It's no secret that certain songs in any music genre can provoke intense feelings, from bliss to melancholy. A melody can make one's heart split on the spot, a vocal can arouse a memory, a bassline can spark a surge of energy. Music can prompt physical reactions too, like face scrunching, limb flailing or questionable jerks on the dance floor.

Najaaraq Vestbirk, who DJs and produces as Courtesy, easily glides listeners through several moods, from nostalgia to unbridled euphoria, using trance, sped-up house, hardcore and pop as her tools. A self-taught DJ who started out on vinyl, she spent long periods learning how to beatmatch and train her ear before venturing into production. Today, she often plays full tracks from start to finish, in addition to mixing in swift, neat blends. A typical Courtesy set includes angelic harmonies, soaring vocals, shimmering chords, sun-drenched melodies and clean kick drums. Her sets are always rich in colour and spirit, heavily leaning into trance from the '90s and early '00s.

Today, Vestbirk lives in Berlin and works from her studio, Studio Vestbirk, where she puts on exhibitions and art residencies for emerging artists. A high school dropout turned multi-disciplinary artist, she suffered from severe imposter syndrome when she first attended 2014's Red Bull Music Academy in Tokyo. But over the years, she forged a solo path in electronic music, art, fashion and photography, cofounding numerous music and art projects alongside her 17-year commitment to DJing—she first performed under the alias Ung Flugt with Johanne Schwensen, her high school best friend. There were also stints with the Copenhagen-based station Dunkel Radio, the techno and trance label Ectotherm and Apeiron Crew with Mama Snake, Solid Blake and Smokey.

In 2018, Vestbirk launched the multi-faceted arts platform Kulør, releasing tingling trance and pacey techno by producers such as Schacke, Repro, Sugar and IBON. Last year, she shared her debut EP, Night Journeys, followed by a series of live ambient sets, including at Berghain and Primavera Sound. These live shows primed her for working in the fashion world, where she has produced runway and video soundtracks for Chanel, Vitelli and Danish brands Solitude Studios and STAMM.

While clubs and festivals were closed during the pandemic, Vestbirk taught a master's course at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen called "Explorations in music, performance, and contemporary art." She went deeper into music production and learnt the piano and music theory. These practices helped her carve her own sound, and in April of this year, her second EP, Violence of the Moodboard, showcased more of what she calls "ambient dance music." It also included her cover of L.S.G.'s trance classic "Hearts", initially released in 1994.

DJing informs Vestbirk's work across all of her practices. She uses it as a form of research for music production, whether she's creating sound, composing or working with installations. During our interview at the London edition of AVA Festival at Printworks, Vestbirk discussed her technical requirements, how she digs for music and why she no longer plays on vinyl.

Najaaraq Vestbirk, AKA Courtesy, first made a name for herself in her native Denmark as a resident of the Copenhagen club Culture Box and as an original founding member of the Apeiron Crew.

How was Friday night at Printworks for you?

It was the first time I ever played there. I played in the more intimate room. Very nice crowd. Someone came up to me and said that one of my prior sets got him out of his depression which meant a lot to me. I think this was a classic Courtesy set.

What is a classic Courtesy set? How would you describe that sound?

Currently, a lot of trance and house music on a bit faster tempo so I can mix it with the trance. A bit of rave, particularly these hardcore remixes of big pop songs, I quite like them a lot. I would pitch those down a bit because they are like, 165 BPM. They're unnecessarily fast. They still sound great at 150 BPM.

It's funny with these festival gigs. You're kind of just in and out, banging it out. It's a short journey.

Do you find it easy to connect with the space and the crowd during that time? How does this differ from a longer set?

I think you can take more chances when you're playing a longer set and when there are not two competing floors. With a longer set, I think you can build up trust with an audience more, and with the more poppy stuff that I play, the context can be a little bit lost if it's too short a set. Because when I'm playing pop music or a more pop dance song, the context of that is wrapped up in all of these rare, hard-to-find songs that have never been released digitally or are not available on vinyl—these are the kinds of things I'm digging up. I like to play the songs for a relatively long time.

But for me, in two hours, I can really take people on a journey, as they say. One hour is pretty short.

You mentioned that you could "take more chances" in a longer set. What is a chance in your world?

So I played a really fantastic gig in Milan on Sunday evening. It was the closing evening of Milan Fashion Week. I played for three hours or a bit more. I'm not much of an encore kind of person, I actually really dislike it, but it became very special at the end of those three hours. So I played Basement Jaxx and it was insane.

Which track?

"Red Alert". Such a beautiful dance floor track. But obviously, I couldn't do that in a one-hour set. For instance in London, I wanted to play Craig David but—

Which Craig David track?

The one with Artful Dodger, where Craig David is singing. But it didn't feel right, I wasn't feeling secure enough in the room to pull it off. I needed a bit more time. Sometimes it's not the right setting.

I've always had this prejudice towards fashion people, like when you're in the so-called club culture, you would talk quite condescending about a fashion party, you know? But in my experience, with the kind of really cool young brands pulling in the cool kids, they are really open-minded. A wonderful, wonderful audience. I also think Gen-Z are a lot more open, musically.

Did you get a chance to listen to the CDs you bought in London yet?

I only had one that wasn't open, I haven't listened to it yet. But I just unpacked everything in my studio because of the trip to Italy. I went there today. I'm working on a commission for a runway video, so I'm just in the studio. I didn't have time to listen to CDs yet.

A self-taught DJ who started out on vinyl, Vestbirk spent long periods learning how to beatmatch before venturing into production.

What exactly is in your studio?

I've turned it into an art space. It has my art collection. I do smaller exhibitions with emerging artists, and I have a little programming for private events, so there's some art in there.

In terms of my equipment, I have my piano, that's what I wrote all my music on that I've released so far. I have a Prophet synth. I have one table where I have a JP-8080, this classic trance synth I recently got, and my interface and speakers. My speakers are just on these art history books on the table, and I have some sound treatment on the walls.

I recently got rid of my old CDJ setup. Instead, when I have to do any preparation, I rent the 3000s because the ones that I had—the 700s—are too different now. They really did me well for many, many years. And I don't really think, for me personally, investing in the 3000s…well, they are very, very expensive. So I rent them on a daily basis instead when I need them for certain projects. I use the Xone 96 now because it also sounds better.

I think a lot of the preparation is possible to do in rekordbox, particularly now that I'm not playing vinyl anymore. Because if you're playing vinyl, you have to practise a lot. It's like playing the piano. You have to do it all the time to keep up the craftsmanship of it. Right now, my focus is on the songs that I'm choosing and keeping the mixing very simple.

How do you use rekordbox? Do you make intelligent playlists [that automatically organise songs into playlists based on selected criteria] and intensely use the various functions on rekordbox?

I use it like iTunes. Basically, I think in an older version of rekordbox that was really common. I don't remember exactly how it was, but I think it was linked to iTunes and you could make playlists in iTunes. Honestly, my method has not changed very much since then.

I can read a manual, I'm tech-savvy when I need to be. When I buy a new synthesiser, I read the manual from beginning to end. The physical copy, not a PDF on the computer. Sometimes, when you buy a new sequencer, they don't give you a physical manual, and I will literally just give back the piece of equipment. Because I don't want to sit and read on my computer for that long.

I don't add any effects or rekordbox manipulation unless there is some specific reason for it. I have faith in my very, very distinct track selection and the way the songs or tracks are written and arranged. I think that can be enough energy to keep it interesting.

When I was younger, I'd be twitching. You call them "hot hands" where you're touching the mixer a little bit but who even knows what you're doing? I don't really need to do that anymore. I'm accepting that I don't necessarily look that busy when I'm DJing because I think people want to hear the songs that I'm playing, and I don't think anyone else can do this selection.

"With a longer set, I think you can build up trust with an audience more and with the more poppy stuff that I play, the context can be a little bit lost if it's too short a set."

Is that one of the reasons why you sometimes play tracks from start to finish without mixing two tracks together? I know this has also provoked some reactions after your shows, which we will talk about later. But is that one of the reasons why you play full tracks?

Yeah because they really work. A lot of the music I choose has beautiful ambient beginnings and outros, and I love the dynamics and energy it creates to let them play in full in the club. These ambient parts are also useful for going between different genres and tempos without having to use the pitch too drastically. There are also some songs that I play twice from beginning to end [in a set]. These are the songs that I have the most requests for because people don't even know that I'm playing the same song two times—they'll just be like "wow that sounds amazing."

This also has precedence historically, like this kind of early tape mixing and early vinyl where you would hear the same Donna Summer track being played on two record players or tape players for half an hour and people would go crazy, like really crazy. And I can definitely see that. There are certain songs that sound better the second time you play it, right after you have just played it. I think that when there are elements in a song that you know but you haven't been overexposed to, your brain releases dopamine. It's a similar process to doing drugs. So you can make people feel like they are on drugs by playing a pop song every once in a while or playing a hardcore song that samples a pop song or samples a song from a TV show like the Twin Peaks theme. It actually gives people physical pleasure from the way that your brain works, and I use this a lot when I'm DJing.

I find the songs really precious. I don't play tracks so much as songs and I think this is very important in terms of the style of mixing I do because I think a lot of dance music is made to be mixed. I think it would be pretty tedious to hear a set—which I have heard many times—where people mix poorly, but I think the most annoying thing is people just playing annoying songs which a lot of DJs do. You know, the songs that you pick, it's not about choosing a style or anything, particularly if it's anything with emotions in it or not. I think it's an expression of your inner feelings.

I think there are so many different expressions in DJing, in the style of tracks you pick, or the songs or whatever. For me, what I focus on, is the songs and particularly the songs that make me feel fuzzy inside without having to take drugs or get drunk, you know?

I'd love to hear an example of one of those tracks. What is a precious gem that makes you feel fuzzy inside?

Well right now, one that I have been playing a lot recently, is from one of these CDs with really bad artwork, like terribly ugly artwork. But the song is really beautiful. It's a duo called Blank & Jones, and the album is called DJ Culture, and the song is called "Sundowner." It's a really beautiful song, it doesn't have any lyrics, but it has vocals that are just harmonizing, or like someone making melodies with their voice without saying any words. That one really, really makes me feel amazing.

I've also started to DJ David Morales' "Needin' You." A really big classic but it is so beautiful and really makes me feel incredible inside. My skin tickles, it's such a beautiful song. I just pitch it up a bit.

What's on your tech rider for a DJ set?

Until recently I would just play with the CDJ2000s, and I'd play with three of them. Not because I'm mixing three songs together but simply because one of them would often be broken. While the CDJ might be able to play music, it's something about the way they are weighted. I use them in vinyl mode, so I'm quite dependent on the weighted knob on it, which determines how quick or slow it reacts to your hand. I have particular settings that I like which can't necessarily be achieved when one is broken. Now with the 3000s, it's very rare that they are broken.

The thing is, when you're DJing, and if you're a vinyl DJ, you really should do a soundcheck at the club before they open. This was one of the main reasons why I stopped playing vinyl. I just stopped thinking it was exciting. Like you arrive, and it doesn't work. It was just way too often that they weren't being serviced properly or they weren't isolated so there would be vibrations from the booth, and that would make them skip. Or the whole place was dusty, and then the vinyl would get dusty, and then they'd start skipping. So that's why I switched to CDJs.

I don't rip vinyl anymore. For a long period of time, I would buy my music on vinyl, and I would use a service here in Berlin called Ripples where they would rip the vinyl and also do restoration and mastering. A digitally ripped vinyl that has a lot of the vinyl noise and skips is kind of annoying, particularly if you're mixing it with trance from the '00s. It also makes the songs less powerful. That's why I started digging with CDs because I can rip them myself. It's a really enjoyable way of digging.

"I started digging with CDs because I can rip them myself. It's a really enjoyable way of digging."

Where do you go digging?

In these really old school, generic music shops where it's some middle-aged guy who's really into music that owns the shop, and they'll have a small selection of dance music compilations for instance. So I go in, and I buy maybe 100 CDs. They never have anyone buy as many CDs as I do! Because I rarely go to the same shop, so I go through every CD and then I pick from the cover—whatever looks interesting! Or, like bad in a way that could mean the music is good.

Would you try and visit these while you're on tour and if you have time during the day?

Yeah definitely. I played in Nantes, and there, I bought a lot of CDs. In Berlin, a lot of these shops are not in my neighbourhood. There are a couple in Wedding but I'm not interested in normal record shops for dance music. Everything tends to be overpriced also, and the quality of used vinyl is not very good, at least in Berlin. So you need to find these old little shops where their rent is the same because they have been there for like twenty years and they are not raising the prices.

And why do you like to use the Allen & Heath Xone 96?

Because I opt for this very minimalistic kind of mixing with very little EQing. With the Xone 96, as with the Xone 92, there are two knobs for the lower frequencies. If you're only turning the lowest knob, you're just taking the low frequencies out of a kick or a bass. But you still have the character of the bass which is more in the middle of the mix, whereas if you're playing on a Pioneer mixer and you cut out the bottom completely, it takes out a big chunk of the middle frequencies of the song. So it does a lot more in terms of EQing.

But I can play with Pioneer. When you see me play a Pioneer, I will use the FX because they are also really fun. It's more of a different style for me, and it changes the way I play a lot. I think that the mixer doesn't particularly sound good for doing the kind of mixing that I would normally like to do. I think the Pioneer has a bit more of a punk vibe, it reminds me of these first raves I would go to and listen to Justice and So Me and the whole Ed Banger crew. These were all the first parties I ever went to, organised by the Danish label Tartelet Records. In Denmark, we called it electro-house, but I guess this would be blog house—the more international term for it. And that's more of a Pioneer genre whereas the Allen & Heath is more like a mixer that you can do much more detailed mixing because of the extra EQs.

I used to use the filters on the Allen & Heath, but I don't anymore. The Xone 96 has a new filter which has this crunchy and distorted thing going on, and I accidentally used it the first time I played on this mixer, which was at Bassiani a couple of years ago and it sounded so bad. I had the recording after and I actually edited some of the parts that I had given a lot of FX from that particular filter.

But I don't really use that filter because I noticed that with the FX on the Xone mixer, if you have them turned on constantly without them supposed to be active, I feel like there is still some filtering on the low end, which I don't like. If you turn them off and on, it does a little pop. I could hear in the recording of my sets that it had a little pop, and that just annoyed me.

Do you keep the Master Tempo switched on or off when you DJ?

It depends on the song. With some of the songs, if I pitch them really high, like some of the house songs I pitch from 125 BPM to 135 BPM. That is such a big increase in tempo, but if you keep the Master Tempo on, it makes you not be able to hear the pitch. As in, it keeps the pitch the same, even if you're raising the tempo. But it starts sounding a bit fucked up when you go over a certain amount. And I actually like the little Mickey Mouse sound that you can transform the vocals into, some of them are really fun. That's probably a hangover from the trance and hardcore stuff that I really like, but I think it suits a lot of these house vocals to be pitched up a bit. So, I would turn it off for some songs and pitch them up.

I'm curious about the different reactions your DJ sets have provoked in the past. We chatted about the DMs you received because you played Missy Elliott at Nachtiville. But earlier you mentioned how a punter came up to you in Printworks and shared how a previous set of yours helped him through depression. Can you tell me more about the good and bad reactions your track selection and style of DJing have provoked?

Yeah, it's funny because I never used to get hate mail. Like, ever. And I didn't used to get people commenting hate. I would never get negative DMs, and that might be because I was a lot less famous, but I think also, I used to play a lot more by the rules. I was very in tune with the scene. I was musically a young cool DJ not playing business techno—that expression wasn't even a thing back then. So, a young person playing not terrible music, basically. Playing whatever cool, contemporary alternative dance music record that was coming out.

Now, that's very different because I'm mostly researching older, vintage sounds, as in the 90s and 2000s. That's what I'm particularly interested in. I also just realised that it is really rare that people are truly doing something new. Particularly with the kind of techno that's very popular right now, I'm just not that interested. And I think the people that do really interesting things, it's not necessarily music I would DJ. There is no lack of good producers or DJs or composers within dance music. But the ones that I'm interested in artistically do not necessarily make the kind of music I would DJ.

I definitely think now I'm getting a lot more stronger reactions to what I do. I primarily get very cute love letters from wonderful, wonderful people, and then the occasional hate mail. But to be honest, it is really mild. Primarily, it is people being angry that I would play non-techno or non-tech house or whatever it is that they think is appropriate within rave culture or whatever.

Generally, different tracks and songs have different connotations in different cities, scenes and cultures. A lot of people think that the rules they have in their head are universal rules everyone agrees on when it comes to what is okay to play at a club night. But what I experience is that a track or pop song can be welcomed as a precious and loved ode to a historical music moment in one city, and the same song considered trash in another. Some people seem to be more or less unaware of how much of the music they now enjoy, is influenced by and samples the music they seem not to want to hear.

I just don't think you can be an interesting artist and not make someone angry. It's not like I'm clearing floors, but I'm definitely taking chances, and I'm playing some songs because I'm using DJing to research which songs I will be producing covers of. That way I can test which songs are as meaningful to other people as they are to me.

Obviously, the style of DJing, like choosing not to mix every song, can give some pretty strong reactions. It's really interesting. For instance, I played in Paris recently, and it was one of the best gigs I have ever had in my life. And it was really surprising because there was someone who wrote to me and commented how I could play such a great party and not do a proper mix, and this was because I was playing the songs from beginning to end. And the room was on fire, figuratively speaking. I think it's kind of surprising that people don't see it as a choice, when I mix or don't mix.

I'm definitely doing it on purpose. You can not like it, and that's fine. I personally find it very annoying when people put a tonne of FX on everything because I think it can—not always—show an insecurity towards the music you play or an insecurity of standing in front of people because you know, as I was saying with the "hot hands," I believe in the songs. I do think they work. I trust in my selections.

On DJing: "It's like playing the piano. You have to do it all the time to keep up the craftsmanship of it."

So there's no need to be doing the "hot hands" on the mixer.

Yeah and I also think a lot of the FX sound like shit. However, Young Marco had this FX pedal—I played after him in Bristol which was also an incredible gig—called a Space Eco, and he used it on a Björk vocal in the opening of his set. It sounded amazing. I immediately bought it. I haven't used it in a DJ set yet, but I might start bringing it with me. Now I have it in my studio, and it sounds great, particularly on vocals. It sounds so good.

But I'm not a bells-and-whistles kind of person. If it doesn't sound good, I don't want it. I don't want it in my home, I don't want it in my studio, I don't want a bunch of stuff basically. I'm not a collector.

You mentioned that you're producing a soundtrack for a fashion show video. Does DJing inform your other practices, like your work in videography, photography, installation and composition, alongside music production?

Well, first of all, I didn't play an instrument as a child. I had a guitar, but I never practised. I had too many mental health problems my entire life to learn to play any instrument. So DJing was the only thing, and it took me years to learn to beatmatch. I think I could barely clap to a beat when I started to DJ. So it was really uphill to learn how to play vinyl, but it worked. I have trained my ear so much, and I've managed not to get any form of hearing damage. I've really been very, very diligent using earplugs for many years. I've developed my ear completely through DJing, and then I spent the last couple of years more seriously learning music production, and I started playing the piano some years ago.

But all the music that I do and put out comes out of a dance music history either as ambient, ambient covers or dance music classics, and that's everything from big EDM hits to electro. So if you're hearing any of the soundtracks that I've made or my records, conceptually they work with dance music even if they don't have drums.

I was very focused on melody because, for me, it's the most important part of a song or a dance music track. I would also gravitate towards the more dance music songs as in, dance music that has more of a traditional songwriting structure to it instead of just loopy stuff. I think it's because I really love the composition and I'm very interested in how these songs are written.

The reason I do all these covers is also that I'm interested in learning how they do all these songs. Some of the songs that I play, I play almost non-stop in every set for years, and I don't get tired of them. Like L.S.G.'s "Hearts" the one I did a cover of. I love that song so much, and you know, it's a like "Courtesy" song; it almost feels like mine. When I show up for sets, and you know, I haven't really released any dance music, I have people coming up with their phone screens like "can you please play this and this song" because it's a song they know and identify with me. But as soon as I get tired of a song, I stop playing it. I just believe that if I can hear it again, I also think everyone else can probably hear it again. If I'm not tired of it, that's probably a pretty good indicator that it's ok to play the song again.

Today, Vestbirk lives in Berlin and works from her studio, Studio Vestbirk, where she puts on exhibitions and art residencies for emerging artists.

I have a question about composition. Did you teach yourself how to compose or was this something you learnt at the Red Bull Music Academy in Tokyo? What did you study there?

I had a crazy amount of imposter syndrome because I was not a musician. It was pretty terrible. I had so much anxiety towards that trip, it was absolutely horrible, and I was trying to make up a lot of excuses not to go, actually. But I arrived, and I met some of the best people in my life, people I will be friends with forever. It really kickstarted my DJ career, I played an amazing gig in Tokyo. I was just talking to people about music and feelings. I was intensely heartbroken at the time, and being in this crazy city, I made a track there, which was the first time I finished a track on my own. It was an electro track. It was fine.

It was a good kickstart to a lot of stuff. But with the composition stuff, I was doing lessons with a jazz pianist, so I did music theory lessons with him up to a certain point. I think having a piano teacher was a lot about actually playing the piano, but I'm never going to perform playing the piano, that's not why I was doing it. I just needed to learn the basics of the music theory stuff so I could read about it and research it myself. Now I have a system for composing and the scales I use and the way I use them, and I can use music theory in a different way because I did all those lessons.

Was that before the Red Bull Music Academy?

No this was after. It was right before and during the pandemic. So it's pretty new. During the pandemic, my then-manager Frederik and I were like "Ok, we're either going to get other jobs or…" but I was way too anxious even to keep a job. So I made my first release during the pandemic, my first release as Courtesy. It was horrible and extremely stressful, but with composing and producing, I never imagined that I would get to the point where I'm now, where I enjoy it so much and where one piece of equipment is showing itself to me in terms of what I need to add and the FX I need to add. I don't use any plugins, its all external hardware. I'm just using five different synthesisers.

But for the projects I'm doing now; last week I produced the music for a fashion show for an Italian brand called Vitelli, a really, really great brand. I was supposed to play live at their show, but my flight got cancelled.

This week I'm working with a Danish brand that has a kind of similar spirit to Vitelli, called Solitude Studios, and they made a really beautiful video instead of doing a fashion show, a quite trippy and different runway video. They are using the title song from my EP Violence of the Moodboard. I'm recording a new version for them and adjusting it to the video and adding new layers with the JP-8080, so that's what I'm working on.

I love doing this stuff. With Ableton, which I record into—and I don't produce very much in Ableton —you can just drag a video into it, and then when you can arrange the music while you have a video playing along.

How would you describe the kind of music you're making for these fashion brands?

It's ambient dance music. It's in the spirit of the music I've released so far. Now, I use my JP-8080 synthesiser a lot. I was working with a great producer called Alex Kassian on my EP, and he would use this particular digital synthesiser to do some soundscape-y layers to my production to make it sound a bit bigger. Now, I feel like I've properly found a hardware synth where I can do all of it myself. It had a great vintage digital hardware hybrid sound.

So you're producing music for these brands but also touring as a DJ during the weekends—every weekend and doing two shows a week? That's a lot of airports and travelling around the place!

It's actually really nice. I enjoy it now. I love it. It's an extremely privileged job and when you go into the club and the crowd is nice—which they almost always are—it just fills me with so much happiness. I feel so happy when I play. It's crazy that this is a job.