Dustin Space’s journey to self-discovery and “queer euphoria”
A powerful journey through self-discovery and self-acceptance, DIVERGENCE—the debut EP from Dustin Stern, aka Dustin Space, a queer multi-instrumentalist and electronic music producer from Toronto—is a vibrant, emotionally-charged thrill ride.
This EP was created during a period of personal and “spiritual awakening” for Dustin Space. Part of the self-discovery was that they were, in fact, genderqueer and pansexual, complicated by being in a long-term “heteronormative” relationship, and then the pandemic suddenly reared its ugly head. Dustin’s life, like many, was ground to a halt, and their mental health began to plummet just as their band Nightshades called it quits.
“I felt atrophied in my queer journey,” they say. “I felt lost, afraid, and alone. During that low, I started writing the DIVERGENCE EP. I have always used music as a tool for processing emotions, but never had I had so much emotion and personal growth to process.”
Listen to the DIVERGENCE EP below and learn more about Dustin Space via our mini-interview.
First off, care to introduce yourself to our readers?
I go by Dustin Space, and I have been playing music since childhood. I can still remember the first time I plugged my electric guitar into my father’s synthesizer, around twelve years old, and was baffled by the possibilities of blending live performance with digital effects.
Over the past decade, I have been involved in a handful of different projects, yet all of these were either someone else’s artistic vision or generally dominated by other loud voices. The last few years have been a generally challenging and isolating time in my life. I learned to cope and begin to heal by writing music myself, out of which the Dustin Space project was born.
You unveiled your debut EP, Divergence. What can you tell us about the writing process behind the release?
I have a ton of different musical influences from jazz, funk, and rock, as well as various genres of electronic music. Instead of choosing which direction/genre I would express myself within, I allowed myself to freely flow with the music that was arising in me.
The DIVERGENCE EP is a sonic chronicle of my own journey and a personal story of transformation. It is an instrumental narrative about self-love and self-acceptance, written during a difficult time for my mental health and in my journey of coming out to myself and the world as queer. Whether it was celebratory energy, or more melancholy feelings, each of these tracks demanded my attention in a robust and meaningful way.
Throughout the album, I wrote all the parts and performed electric guitar, analog synth, electric keyboard, and piano. For the drums and percussion, I would start by performing them using drum machines and sequencers, whether by finger drumming, looping, or both. I would then put on my producer hat and get meticulous with taking what I had laid down and programming in every additional swing, fill, etc.
Writing and playing all the parts, and producing the EP myself, was very time-consuming yet extremely healing and resulted in music that I feel authentically expresses my creative voice.
If you could only recommend one song to a new listener, which would you choose?
Very hard to choose, but if I had to, I would say “Edge of Inertia.” This song came out of a period of reflection around the notion that motion has its own kind of inertia, and if we want to alter our habits and patterns, we need to push past the edge of inertia of our routines. This song exudes the energy of starting an adventure and surrendering to change.
“Edge of Inertia” is also a great example of the fusion of live instruments and electronic elements that are signature to my sound. This is true throughout the track, yet perhaps most prominent during the bridge, where glitch-hop and psybient electronic sounds accompany a ripping guitar solo.
What’s your favourite thing about being a musician in Toronto?
This is a bit of a tricky question because, especially in recent years, I have become a fair bit jaded about the music scene here in Toronto. I find it unnecessarily competitive that most musicians are very underpaid and that audiences here generally gravitate towards what they know (e.g. cover bands, mainstream EDM, etc.) versus being open to new sounds.
That said, my favourite thing about being a musician in Toronto is the high concentration of incredible talent, regardless of some of the problems I mentioned above with the scene itself. I also love being exposed to music from all over the world, with Toronto being a city with such a high concentration of immigrants. A great example is that for years I played in a klezmer-gypsy-pop-punk band called JUMPLE, a band comprised of all Ukrainian immigrants other than me, playing music I do not think I would have even come across if I was not based in the cultural mosaic of Toronto.
What’s one piece of advice that you’d like to pass on to another up-and-coming artist?
Check in with the core reasons that you make music and stay true to yourself. There is so much copycat/cookie-cutter music out there, and with rapidly growing AI technology, that will likely become exponentially the case. Make music that you love and enjoy making, even if you are unsure of its ‘marketability’. In today’s oversaturated, globalized music scene, I believe authenticity resonates with listeners above all else.
What’s next for you in 2023?
I have some upcoming DJ sets booked for the spring in and around Toronto, but my excitement most lies with the debut of my live set this summer. I have been building an electronic/live instrument hybrid set-up, where all the playable instruments, such as guitar and keyboards, are performed live while using Ableton Live for sampling, looping, and FX control on both the live and electronic elements. The debut of the fully live set will take place at Silver Springs Music Festival in Ontario, and then I will be bringing it on the road in the fall. I invite anyone reading this to go to dustinspace.com/contact and let me know if you’d like to see this set in your city!