What inspired you most recently?

Public Service NYC! A party Toribio and DJ Mickey Perez do in Herbert Von King Park. It was a Sunday afternoon, raining all day but a good crowd showed up, the music was uplifting, the full Karlala Soundsystem was in effect and it was so fun to dance. Sometimes it’s that simple.

It’s also inspiring to see students going so hard to demand their institutions stop supporting the genocide that Israel has been carrying out in Palestine with the help of the United States. We live in systems designed to make us sick at all levels—physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, in ways subtle to overt, individual to global. Any resistance to this situation is the greatest gift, we can all give it in our own ways and I’m inspired any time that happens.

You’ve spent over a decade in various underdog hotbeds of American Dance Music—growing up in New Jersey and cutting your teeth in Boston, Detroit, Pittsburgh. Is there anything about these places that influences your work?

Going one by one … I didn’t know anything about house music when I was growing up in NJ but I always feel some Jersey pride when I pick up a Burrell record or a Boyd Jarvis cut that would’ve been played at Zanzibar. Boston was a great place to start playing gigs because there weren’t as many rules as there would be in a city with more of a historical identity in dance music—I built a habit of being myself. Detroit is hard to sum up but I learned a lot being around so many great DJs, producers, and record stores and it made me work really hard to get my skills up. Pittsburgh has been a place to slow down and get to know myself better and I think the music I’ve made these last five years reflects that.

Your personal imprint Trackland has produced various ephemera, digital, and physical media this year—to me, Trackland feels like a poignant vignette into the spirit of Ali Berger. Tell us all about Trackland, and any past and upcoming releases you’re excited about.

I’ve really struggled with this answer because Trackland is so many things. It started ten years ago with a CD-R when it seemed impossible to get anyone to release my music. It’s become kind of like a journal, an alternate universe where I can be safe from harsh definitions of completeness, perfection, appeal, functionality. There are almost 70 releases on the label and about 55 of them are from the last four years. The size of the catalog has made it a helpful anchor as I get deeper into the music industry and feel pressure to do things the “right” way—there’s this huge body of work reminding me of the intimate joy that’s possible when I put the rules out of mind for a bit.

I often think of something Jeff Mills said, that he’s usually thinking of one person (rather than a group of people) when he’s producing, that he looks at it like whispering in someone’s ear. There are some big tunes on Trackland but it’s more about using my inside voice, one on one conversation. Slice of life music. This is probably why I go so light on the promotion, it doesn’t make sense to shout about these quiet moments.

Recently there were a couple of physical releases for the first time in many years—a 12” called infinite chime, where I spray painted the artwork on each of the 100 copies one by one, and a tape called “a refuge / 1,” which collects some music that creates (or came from) a mental environment of peace and safety. Coming up, I’m very excited about a single called “A Touch So Real” by a new project called Heavy Cream. It’s extremely deep, deep house and I’m trying out a new art style with the cover.

Meditation has been a huge part of your life as long as I’ve known you. Anything you want to share about how that affects your music and personal practice?

The main meditation system I practice (called anapanasati, outlined in early Buddhist teachings) is about developing a relaxed, clear, non-judgmental sensitivity to what’s really going on with the body and mind, which leads gradually to an experiential understanding of natural truths that in turn lead to the end of suffering. (This is the best overview I can give here but very incomplete, please read other stuff if you’re curious because I am not at all an authority.)

This growing sensitivity affects everything, but here’s one example from music and one from life. My music feels more refined and carries a different sense of ease than it used to, and I’m much more aware of any immature, selfish, or unwholesome feelings I’m bringing to interactions with others and more able to let those settle, so there’s freedom for everyone involved to be themselves.

The theme of this column is sleep, which I find kind of hard to keep up with question wise—anything you like to do when it’s hard for you to sleep and you find it hard to keep up with your own internal rhythm?

I’ve struggled with sleep a lot—usually I can fall asleep fine but I wake up after four to six hours and often can’t get back to sleep after that. One thing that has helped lately is writing some affirmations in a notebook. It cultivates some feelings of safety and then I can relax and pass out for a bit longer.

I say “Skillman, New Jersey,” you say?

Central Jersey is real!!

Dreams are the both the apex of our desires and the sitcom reruns of the subconscious. Are you living any of your dreams?

Kind of … I always wanted to have an unmistakable sound and my own multifaceted musical universe and maybe I do, or I’m getting there? But an unspoken part of that dream was that I would be fulfilled in other ways too once I did that, and (shocker) this is not how it works. Sitcom reruns of the subconscious is a very apt description for this part—familiarity is very seductive, we can get comfortable trying the same thing over and over, but eventually the jokes don’t hit like they used to and it’s time to watch something else.

Waffles or pancakes? Walk me through Ali Berger’s ideal breakfast

Almost every morning for two or three years I’ve made the same breakfast—a bowl of oatmeal with blueberries (frozen ones, I cook them at the same time as the oats), peanut butter, ginger, turmeric, and black pepper. A very gentle way to charge up. I only hit the full-on diner breakfast a few times a year since it’s so hard to function afterwards, but a Belgian waffle, pancakes, and scrambled eggs are all in the rotation. I’m lukewarm on diner potatoes but if they’re shredded and crispy they can hang.

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