Scratching the Surface

As tech-house has grown in popularity, scads of DJs have begun to do whatever they can to claim the banner as their own — without really coming up with anything that sets them apart from one another. Christian Smith, on the other hand, is unique. Tightly mixing on three turntables, Smith utilizes hip-hop scratching techniques to spice up his funk-injected techno sets. Immensely popular on the DJ circuit, where he now spends much of his time, Smith has thirty records under his belt — as a producer on his own Tronic label, as well as on the Hooj, Yoshitoshi and Positiva imprints. Smith, who’s due at Vinyl this Saturday, January 15, has done more to help define the tech-house movement than any of his peers.