.jpg)
Interview
Since his last appearance on the show, Samadhi Flow has become a familiar name in and around Seattle for his deep, pumping house selections, particularly through his residency with Reflect, hosted every first Tuesday at High Dive.
Additionally, he's recently been found behind the decks at Tremulant's Luminosity festival, Space Oddity's Ambrosia, the Bottom Forty Campout, as well as Seattle clubs Massive & Monkey Loft. When not behind the decks, Xander is often serving tea in lounges adjacent to the dance floor.
By day, Samadhi Flow is known as Xander Heaton, a practicing LMT, and a movement coach specializing in yoga, strength, acroyoga, and steel mace vinyasa.
On top of all this Xander has always been a good friend of the Portal, so it's a pleasure to welcome him back to the show.
It seems like it's been an exciting summer for you Xander! How have you been?
I've been great! For the last 3 summers, I've gone to numerous private, micro-festivals across the Pacific Northwest. This year was no exception and I had a blast. I really enjoy these small, intimate containers of 150-300 people vs large-scale festivals.
Going to so many of these (either as a participant or as a contributor on the decks, w/ the tea lounge, or yoga teacher) has really helped me lean into my creativity, identify my strengths and gifts as an artist, and connect with the spirit and community of the house scene in the PNW.
This shift really started after I began my residency with Reflect, so it's just been another magical, beautiful, wonderful summer full of growth, grounding, and stepping into my power and character. I also went to Burning Man for my first time this year and had a fantastic time. I wanted to record this mix after I returned and feel into the experience and what I've been processing since then.
Can you share about your experience as a resident for Reflect of the last several years?
I joined the Reflect crew as a Resident DJ in the fall of 2021. I was a bit more behind the scenes for several months until I graduated from massage school in June of '22, as I had a full-time academic load. When I joined the crew, I had some experiences playing DJ sets live, but they were limited to relatively small productions and mostly in hyper-local, Bellingham settings. I was still playing on a controller w/ a laptop when I joined the crew, too. Since then, I've learned how to mix on CDJ's, gotten a lot of experience mixing on 3 decks (and way prefer it over 2), and really honed my mixing skills.
I haven't dabbled with production yet, but I've been so inspired by my musical growth with my experience as a Resident DJ of an underground, deep house crew. That inspiration has led me to start playing around with chopping loops from tracks I love and putting those in their own crate to give my mixes a unique edge. A lot of that growth and inspiration is coming from the opportunity to play at the types of events I've been on the decks at since my residency began. I've thrown multiple club nights, a few underground co-pros where we've booked traveling headliners for all-night parties, rooftop parties, showcases at 12hr parties w/ other Seattle crews, and produced 2 festivals with the Reflect crew.
This visibility as a resident of a core, underground Seattle crew has led to me getting booked by other promoters that I admire and respect a lot for their parties & festivals. It's all been so incredible and brought me so much joy. I've gotten to meet and work with producers that have been huge inspirations for me over the years that I never dreamed I would meet.
Now, they're handing me the decks for me to take over a dancefloor at festivals and parties I'm producing. I never thought I would get to where I am now in the music industry, but I'm damn glad that that's what's up for me now. I've experienced so much joy because of all this. I've gotta give a shout out to DJ Citrus Age here because he's who saw my gift and recruited me to Reflect. His support and friendship over the years have been incredibly valuable and meaningful.
Lastly, my residency with Reflect has introduced me to an amazing, sweet, beautiful community in Seattle that loves and supports me. I had been in the northwest for several years before joining Reflect and had never really been able to get past the Seattle freeze or know where to access the house scene. Now that I'm familiar with everyone, know the community, and understand the landscape, I've nurtured some incredible friendships and community in the Emerald City. I feel like there's a lot of receptivity around my art and myself right now and I'm super excited to move down to Seattle from Bellingham!
You regularly offer a relaxing alternative to the dance floor through serving tea at events. I'm curious about the personal significance of serving tea this way, and what you feel this space offers an event.
The first time I experienced a tea lounge and gongfu style tea service was at Flow State Summit in 2018. That was my first true festival experience and I thought I was going to dance all night. While the music was incredible and I easily could have done that, I ended up drinking tea all night both nights.
That experience and the effect of that space really stuck with me. I started working for a pop-up tea lounge that year and serving tea at various events (some centered around dancing and others not). I feel that this space is so necessary at dance parties. While the dance floor can be an incredibly healing place to be, it can also get overwhelming at times.
The tea lounge allows one to step away from overwhelm when it strikes and enter a space and container that facilitates grounding and connection (both to the self and others). Tea is a mindfulness and meditation practice - sitting and being present with the tea and the body recalibrates energy and calms the nervous system. I'm creating a somatic experience for guests to really experience presence with themselves and their bodies in an environment that's separate from the dance floor.
In addition, the practice of enjoying tea this way facilitates incredible connection and conversation among my guests who come in. The tea lounge profoundly impacts people. Often people leave and remark that it was exactly what they needed. I'm passionate about tea and am a regular consumer of it in my daily life (bug-bitten oolongs are my current favorite).
Sharing space in this way and leaning into it as my artistic medium enriches my life and helps me create wonderful experiences for my community and foster the human connection that Reflect and deep house is all about. Plus, in my old age, I'd usually rather lounge and drink tea all night than dance all night.
Your movement coaching in combination with your LMT practice has developed into a holistic approach to health care. Can you tell us about your work, what's lead you here, and what may be next?
Flow State Summit that I mentioned earlier put me on the path to movement coaching. It was a movement, arts, and music festival. That weekend put me back in my body in a way I hadn't been since I was a little kid. I also felt connected to community in the PNW for the first time that weekend and felt that I had found what I had been looking for. My movement coaching mentor, Summer Huntington, produced that festival and founded the Steel Mace Vinyasa program that I specialize in. I swung a mace for the first time at that festival and the way I felt embodied and connected to myself that weekend was so powerful that I felt inspired to pursue movement coaching as a career.
I was working on my undergrad at the time, so it felt aligned to explore what that could mean. Plus, experiencing that in a festival setting, immersed in such a wonderful community culture really got me curious about what embodiment really meant and how it could be integrated with other things that have been incredibly healing for me (house music). This was a super pivotal moment for me and really took my healing journey in a new direction. My movement practice amplified in frequency and started to include new modalities like acroyoga and steel mace vinyasa (I was mostly just a yogi before then). Finding the community and house scene in the PNW starting in 2018 and going in this direction, as well as working for the pop-up tea lounge, immersed me in tons of beautiful offerings that focused on movement, embodiment, and healing.
After graduating from college in 2019, I started studying Steel Mace Vinyasa more intensively to become a coach and also did marketing work for the flagship studio where it started in Bellingham (Flow Shala). Well, long story short, the pandemic wrecked yoga studios and gyms, so my fitness career didn't really work out and had a grim future outlook.
Massage therapy was the natural next step, so that's what I'm doing now, in addition to still teaching high-level yoga, strength, and HIIT classes at the local climbing gym in Bellingham.
What's next? Good question. Somatic/embodiment/healing modalities and work resonate with me, so I've thought of becoming a mental health therapist and specializing in somatics and psychedelic integration.
I'm also a total humanities guy and a native speaker of Spanish, so I've thought of getting an ME and teaching Spanish. I'm certainly a skilled, effective, and powerful educator. Part of me would love to get a PhD in 20th century U.S. history. For now, massage & movement coaching is stable and flexible enough for me to focus on my artistic endeavors, but I'll likely get my real estate license to try to make some real money and put away some savings before I decide what's actually next.
Can you tell a bit about the inspiration for your mix?
I've been really inspired by Pornbugs lately and their label, Bondage Music. I've been digging their mixes and the releases on their label. I selected a lot of their originals, remixes, and releases from their label for this mix. Rominimal has been a big inspiration for me lately, as well, especially Legit Trip - the track I end with in my mix is a dub mix of his and it's one of my favorite tracks I've found this year.
I've been really drawn to this sound and this shade of deep house. It's more on the DeepTech/Minimal side of things and has a moody, trippy vibe. It's a lot different from the organic and melodic house that has been expected from me over the last several years, but this sound is still deep and still Samadhi Flow, just more driving basslines and kicking house elements. Pornbugs describes their sound as "extreme dancefloor oriented" and that's been a big draw and inspiration for me. I have an ear for groove, and the stuff in this realm of underground deep house has some serious fucking groove that's primal, spiritual, sophisticated, clean, dubby, and thumping!
While this sound is darker and has more of an edge than what you'd typically expect from a Reflect or Samadhi Flow mix, it's not dissonant. My selections are still meant to be emotive and to connect you with your body. I was a dancer before I was a DJ, and became a DJ because I wasn't hearing any selectors playing what I was dancing to at home. I play what captures my body and soul, truly. DJing is a shamanic experience for me, as I select house music that awakens my raw humanity and channel that through my sets.
What's coming up that you're looking forward to personally, musically, or otherwise?
Personally, I'm looking forward to a move to Seattle. I'm definitely a city boy and I have an amazing community of artists, house heads, and burners in the Emerald City that I'm going to continue to do beautiful things with and grow as an artist. I have some ideas and concepts for music projects brewing that I'm super excited about, as well. I have a couple concepts for some mix series that I'd like to debut soon inspired by my tea lounge and some of my time spent at Burning Man.
My partner and I have an underground party series that we debuted earlier this year that has facilitated very empowering and connected experiences for our guests. I'm excited to continue to grow and develop these projects and I would love to get into production, as well. I definitely have some concepts for tracks and EP's that I would love to create.
Lastly, I'm super looking forward to Reflect's Afterglow festival this October! It's taking place the second weekend of October at Forest Creek in Darrington, WA. It's a Burning Man decompression campout that we debuted 2 years ago. This year, we're expanding it to 2 days and focusing more on creating an immersive experience filled to the brim with narrative, aerials, fire, performances, workshops, and dancing. We have 5 incredible headliners booked alongside several locals and all the Reflect residents. I'll be running the tea lounge, as always. Listeners can reach out to me or Reflect on Instagram for ticket info :)
For more from Xander, give him and Reflect a follow: