A BIRD IN THE HAND A chirpy Lazarus spins at Hiro Ballroom.

“I’m living in Echo Park, where it’s very nice, very green and there are lots of nice people,” Damian Lazarus says on the phone from his newL.A. digs. The statement triggers a bout of cognitive dissonance: Is this the same Damian Lazarus—a guy synonymous with gray, damp London—who runs the label associated with the moodiest techno and electronic house around? It is, and the Crosstown Rebels CEO is a most happy fella. Not only has the DJ recently migrated from the U.K. to sunny California, but his label, which became eerily quiet after its distributor went belly-up last year, has a trio of great new EPs out from Riz MC, Seth Troxler and Jamie Jones. A new digital imprint, Crosstown Digital Rebels, is launching later this month; a genre-spanning mix-CD for the Soma label, Sci-Fi-Lo-Fi Vol. 2: Night of the Dark Machines, was recently released; and he’s in the middle of a North American club-crawl he’s calling the Devil Night Tour 2008. As if that wasn’t enough, the busy Lazarus is putting the finishing touches on his debut production—a full-length album, no less—due out in early 2009.

You don’t seem like an L.A. kind of guy. How are you adapting?
I’ve been here three weeks, so I’m still trying to get my head around the do’s and don’ts and the will’s and won’ts of this fair city. I did buy a 1966 Ford Mustang, though. I wouldn’t say I’m comfortable with it—it’s a bit of a drama to drive—but it definitely looks beautiful.

In L.A., that’s what counts. How’s the Devil Night Tour going?
I’m playing some ghoulish beats and weird sounds—it’s my autumn collection, one could say. But the other night, some girl came over while I was playing and said, “Excuse me, but my boyfriend asked me to come over with this,” and she handed me a hundred dollars. “Would you play a hip-hop record?” I turned it down, of course. I mean, who would even think to do that? Maybe for a grand.…

Your Soma mix-CD is about as inclusive as they come, stylewise. There’s deep techno, electro, a Pulp remix, some dubstep—even “Blind” by Hercules and Love Affair.
Yeah, that is kind of unlike me, especially since “Blind” had already been a Top Ten hit. But I just thought that it was a fucking amazing, emotionally charged vocal track, and we don’t get many of those in our scene. Of course, I layered a Jus-Ed track underneath it, which is pretty much as underground as you get, so there you go.

You’ve been playing and releasing other people’s music for ages, but you’re just getting around to putting out your own music. What took so long?
Too many late nights, basically!

Damian Lazarus spins at Hiro Ballroom Thu 20.