“I think a good DJ is someone who puts a lot of thought into the music that they choose and who has a specific taste. In drum ’n’ bass or techno or any club music, if you want to be that person who just plays the top hits, you can be, but I think that’s more like a glorified jukebox. I don’t think you’re staking any claim to what you actually like about the music if you’re doing that.”

So says Chris Minifie, a local DJ, promoter and label owner who has steadily carved a distinct musical path — and an artist identity as C64 — out of his love for outsider music. The 29-year-old from Markham originally fell for electronic music as a love for industrial dance bands like Skinny Puppy led him to the more experimental sounds of artists including Squarepusher and Aphex Twin. Through hearing the cassette mixes of influential local DJs including Dr. No, Roughneck and Jungle Ph.D., Minifie also discovered British drum ’n’ bass and began attending the Syrous and Dose mega-raves in 1997.

When he started spinning two years later, Minifie deliberately set out to mix sounds that extended well beyond the “same 40 or so tracks” that would be played most frequently at the larger parties. He blended both chilled and choppy drum ’n’ bass with digital hardcore and early breakcore, developing a reputation as a creative DJ with tight mixing skills and a love of complex drum work. Whether DJing an intimate local spot or touring parts of Europe, the US and the UK — as he’s done both solo and as support for producers including Venetian Snares and Knifehandchop — Minifie says he’s got the same goals in mind.

“I’m always working to try to give people what I would describe as challenging, creative dance music. I think stuff that challenges listeners is important to play.

“For example,” he continues, “within drum ’n’ bass, I think a lot of the drum-heavy stuff got marginalized in the late ’90s when D&B started to go smoother because there was the thinking like, ‘This new influx of junglists, they can’t really handle the old-school, drum-heavy stuff.’ Well, if you don’t play it for them, then of course not. I think you undermine an audience when you think like that.”

Minifie would rather raise the bar and work to connect with an audience, as he’s done on the decks, promoting diverse drum ’n’ bass parties with his Splinter Productions, and through
Make:shift, the “deeper, drum-­oriented jungle” label he founded in 2003. Giving props to local D&B DJ Frankie Gunns and promoters Soul In Motion and Two-Tone, Mr. C64 speaks with excitement about Toronto’s current drum ’n’ bass scene, saying it’s not nearly as dormant as some would portray.

“With drum ’n’ bass, we obviously don’t get the massive parties that we used to and you might hear people complaining about that, but I think this scene is actually healthier and more DIY than it used to be,” Minifie enthuses. “There’s much more variety.”

Variety is the buzzword for Minifie, who also contributes more experimental breakcore and IDM sounds through his Dross:tik label and related events. Since 2002, he’s released music by artists including Belladonnakillz, Unitus, Venetian Snares and Sincere Trade, and is psyched about a coming EP by Massachusetts breakcore producer Dev/Null.

Having recently spent a year living in Edinburgh, where he completed his teaching degree, Minifie also had the opportunity to attend and DJ at numerous events devoted to an array of left-field electronic sounds. Inspired, he returned home to co-produce the recent Why? Festival, two nights of breakcore, drum ’n’ bass, glitch, dubstep and more.

“I think it’s a great idea to gather these marginalized aspects of electronic music under one roof,” he says of the festival, which he hopes will help inspire similar thinking.

“There are ways of including all of these different things, even sounds that some people might think are too extreme,” he emphasizes. “It’s not like you have to do an hour of experimental tracks, but I think there’s room to take it in different directions.