Yu Su

Mixmag and the language of the Yellow River

In August 2023, Mixmag dedicated its cover, for the first time, to a Chinese artist: Yu Su, a composer and DJ trained between the Yellow River and the Vancouver house scene. It wasn't a fashion statement. Her debut Yellow River Blue (2021), released on bié —a label she co-founded in Beijing after a 2019 tour from Qingdao to Xining—, had already been interpreted by Pitchfork as a crossover of ambient dub, synth pop, and leftfield house. The album takes its name from the river that flows past Kaifeng, in Henan, and blends classical piano, pipa, dub delays, and tempos that refuse to fit into a single dance floor.

A Mood Hut basement and the hit of Infi Love

In 2013, she moved to Vancouver to study anthropology at the University of British Columbia. Raised on the piano since the age of four, months later a Mood Hut party with Floating Points introduced her to house and disco. She taught herself Ableton. The first track she signed, Infi Love (2017), conceived in the style of Larry Heard, was released on Peoples Potential Unlimited. Before that, she had recorded with Scott Johnson Gailey as You're Me the LP Plant Cell Division (1080p, 2016). She followed up with Preparations for Departure (Arcane, 2018), Roll With The Punches —in Chinese, 泉出通川为谷— for Second Circle / Music From Memory (2019), and Watermelon Woman on Technicolour, a subsidiary of Ninja Tune.

From warming up for Ben UFO to Houghton and Dekmantel

As a DJ, she made a name for herself warming up for Ben UFO in Vancouver and jumped to bigger stages: Boiler Room x Sugar Mountain in Melbourne (2019), Dekmantel, Les Nuits Sonores, and the RA.670 podcast. At Houghton Festival, she played a three-hour set on the Outburst stage, between an oak tree and Lena Willikens and Vladimir Ivkovic. Since 2021, she has hosted a monthly show on NTS. The EP I Want an Earth (Pinchy & Friends, 2023) was composed on an orange farm in Ojai, California; Avanvera returned to Music From Memory in 2024. She has also composed for Jimmy Choo alongside Honey Dijon and presented listening dinners called Yu Su Cooks.

Foundry: London and the music in between

After a final six-and-a-half-hour night at Paradise, she left Vancouver and settled in London. Foundry (Short Span, May 1, 2026), her second album, was born from material written for MUTEK 2025 and what she calls music in between: ambient and minimal techno, somber dub, and collaborations with Dip in the Pool, Memotone, and Seefeel. Today, she is one of the most recognizable Chinese voices in international electronic music: producer, DJ, sound artist, and occasional cook, with bookings in Germany through Goodlive Artists.