Crystallmess is all about Edging

When Crystallmess is DJing, her goal is to make people ​“transformed, terrified, sexy and understood”. At one of her exhilarating sets, you might hear the DJ and interdisciplinary artist blend the likes of Brandy’sI Wanna Get Down (sexy) with slamming jungle tunes (transformed), before jumping into headsy techno (understood) and finishing off with trance (er, terrified?). She’s been a respected name in the art world and underground club culture for a few years now, and she had a major mainstream moment last year when she DJ’d as part of Frank Ocean’s much-discussed Coachella show.

Born Christelle Oyiri in the Parisian banlieue of Villejuif, the last few years have proven to be career-defining for the musician. ​“Growing up in the [south of Paris] shaped me, because at the time it was the epicentre of a certain type of rap,” she says, referring to the West Coast-infused hip-hop that kids listened to there at the time. Then came French touch, a glistening style of house music typically associated with acts such as Daft Punk and St Germain, which helped Christelle ​“imagine electronic as popular music”.

Merging rap with challenging club music still gets Christelle all hot under the collar. She recalls her eclectic DJ set at Italy’s Terraforma festival back in 2022 as a career highlight: ​“I remember playing Dope Dealer by Meek Mill and Nicki Minaj into Autechre, and thinking I’d just invented gravity,” she says [Alright, Isaac Newton – Physics Ed].

Christelle’s latest venture is Edging, a new club night that she’s planning to take with her around Europe. Having previously played in Paris, Edging will be landing hard in Hackney’s Colour Factory this Friday, where she’ll be playing alongside ghetto-tech trio HiTech (who put on an excellent show at our New Noise night a few weeks ago) and London-via-Accra DJ Emma Korantema. We’ll see you front left.

What kinds of emotions and experiences influence your music?

Despair, revenge, need for speed, rest and love.

What’s a piece of advice that changed your life?

Say no more, even if it makes you sound or look ungrateful. You deserve to have agency over your life, which will make saying yes even more [special].

If you were cooking to impress someone, what would you make?

Probably a lamb roast with roast potatoes, veggies and a French-Caribbean pain au beurre and chocolate for dessert. It’s like a really complicated brioche. Or a sauce graine dish. But… that’s stressful, yo! I don’t cook to impress. My presence should suffice!

What’s a bad habit you wish you could kick?

My dopamine addiction.

You rule the world for a day. What goes down?

World peace immediately, world hunger solved, world dopamine detox. I’d make clubs the new assemblies. All war criminals, sexual and other abusers would be put on trial and jailed. Africa would rule the world… maybe only the Ivory Coast, actually, because their LGBTQ+ policies are better than the rest of the continent.

What’s your trick to get out of a boring conversation at a party?

I have ADHD, so if something is boring I’ll just move on in the rudest way.

Love, like, hate?

I love swimming in the lukewarm sea, I like feeling lost in translation in a new country I’ve never visited before, I hate state violence and genocides.

Favourite song of all time?

I can’t answer that question, but if I had to, I’d say UFO by ESG.

What’s the last lie you told?

I’m on my way, but I was still home getting ready.

What can artists do to help save the world?

Listen more, de-centre themselves, and recognise that their art sometimes – a lot of times – doesn’t matter. They should invest themselves in grassroots organising if they can or want to.