Please DJ Plead

A lot can happen in just a few years. For Jarred Beeler of DJ Plead, this meant recording a completely new album, then scrapping it, and finally releasing something entirely different. ‘Please’ is a compilation drawn from a folder containing 120 demos and sketches created between 2023 and 2025; ‘Please’ is a successful composition drawn from the Lebanese-Australian producer’s distinctive musical palette, combining techno, house and dub from the club with the dabke, mijwiz and shaabi sounds of a Levantine dance circle. “Please” follows on from “Relentless Trills” from 2020. Released as part of Boomkat’s ‘Documenting Sound’ series, this release was a revelation, moving beyond the high-intensity hard-drum bangers released via Livity Sound, Nervous Horizon and his own label Sumac, towards a more ambient outpouring of his distinctive percussion and winding maqam melodies. ‘Please’ is an even more intimate work, its cover featuring a close-up of Beeler holding a cup of coffee in one hand and his belongings in the other: mobile phone, keys, pills, Tiger Balm. It is a deeply personal portrayal of everyday life that mirrors the unhurried emotional resonance of the album’s tracklist. A melancholic ambient track follows the ornate rumble of “Seven Eight, Too Late”, which is permeated by downtempo atmospheres. The gently grooving piano, guitar and bass of the closing track, “Traffic”, merge with the organic reverberation and fading of space and time. “I don’t feel entirely comfortable releasing these tracks. I feel vulnerable,” says Beeler, who credits Joakim Haugland, head of the Smalltown Supersound label, with playing a decisive role in bringing ‘Please’ to fruition. “I doubt these demos would ever have been heard by anyone had he not taken them out of the folder.” But aren’t we lucky that he did? The album’s sultry keyboard improvisations in highlights such as ‘Right On Time’, ‘Pa700’ and ‘Open Era’ are embedded in a fusion of wavering found sounds and microtonal runs. ‘On some songs, I’m just playing keyboard over a loop I’ve created. ‘There isn’t much production or polish to hide behind,’ explains Beeler. ‘These tracks in particular feel quite raw.’ These tentative steps outside Beeler’s aesthetic comfort zone—moving from control and function towards unfiltered openness—create a thrilling tension. ‘Please’ skilfully approaches that elusive point between detachment and sentimentality, where the everyday, the specific and the slightly absurd meet the deeply felt and genuinely moving.