Rising Stars: Meet Dor Wand of Echo Park

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dor Wand.

Hi Dor, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Music has been one of the most consistent things in my life. I’m a very emotional person, and for as long as I can remember I’ve leaned on music as a way to process things, understand myself and find a sense of belonging. I started going to dance music events when I was young, and that culture became one of the first places where I really understood the power of music to create community.

What drew me in was never only the person on stage. I became fascinated by the entire environment that allows a music culture to exist: artists, labels, studios, record stores, radio, promoters, sound and lighting, event staff, security, DIY spaces and, of course, the people who actually show up and participate. I’ve always seen all of those elements as interconnected, and supporting that wider ecosystem has become a big part of my ethos.

Later I lived in London and worked with Coldcut, Matt Black and Jonathan More, the founders of Ninja Tune. They’re pioneers in electronic music, sampling and remix culture, and were very early in exploring the relationship between music, technology and visual media. They became important mentors to me and expanded the way I thought about what it meant to participate in music culture beyond just being an artist.

Around that same period, I was involved with IDSpiral and festival chill out spaces, which left a lasting impression on me. I became really interested in the spaces around the dancefloor too, the places where people could slow down, lie down, talk, listen differently and integrate the experience.

After moving to San Francisco, I started Fault Radio, which became a major chapter of my life. It was a way for me to support artists, create a platform and contribute to a local music community. I moved to Los Angeles in 2021, and LA has had a huge influence on me. It’s a city built around creative industries, so there is this incredible concentration of musicians, designers, filmmakers, artists, builders and people working across different disciplines all living alongside one another. I find that deeply inspiring.

I eventually became a resident at dublab, where I now also serve on the Governance Committee, and I’ve become an active participating member of The Basement community. Both have given me a real sense of connection to Los Angeles and to the local music ecosystem.

For most of the last twenty years, I’ve worked in roles that supported other artists. Only recently have I become comfortable calling myself an artist. It took me a long time to build that creative confidence, find my own voice and learn to trust my taste, my approach and my vision.

That shift led to my album Alchemy of Being on Multi Culti, a live performance practice that grew out of the record, Beacon of Light, which explores bringing intentional chill out spaces back into contemporary dance music, and Wands, my scent project.

At this point, I see all of those things as part of the same practice. Music, scent, dance, space and community are all different ways for me to work with emotion, atmosphere and connection.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely not, but I think a lot of the difficulties are also what gave the work meaning.

For a long time, I had much more confidence supporting other people’s creativity than claiming my own. I could recognize what I loved in someone else’s work, help create platforms for artists, curate music and build community, but it was much harder for me to give myself that same validation.

A major part of my journey has been learning that vulnerability and sensitivity are not weaknesses. They’re actually some of my greatest strengths. They affect the way I listen, the details I notice, the way I read a room and the amount of care I put into what I do.

Learning to own my emotions, work through my insecurities and develop more self love has been directly connected to finding my creative voice.

The last three years in particular have brought a lot of personal challenges and change. During that time, I found myself leaning much more heavily into creativity as a way of processing things that I couldn’t always work through verbally. Sound, scent, dance and community became ways of moving emotion through my body and making sense of what I was experiencing.

That period changed my relationship with being an artist. I stopped feeling like creativity was something I needed to earn permission to participate in and started trusting that my own perspective was enough.

Kindness has also become a really important practice in my life. I don’t see it as something passive or sentimental. To me, kindness is something active. It shows up in how I treat people, how I participate in community, how I support others and how I try to move through creative spaces. I think that naturally finds its way into the work too.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
work across music, scent, curation and community, and I’m increasingly interested in where all of those things overlap.

Music is still at the center of everything. I’m a DJ, producer, live performer and radio host, but I care just as much about the environment around the music. I think about how a room feels, how sound and light affect people, how the energy shifts over the course of a night, how scent can affect memory and emotion, and whether people feel comfortable enough to actually connect with themselves and with each other.

My album Alchemy of Being, released on Multi Culti, came out of a period of intense inner work. I had become very interested in Carl Jung’s psychology, particularly his ideas around the shadow and the parts of ourselves we tend not to look at directly. The record became a way of exploring those less comfortable parts of myself through sound, and of turning something internal and difficult to articulate into something creative. Making it was a really important step in learning to trust my own voice. I produced the album with my close friend Rejoicer, whose dedication to music has always been deeply inspiring to me. His work, including releases on Stones Throw, has always reflected a deep curiosity and openness, and working together helped me shape the record without losing its emotional core.

Developing a live set around the album has been another important part of that process. Performing the music has taken it out of the private space where it was made and allowed it to exist in conversation with other people. I’ve been able to play it in different cities and contexts, from cultural spaces like the Skirball Cultural Center to dublab events and festivals, but some of the most meaningful performances have been the Beacon of Light sunrise sessions at Groovewell Vacation.

Those sunrise sessions bring together a lot of what I care about: spacious music, the transition from night into morning, people resting or moving however they want, and creating an environment that feels less like a performance people are watching and more like a shared experience everyone is inside together.

Beacon of Light has grown out of that same thinking. It’s my project focused on bringing the chill out room back into contemporary dance music culture.

The dancefloor can be incredibly powerful, but historically there were also spaces around it to rest, talk, lie down, listen to something slower, meet someone or simply integrate the intensity of the experience. I think there is real value in bringing that back. Dancing itself can be such a powerful emotional and communal practice, and I’m interested in treating dance music culture with that level of care rather than seeing it simply as nightlife.

Wands is my scent project and another extension of the same creative language. I’m exploring incense and fragrance as mediums that can live alongside sound rather than separately from it. Scent has such a direct relationship with memory and emotion, so I’m interested in how it can become part of a musical or spatial experience.

I’m also very proud of my involvement with dublab and of trying to set a good example of what it means to actively participate in a local music community.

For me, being part of a scene isn’t only about your own shows or releases. It’s going to other people’s events, buying records, dancing, volunteering, sharing opportunities, supporting independent spaces and helping sustain the infrastructure around the music. Sometimes supporting the sound engineer, the person working the door, the label, the radio station or the DIY venue is just as important as supporting the artist on stage. All of those pieces are necessary for a culture to stay alive.

If there’s something that defines my approach, I think it’s the attention I give to emotional and environmental details. I don’t really separate the music from everything happening around it. I care about the whole experience and, ultimately, about how people feel inside it.

Who else deserves credit in your story?
There are a lot of people and communities that have helped me trust myself along the way.

Coldcut were incredibly important mentors early in my career. Working around them taught me that music culture could include so much more than making records. Their approach crossed music, technology, visual art, radio, independent labels and community, and that way of thinking had a huge impact on me.

Rejoicer is a close friend and collaborator who helped produce Alchemy of Being. His dedication to music is something I find incredibly inspiring, and working together gave me a lot of confidence in my own ideas.

DJ Kerry has also been one of my biggest supporters. Beyond being a great friend, her validation of me as a DJ has meant a huge amount. Sometimes having someone whose taste you deeply respect genuinely believe in what you’re doing helps you begin to trust it yourself.

I feel similarly about dublab. Becoming a resident there, and eventually becoming more involved in the organization, has been incredibly meaningful. It’s a community built around curiosity and a genuine love of music, so having dublab give me a home and trust my taste has been a major source of creative confidence.

Saskia Wilson-Brown and the Institute for Art and Olfaction have also been very important as scent has become a larger part of my practice. Being around people who approach smell with that level of curiosity and seriousness has helped me understand that scent can be a real creative language rather than simply an accessory to the work.

More broadly, I’m grateful to all the people who have given me opportunities to participate. I think participation is probably the common thread through my entire story. I’ve never wanted to simply exist adjacent to a culture I love. I want to contribute to it, care for it and hopefully leave the spaces I’m part of a little stronger and a little kinder than I found them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thedorwand.bandcamp.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dorwand/
• Soundcloud: https://www.soundcloud.com/dorwand
• Other: https://www.thelotradio.com/shows/special-guests/2026-05-10-1000

Image Credits
Max Benedict
Matt Auttun
Drew Cornwall