Never say never: LCD Soundsystem’s Nancy Whang on pushing herself in new directions

If you’re a dance-punk band and you want vocals, Nancy Whang is who you ask. Best known as a permanent member of the legendary LCD Soundsystem, the Korean-American has also recorded and performed with most of the luminaries of the genre as a vocalist and keyboard player. Since LCD went on a supposedly permanent hiatus in 2011 – more of that later – she’s added an extra string to her bow: as a DJ, in which capacity she performs at Kee Club on February 26.

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Before she hit the turntables, Whang had always ruled out taking up DJing, reasoning that she considered so many of her friends to be great DJs that the prospect was just too intimidating. But the prospect of unemployment, it turns out, was worse.

“I changed my mind about DJing after LCD ended: I needed a job,” she says. “It was terrifying at first, and it still is most of the time. I get way more nervous about DJing than performing on stage. You have a different kind of relationship to the audience that I have less control over. It’s the difference between trying to manoeuvre a remote-controlled car and actually sitting behind the wheel. My DJ skills have vastly improved since my first gig, but I still have a long way to go before I nail it.”

This will be only Whang’s second trip to Hong Kong, the previous one lasting less than 24 hours, which she mostly spent shopping. She has a reputation as a foodie, and says she’s particularly looking forward to visiting Yardbird, which she already follows on Instagram, and likes the sound of Belon, the new SoHo restaurant of Australian chef James Henry.

Whang’s DJ sets lean heavily on the past, albeit parts of the past you might not be familiar with, focusing on sometimes obscure disco and New Wave releases from the 1970s and ’80s. It means that unlike most other DJs, she is under little pressure to listen to new music, and says she actually listens to less of it these days than in her pre-DJ days.

“Most of my set includes records from the past, and there are so many songs out there that I’ve still never heard, so to me any new discovery sounds fresh, even if [the song] was made over 30 years ago. There are some new tracks that are included in my set, but those usually are made or given to me by friends.”

Whang’s mixing-desk selections reflect her background in dance-punk, one of those crossover genres at the border of electronic music and rock that’s difficult to pin down. Emerging in the late ’70s as post-punk bands started to get funky and absorb influences from disco and synthpop, dance-punk underwent a major revival in the early 2000s, with LCD Soundsystem at its helm.