Q&A: Adam X On Being Known As A Producer Instead Of A DJ, The Importance Of Mixing It Up, And Berlin's Energy
Born Adam Mitchell in Coney Island, Brooklyn, techno and industrial producer Adam X was one of the key architects of the early '90s New York rave scene. With his older brother, Frankie Bones—who famously brought the British rave template to Brooklyn, throwing parties in old warehouses and other out-of-the-way venues—Adam X was part of the Storm Rave crew, and the day-to-day manager of Groove Records in Brooklyn, the first all-techno record store in the U.S. (It was later renamed Sonic Groove after moving to Manhattan.) By the end of the '90s, Adam was an established rave headliner and, thanks to his hard acid and furious techno track making (see 1992's "Lost in Hell") and DJing (the 1999 mix Wax Trax MasterMix Volume 2). 
Timo Stammberger
By the early 2000s, though, Adam grew disenchanted with the scene—just as party crackdowns began around the U.S. in earnest. Creatively, he made a lateral drift over to industrial, or EBM (electronic body music), where his rough style fit right in. But he began to get the techno itch again a few years ago, not long after leaving Brooklyn (where he still owns, and rents out, an apartment) for Berlin, like so many other dance-music pros. There, Adam began a sneak return to techno's front lines by issuing a series of acclaimed 12-inches under the pseudonym Traversable Wormhole, telling almost no one for a year. Once the dots were connected, it was only somewhat of a surprise—no-nonsense techno was always Adam X's highest calling.
This weekend, Adam and Frankie play together for the first time in two years at National Underground. Adam spoke with SOTC at a diner in Kensington, Brooklyn, where he enjoyed a strawberry milkshake.
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