The mid-west rave scene ignited young Khutoretsky’s obsession with sound, beginning a relationship with audio that continued through his entire working life, and that resulted in his infamous Wall Of Sound parties, which sidelined the modern spectacle of the DJ in favour of sheer sonic pressure. And, obviously, our hyper-futuristic setting here in one of the world’s most advanced spatial soundsystems also is testament to a lifelong love affair with sound.

“With clubs, I’ve said this a hundred times before, I was influenced by the most amazing soundsystems in the Midwest — like full physical objects — where the sound was the star. To experience music on that level is like taking drugs for the first time, you chase the dragon, and I always chase that experience now.”

Flight To Nowhere

The DVS1 story is far from a tale of overnight success. Once out from prison, Khutoretsky continued his love affair with raves and parties, DJing and eventually running his own club FOUNDATION in Minneapolis, before having to shut it down with personal losses of around $120,000. The Khutoretsky we see before us today: confident, focused, and completely locked into the idea of DJing as art form, is the result of more than a couple of decades of powering through the industry, seeing it from all angles, as a clubber, promoter, sound engineer, DJ, club owner, learning his trade. Energy and drive seem to be his defining features. Certainly, if our questions and his late night are tiring him, there’s no outside sign; indeed, Khutoretsky seems to be just getting warmed up. Lacking an ashtray, he fastidiously puts out his second cigarette on a small folded piece of card, not one flake of ash reaching the concrete floor, and launches into his next response.

“I started DJing when I was 16, but I only made it to the successful level of touring and earning my living when I was 33. And I never set out to do that. You should do this for a long time with no intention of making it, of being somebody... I get messages from kids and they want to know how to do what I do, how to make it to that level, and my answer is, 'Take that out of your mind, don’t do it for that, don’t start putting out tracks to have people appreciate them and don’t start DJing to get likes,” and to emphasize the next six words, he accompanies each one with a slap of his thigh — “do it because you love it.”

Following the closure of FOUNDATION, Khutoretsky took a sound engineering role in Detroit in January 2009, which was where the next stage of his career began. Although Ben Klock was the first to release DVS1’s music (the three slick, precise, understated tracks of the ‘Klockworks 05’ EP), it was actually Derrick May who first agreed to put his tracks out.

“I was working on creating a live set, the second one I had ever done after my club closed. I was taking any and all jobs I could at the time financially, and was headed to Detroit to do audio work at the yearly car show that happens. I was in Detroit for nearly a month. While there, Derrick and I would connect and go to Transmat and just listen to music. As we sat there talking and throwing tracks to each other to listen to, I snuck in a few of the things I was working on. When he heard a few of these, he told me he wanted to re-start Transmat after the long hiatus it was on, and wanted me to release on the label. Unfortunately Derrick took a while to re-activate the label and it just so happened that Ben Klock heard the tracks in my live set a few months later. He asked me if I wanted to release as well, and the rest is history...”