Cardiff-born DJ and producer Elkka, aka Emma Kirby, began her music career as a singer-songwriter. She began DJing and producing when she moved to London in 2016 and co-founded her record label, Femme Culture. Since then she has been a regular behind the decks in clubs across the country, played at Berghain and was awarded BBC’s Essential Mix of the Year award in 2021. Ahead of her forthcoming debut album, Elkka spoke to Time Out about one venue that has left a lasting impression on her as an artist and a queer woman.
‘NYC Downlow is the only pure queer institution within Glastonbury in the sense that it’s an actual club and the line-ups are curated as such. It looks like a New York bathhouse and meatpacking house from the 1980s. It has this seedy, amazing, dirty feel to it and is like going back in time.
‘I made a silly promise to myself that I would only ever go to Glastonbury when I was performing. The first year that I did that (2022), I was hearing incredible things about this queer club in Block 9, which is one of my favourite areas in the festival. I went to see Burna Boy and then migrated in quite a deliriously happy state to NYC Downlow and just stayed there for six hours having the time of my life. You could only get in if you had a moustache of a certain colour for a certain day, so there had to be a level of commitment to it, which I appreciated.
There’s a really beautiful level of escapism there – you can express yourself fully and not feel too seen
‘There’s a really beautiful level of escapism there. You can express yourself fully and not feel too seen. The DJs I saw – Midland, Todd Edwards, Gideön and Scott Diaz – were some of my favourite people from around the world. Glastonbury has a unique feeling anyway and it’s just magnified in that space: it’s a really special place within a really special festival. Moving alongside someone on a sweaty dance floor (and NYC Downlow is sweaty) or crouching down in the smoking area outside, you’re dirty but so happy.
‘It was even better the second time, which doesn’t always happen. I performed at Arcadia before Chemical Brothers on this incredible fire breathing spider in front of 10,000 people, with my friends dancing below. Then we moved to NYC Downlow and I went from the most incredible performance of my life to the most incredible dancefloor moment of my life. You can go to NYC Downlow at any time [during the festival] and the music is just perfection. It’s a sweaty, pulsating, queer heaven. The sets that I experienced there really have informed the way I DJ. My album is entirely based on female and queer pleasure and NYC Downlow is a bit of a mecca for all of that.’
Elkka’s debut album ‘Prism of Pleasure’ is released June 7.
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