Liquid Culture Founder Nutritious Finds Freedom in Freefall

New York artist, DJ, producer, label head and cultural curator Nutritious has occupied a unique space within electronic music for over two decades. Equally at home behind multiple turntables, crafting immersive audiovisual experiences, nurturing artists through his Liquid Culture imprint or exploring the intersections of wellness, creativity and community, he has built a career defined not by trends but by intention.

That philosophy runs through Freefall, his recent EP on Liquid Culture, which reached No. 3 in Beatport's Deep House releases chart and earned support from DJ Mag, Mixmag, OpenLab, METAL and SiriusXM. Arriving after the success of Ether, one of SiriusXM's three most-played tracks with more than 400 spins, the release feels less like a commercial milestone and more like a statement of purpose.

For Nutritious, the title itself says everything. "Living fully. Surfing, skydiving, falling in love, playing music, meditation. Everything is moving. The thrill is total. The only way through is to let go and trust. That's Freefall. You commit to the moment without knowing where it lands. Passion, love, faith. Three songs."

It is a perspective shaped by a lifetime immersed in music and culture. Raised in New York City, Nutritious came of age during a period when underground sounds from New York, Chicago, Detroit, and San Francisco were reshaping dance music. Long before streaming platforms and digital DJ software, he learned through cassette tapes and vinyl records. "Analog trained my ear," he explains. "With cassette and vinyl, everything is touch, timing, and listening. No screen is giving you the answer."

That foundation continues to guide his work today. "BPM and key are useful, but they are not the whole story. Keys, modes and the twelve-note system are maps. The full spectrum of frequency is the terrain. Analog taught me that music lives in the space between notes as much as the notes themselves."

The result is a sound that effortlessly moves between cosmic disco, deep house, indie dance, nu-disco, techno, funk, soul, psychedelia and beyond. While many artists spend years refining a singular lane, Nutritious remains committed to following instinct rather than genre boundaries.

"Taste. Discretion. Feeling.I constantly remind myself that much of my performance as a DJ is what I don't play. That is true in the studio too. A song is often defined by what you decide doesn't fit."

His performances have become legendary among those who have experienced them. Combining turntablism, outboard effects, live instrumentation, projections and carefully crafted environments, his shows blur the lines between DJ set, performance art and communal ritual. Yet he is quick to point out that spectacle alone is never the goal. "A great DJ set does not need anything added to it. A great DJ with great records is still one of the most powerful things on earth."

Still, he believes that under the right circumstances, music can transcend entertainment entirely. "When the room, the records, the people, and the timing align, a night can become something people remember in their souls. The aim is simple: give people the experience of their lives. Every time."

That vision crystallised during his years at New York institution Cielo, where he found an environment capable of supporting his growing ambitions. "Cielo was a turning point," he recalls. "That room had the right ingredients: incredible sound, a sunken dancefloor, a booth designed by a phenomenal DJ and a crowd that came ready for the experience."

Those experiences were reinforced through countless nights spent cultivating underground communities across the city, including Brooklyn Shakedown at Bembe, where touring musicians regularly joined performances and improvised live.

Not surprisingly, community remains central to everything he does today. Through Liquid Culture, the label he founded, Nutritious has sought to create something larger than a music business.

"Liquid Culture is an incubator for artists, songs, events, ideas, and the conditions that let music become more than a file on a platform. The art comes first. Always. But the environment around the art matters."

That outlook extends beyond the dancefloor. Over the years, his work has intersected with wellness, culture, philanthropy, publishing and media. From contributing to the New York Times bestseller Living Well and helping launch DoubleBlind magazine to charitable initiatives that have raised more than $150,000 for the National Down Syndrome Society, his interests consistently reach beyond conventional music industry boundaries.

Perhaps that's why he remains sceptical of the relentless cycle of trend-chasing that dominates contemporary culture. "Trends are information, not instruction.Community comes from consistency, care, and shared experience over time. People can feel when something is real. The rest is noise."

For an artist who came of age digging through crates and building scenes from the ground up, technology has changed many things, but not the essentials. You can automate tasks. You cannot automate taste. Finding the record no one expected. Hearing why two things belong together before the logic is obvious. Feeling the room ignite because of one small move on the console. Digging is not just collecting music. It trains your inner compass."

That same intuition guides his production process. Successes like Ether and Freefall have brought wider recognition, but he insists that external validation is secondary to creative honesty. "Resonance is the point. Resonance does not make me want to repeat myself. It gives me faith in the next idea. If I am forcing a song to be something, I am making it smaller. If I am listening, the song shows me exactly where it wants to go."

As electronic music continues to evolve, Nutritious sees signs that audiences are once again embracing experiences over algorithms. "People are remembering that the full experience matters. Sound systems matter. Rooms matter. Lighting matters." He also hopes dance culture can become more sustainable and connected to everyday life. "The best scenes leave people with more life, not less."

Looking ahead, with new music already planned for release later this year, his focus remains firmly on preserving what made underground culture meaningful in the first place. "What we do is handcrafted and human. DIY, not AI. Vinyl survived because it carried the best of its era forward. It kept the soul, the function, the ritual."

For Nutritious, that commitment to authenticity is not a strategy. It is simply the only way he knows how to create. When asked what continues to motivate him after decades in music, his answer is characteristically concise. "Pushing creative boundaries is all I really know how to do."

Nutritious – Freefall is out now. Grab it on Beatport HERE.

Read the full interview with Nutritious on The Night Bazaar website HERE.