface level, you might just see one thing, but if you look closer, you see another thing and another thing… Almost like a fractal to a certain extent.

Yes, surface level you do have promoters bringing like these big Instagram-y, Tik-Tok-y DJs to town. When you look deeper into more of the underground stuff, though, there's a wide array of different kinds of events. Different types of DJs, that I believe are pushing the boundary and that have a chip on their shoulder in a good way to put Minneapolis on the map.

I think we're in a very good spot right now in terms of people doing their own events with things like Samambo, Unbothered, Decadance, et cetera. I’m just really happy to be part of this new generation and hopefully bring up the kids that are looking up to us now.

What are you going to be playing for us today?

I just bought a lot of new music. A lot of this is really inspired by sound system culture and things I've experienced, specifically The Great Beyond. Just realizing that you don't have to go fast to go hard and really leaning into psychedelia within techno, which I feel like is so simple that it really lends itself to that. So, I'm just gonna be doing a lot of new stuff. I haven't really even practiced with these songs before, so I might mess up, I might not. No sync button, no key matching, just vibes.

Follow echo on Instagram to stay up to date with his events.

Stay tuned for new mixes on Carbon Sound every other Wednesday. If you’re a DJ and want to be considered for the series, email a mix of yours to jgreen@mpr.org.