Heidi Lawden

Booth open until dawn

In the London queer and rave scene of the nineties, the dancefloor was learned by trial and error, without a closed list: Heidi Lawden enters the booth to read the room's body and asks for hours, not a cut-down festival set. Based in Los Angeles, she mixes house, techno, and synth-heavy disco rarities until the warm-up, the peak, and the sunrise become a single arc. She has held eight and ten-hour sessions in packed warehouses; the open to close is her signature at both LGBTQ+ parties and mixed clubs, and she often repeats that she looks for the best parties, not every party.

Take It Outside, from the warehouse to Panorama Bar

With Masha Mar, she promotes the Take It Outside series in Los Angeles, which has presented Honey Dijon, Avalon Emerson, Paula Tape, Eris Drew, Octo Octa, Massimiliano Pagliara, or DJ Minx, as well as local talent. The circuit has taken her to Panorama Bar, Klymax, Basement NYC, Public Records, Pikes, Horsemeat Disco, Glitterbox, Cocktail De Amore, Coachella, Glastonbury, Love International, EDC, iii Points, Hï Ibiza, House of Yes, or Wildwood. By day, she collaborates with DJ Harvey—whom she has managed since the nineties—and with the ESP Institute label; by night, she defends the intersection between gay and straight dancefloors and pushes women, queer, and next-generation artists through programming and radio.

Extra Sensory and the memory of the dancefloor

On dublab, she presented the monthly show Magic Roundabout for years, and today she hosts Extra Sensory, a laboratory where she invites colleagues and tests her own material. She has released music as Heidi Höven and within the Locussolus environment—the track Next to You, which she sings, appears in the film Greatest Hits—in addition to remixes for Heavenly and International Feel. In 2026, she signed Flabbergast Children of the Revolution on the Berlin label DESSERT and maintains the Extra Sensory catalog. She has supervised music for advertising, television, and fashion, including Heineken commercials aired during the Super Bowl that received an award in Cannes. Born in the shipyard town of Barrow-in-Furness, she jumped to London at a very young age: the first Saturday she walked through the door of The Wag and later worked the door and promotion at Yellow Book, Flying, and the Gardening Club, where she and Harvey launched the Friday party Moist. At Ministry of Sound, she was a programmer and named the Saturday night Rulin'. In California, she co-founded the spirit of Dusk Camp and the label Dusk Recordings; between tours, she is a discreet figure, a defender of human and animal rights, who prefers to let the parties speak for themselves. Her international booking is handled by The Pool Artists.