The word “music” comes from the Greek word “mousike,” meaning “art of the Muses,” the supernatural beings who watch over artistic disciplines in Hellenistic tradition. As a result, a musician doesn’t necessarily mean only a singer, songwriter or instrumentalist; it also includes those who take existing art and innovate it, producing something new and exciting. Fifth-year Ellie Lutterman, known musically as DJ Smellie, is this type of artist, and her work — or rather, rework — has made her a common name on campus. Her DJ name is a fusion of her name and a long-standing nickname many of her friends — and sometimes foes too, she mentioned — christened her with: “Smelly Ellie.”
DJ Smellie’s roots in electronic music reach back all the way to what many people from the current Lawrentian student generation would consider the genre’s modern golden age: the early 2010s. She remembered her gateway into the genre like it was yesterday: Skrillex had just come out on the EDM scene, and she was hooked from then on. DJ Smellie would go on to explore any and every niche of the EDM genre and its innumerable subgenres, eventually bringing her love of electronic music to Lawrence in 2020. Though she started at Lawrence as a Bachelor of Music violin performance major, she would eventually switch to the Bachelor of Musical Arts, looking for additional avenues of music to pursue.
This intense love for the electronic genre was responsible for DJ Smellie’s launch into disc jockeying. It was the dog days of summer before her junior year when the offhand thought of how fun DJing looked, and how she just might be able to do it too, got the inertia going. The first step would be finding equipment, which she turned to eBay for. Though she described the DJ controller she would end up choosing as “the cheapest, smallest one,” she revealed that it’s the one she still uses today.
DJ Smellie threw her first rave in the Ormsby Hall basement in Winter Term of her junior year. As time went on, she began to meet and gel with others interested in her craft on campus who invited her to host more DJ events, including afterparties for on-campus bands like Fugu and Lyle’s Tree. Meeting fellow music-mixers on campus also led her to participate in back-to-back sets at numerous parties, often with since-graduated upperclassmen who had more DJ experience, presenting learning opportunities for her.
Most recently, DJ Smellie hosted her Brat Summer Sendoff on Friday, Oct. 18, where she played a Smellie-style mix of Charli XCX’s new album “Brat” — considered to be the “album of the summer” by popular consensus — to officially draw the warmer season to a close. Lawrentians could also find her at Students of Lawrence (SOL) House’s Halloween bash.
DJ Smellie described her style as being heavily influenced by club culture and the hyperpop subgenre, citing artists like Charli XCX, Arca and SOPHIE as artists from whichshe has drawn inspiration. As a result, the “Smellie style” is driven by electronic experimentation, with sounds and textures mixed in ways she hasn’t heard before.
“I’m always searching for music that’s different, that’s something new, even that challenges what music is,” DJ Smellie said.
Though DJ Smellie is always looking for the unique and never-done-before, her main goal as a musician is to combine her personal DJing style with the music people want to hear. Taking songs in popular demand and reworking them into something that not only gets people dancing but leaves them awestruck by the way the tracks are mixed in is at the center of her work.
“That’s what I try to bring to the party,” DJ Smellie explained. “People dancing and having fun together over the shared experience of music.”
DJ Smellie aims to continue working with other artists on campus, naming a collaboration with DJ Marcus as a box to check on her musical bucket list.
The ancient Greek Muses may not have had turntables on their minds when they declared art as their domain, but there’s no doubt that the creativity and skill that goes into disc jockeying has claimed a right to exist alongside more traditional artforms. DJ Smellie’s work is no exception; with her unique tones and mixes that reconstruct music into something never heard before, it’s safe to say that she too is a modern echo of the Muses’ legacy.
