DJ Nu-Mark at Galatos

DJ Nu-Mark is the kind of guy who likes going to the movies by himself. Which is just as well, because his visit to New Zealand this week is a solo one. "Thank god I enjoy my own company or I'd go crazy," says Nu-Mark (real name Mark Potfic), over the phone from LA.

The Jurassic 5 producer has a different hat on this time, as he's here to promote Blend Crafters, a recording he completed last year with old school friend and hip-hop mentor, Pomo.

Side-stepping the bold party tunes that brought his Californian hip-hop crew to mainstream attention, Blend Crafters is a free-spirited, bluesy batch of instrumentals, more in the sample-heavy vein of DJ Shadow.

It's tempting to wonder if this side project is his yearning for the spotlight. The producer is inevitably the forgotten star, the beat-maker behind the flamboyance of the MCs.

"I guess this is a good escape from touring with my group, my regular rigmarole. I'm used to five or six different people's input on a song or stage show so this is very liberating in the sense that I can call the shots."

Nu-Mark doesn't just call the shots, he turns the art of turntablism into an eye-popping experience. He plays the drum machine like an instrument, gets music out of kids' toys and plucks a rubber band tied to the needle of the turntable as though it's a double bass.

"I'm a drummer originally so I'm trying to bring that form to my stage show, that type of musicianship. I like to look at the turntable differently, as opposed to just scratching a lot."

Despite this, Nu-Mark's foray into hip-hop was fairly conventional. As a drummer at school he started imitating the beats in hip-hop tracks. A friend's uncle was a DJ and the pair would sit and watch him. "But me especially. I was taken aback by how cool it was, and percussive, similar to being a drummer."

Years later, having bought his own turntables and named himself after a mixer, he got a job DJing an open mic night at a club called the Rat Race in LA. One night, members of the future J5 got up and busted lyrics; soon after they were all in the studio together, a relationship that would really come to fruition with their explosive debut album, Quality Control, and its follow-up Power in Numbers. The band are now working on their third album.

Nu-Mark has always produced his own tracks on the side. Every time he came off tour with J5, he'd hang out and play beats with Pomo, a collaboration that eventually resulted in Blend Crafters, an album that has pricked up the ears of hip-hop and dance music aficionados. Among the tracks is a hip-hop cover of Imagine by the Beatles.

"I've had people say that it's too big a song for me to cover but I didn't cover it to put it out as a video single or try to blow up off it, it was just a different way for me to flip a beat."

Which is what we can expect tonight. "My main motivation is to move the crowd, that's the most important part of DJing for me. I guess you can call me a showpony. I'm not really into shock value but I'm into working a party and bringing something to the art that hasn't been brought before."

* Tonight at Galatos, with the Turnaround, featuring Submariner, Manuel Bundy and Cian