SANTA MONICA, CA – Bottom Floor, the West Side’s champion of the deep house sound, will treat Los Angeles to a rare appearance by the revered Atlanta-based-but-Detroit-rooted DJ and producer Kai Alcé on Thursday, June 30, 2011 from 9:00pm to 2:00am at Bar Pico in Santa Monica.  The date will mark the completion of six months of weekly events for Bottom Floor and the transition to a series of monthly events featuring out-of-town guests. Bottom Floor creator and resident DJ Morgan Alexander will also DJ.  Bar Pico is located at 2819 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405.  Guests must be 21 years of age or older to attend. The entrance fee for this event is $10.  For more information, please visit www.thebottomfloor.com.

Ratcheting up the uniqueness of the occasion, is the fact that Alcé has not performed in Los Angeles in over 10 years.  “I’ve been working at least one of Kai’s records into my set each week, so he was right up top when I thought about who to bring in for our 25th event and to kick off the ‘Bottom Floor Welcomes…’ series.  So many of his productions truly embody the sound I’m attempting to showcase here,” says Founder Alexander.

Alcé’s formidable string of productions on highly regarded labels such as Moodymann’s Mahogani Music, Omar S’ FXHE Records, and Brett Dancer’s Track Mode Recordings, have long elicited a knowing nod between DJs and fans favoring a mature and sophisticated set of house music.  His start at Detroit’s now infamous Music Institute – first as a 16 year old coat check and then working his way up to running the lights – achieves fairytale status by the fact that his time there was initiated by distant cousin and house music luminary, Chez Damier.  Alcé has the distinction and good fortune of being the only other person present in the DJ booth, while working the lights during Derrick May’s 3AM set on the final night of the club’s operation.  His participation in such a seminal time and place for dance music, led to Alcé curating a series of 12” releases, coinciding with the Music Institute’s 20th anniversary.  The 3rd installment just dropped during Detroit’s Movement Electronic Music Festival over Memorial Day Weekend.

NDATL, Alcé’s own label – named for his hometown influences of New York, Detroit, and Atlanta – has projects slated for 2011 from the likes of Patrice Scott, Brett Dancer, Chez Damier, Alton Miller, Apple Jac, Roland Clark, Jovonn, Omar S, MK, Abacus, Theo Parrish, Loosefingers (Larry Heard), Azulu Phantom, Phil Asher, Damon Lamar, Robert Owens, and of course Alcé himself.

Since its inception, Bottom Floor has hosted weekly guest DJs, including numerous appearances by LA heroes John Tejada (Palette Recordings), Santiago Salazar (Planet E), DJ Dex (Underground Resistance), and Lars Behrenroth (Deeper Shades of House), each delivering on the request to explore the deeper side of their record collections.

Also along for the ride, is electronic dance music community based nonprofit NextAid.  Proceeds from the modest door fee benefit their ongoing projects to provide sustainable relief to vulnerable children and youth in Africa. For more information, please visit www.nextaid.org.

Kai Alcé (from a review/bio posted on NDATL.com) –
Observing the crowd from a dark corner in one of Atlanta’s premier Saturday night hot spots, a tangible fever suddenly permeates the dancing bodies. The origin of the change in the texture of the evening is understood: DJ Kai Alcé has stepped up to the decks. Positioned behind the tables, Alcé wields the mesmerizing powers of music upon the club-goers and sends them in to a trance of deep house rhythms. Whether his innate ability to elevate the souls of the people stems from his Haitian roots or his extensive house-related upbringing is a question most easily answered as a well-blended cocktail of the two.

Born in New York, Kai Yuri Alcé spent his early years on the island of St. Croix amidst the sounds of the Caribbean. His parents moved back to NY just in time for young Kai to experience the birth of hip-hop, a movement he associates with the beginning of his relationship with music independent of that of his parents. While seeing Kurtis Blow perform at a nearby school may indeed have influenced him to delve further into what was slowly becoming his passion, the strains of his Mother’s soca and his Father’s jazz can still be heard in the tracks Kai spins today. Still, as a true child of the ’70s this DJ’s penchant for airy vocals and soulful sounds exposes his disco roots.

After moving to Detroit in 1980 Kai began listening to ‘Electrifying Mojo’ on the radio, as well as The Wizard AKA Jeff Mills. When the ‘Music Institute’ opened in Detroit in 1987, it quickly became the city’s premier underground dance music location. Kai began working there at the age of 16 and subsequently witnessed the evolution of house alongside its most formidable DJs: Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, D. Wynn, Alton Miller, and kin Chez Damier. Among the benefits of working at the club was Kai’s easy access to the studios as they created such hits as Innercity’s “Goodlife” and Rhythim is Rhythim’s “It Is What It Is.” Surround by such mastery one can’t help but be inspired.

After completing high school, Kai moved to Atlanta to attend Morehouse College. Having maintained contact with relatives in Florida, he was prepared for the obscurity of the house scene in Atlanta. Whether out of saintly benevolence or mere concern for his own sanity, Kai set out to cultivate it. He began spinning at Club Velvet while still attending college, and it was simply a matter of time before he had set the vibe at Atlanta’s Traxx, Kaya, 688 Madhouse, Oxygen, Nomenclature, and Ying Yang music café, which paved the way for people such as India Arie, and Donnie. He now is the main resident at DEEP: Saturday nights at world famous MJQ concourse, which is now in its sixth year, hosting the likes of Phil Asher, Tedd Patterson, Jovonn, and King Britt to name a few. It was at the latter that he decided to solidify a direct link between the South and D-town roots by creating “Deep Detroit House Sessions.” So far Alcé has hosted the likes of Chez Damier, Alton Miller, Brett Dancer, Moodymann, Mike Huckaby, and Theo Parrish. The success of these parties is acknowledged not only by the crowd, but also by the DJs themselves, who often ask to come again soon.  To learn more, please visit www.kaialce.com.

Morgan Alexander –
Morgan Alexander began building a sonic home in house music in the early nineties.  Career highlights include a residency with LIFE, Boston’s largest deep house night, traveling with Mountain Dew’s entertainment presence for the X Games, regular features on the West Coast, and hosting “Wednesday Revolutions,” the deep installment of Boston’s revered electronic dance music show on WERS 88.9FM.  Alexander volunteers a healthy portion of his time to a board appointment with NextAid – the dance music community’s response to helping vulnerable children and youth in Africa.  2011 finds him very much at home in sunny Santa Monica, producing Bottom Floor.  The venture, formed with Halo of CityDeep Music, provides a multi-faceted platform for DJs and producers prolific in their ability to squeeze soul out of machines – www.soulmusement.com.

NextAid –
NextAid is a Los Angeles-based humanitarian nonprofit organization that harnesses the power of music to support sustainable development projects that serve vulnerable children, youth and women in Africa. Through music events and public education initiatives, NextAid provides empowering opportunities for concerned individuals to make a difference.

#            #            #

For more information, photos or to set up interviews please contact Green Galacticʼs Lynn Tejada (née Hasty) at 213-840-1201 or lynn@greengalactic.com.