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We agree with Richard Avedon when he says, "Anything is an art if you do it at the level of an art." Sculpture, mineral, sound and thought — this is art if you want it to be. From January through June of 2019, we worked with Chicago-based gallerist Andrew Rafacz — of his own Andrew Rafacz Gallery — to curate an artist to stay at Ace Hotel Chicago each Sunday night for our Artists in Residence program.

Industrial goth maven Nika Danilova has been making dark art pop under the moniker Zola Jesus for nearly a decade. The Wisconsin-bred musician, known for making atmospheric, abrasive orchestral sounds, took a break from working on some new collaborations in Los Angeles to chat with us about her favorite local hangs, where to start your dive into Neo-classical listening and why rusted sheet metal can be your best friend in the booth.

“BreakBeat Lou” Flores has been a student of sound since he was three years old. The legendary Bronx-born DJ, B-Boy and hip hop pioneer — whose modus operandi could be summed up by the line, “If it’s funky, it’s funky” — cut his sonic teeth in the early 70s in New York City, where he says “there was no better recipe” for hip hop to happen. Here he chats with longtime Ace friend and fellow New York mainstay Justin Strauss for this edition of Just/Talk about the octopoidal nature of being a DJ, soaking records in bathtubs to hide their labels from rival music crews and the first record he ever bought.

It happened. The Zombies came together at our desert oasis and played a set worthy of a million date shakes. They also chatted with each other, the audience and then to someone we really like. Click here to listen to The Trap Set conversation with living legends Rod Argent & Colin Blunstone of The Zombies — recorded at Ace Hotel & Swim Club— and read on for a peek behind the sonic curtain by the inimitable Joe Wong of The Trap Set.

n Flagranti, the musical duo comprised of Sasa Crnobrnja and Alex Gloor, make the kind of music that tugs on the thread of mother universe’s music. They draw inspiration, visuals and sound from everywhere, playing and piecing from both rare and common sources to create singular, distinct compositions that defies categorization. For this edition of Just/Talk, resident DJ and longtime Ace friend Justin Strauss joins Sasa and Alex in Switzerland to talk about VHS tapes, starting a record label at a flea market and how beginners can be choosers.

Kasper Bjørke is something of an electronic music octopus — the Danish-born DJ has had his hand in everything from production, performance, curation, art filmmaking and composition.