The Mood Is: Confident

The Mood is: Road Trip

The Mood Is: Settling Down

The Mood Is: Experimental

The Mood Is: Daytime Hang

Our Moods Mix for April 2021 is brought to you by Veblen Defect(@veblendefect), an NYC-based deejay who also works the door of venues like Good Room and events like Unter. The guardrails—or guardian angels—to any good party are the staff, bartenders, and bouncers; without folks like Defect (aka Sophia Matilda), parties simply wouldn't happen.

Veblen Defect takes us down an NYC Avenue and over the Brooklyn Bridge through the sounds of jazz, funk, R&B, and rap. To learn more about the mix read our interview, and view the tracklist, head here: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-35-veblen-defect

Moods is a community of techno fans celebrating and supporting music that isn't techno. Our mix series is co-curated by a rotating selection of artists, musicians, nightlife workers and fans. Since its founding 2017, Moods contributors are paid for their mix, and their mix is archived on Soundcloud and a website. To support our work, head here: https://substack.com/@moods

Moods 35: Veblen Defect

This next installment of Moods features the one and only, all time Coffee Enthusiast himself - Gil A.D. (@ggranot), curated by Miguel Cisne. Gilad takes on a tour of jazz records he's gathered over time from many influential sources such as: Dad, record shops, and local radio by the likes of WJRC and WCBN. 

For the full interview and tracklist, head here: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-37-gil-ad

The Questions
-Where, geographically, did you grow up? Was it a single place or many places?
 I grew up in a very small suburb of Detroit called Huntington Woods, at 11 Mile & Woodward. I never really lived anywhere else, though I did move within Huntington Woods a couple times until my parents settled in their current home. Huntington Woods is a well-off town. Very Jewish (like me). It’s comprised mostly of houses, a small elementary school, a library, a rec center, a small city hall, a few parks, and 2-3 businesses on the border roads (no restaurants). I feel an urge to say more but that pretty much says it all.

-Can you pick one song in the mix and explain where you first listened to it?
The Sonny Rollins track was a find from my Dad’s CD collection. It’s off the album saxophone colossus, an album I would later find on vinyl at a shop in Chicago. When I first started driving I’d often snag CDs from our living room and listen to them on repeat in the car. So the first time I heard that song was the first play through of that album in my 2002 Toyota Camry. It was the first jazz ballad I fell in love with. The conviction with which he plays the saxophone on that song is really heart wrenching.

- Who "introduced" you to these songs? Was it a person, a radio station, a CD?
Hard to point to any one thing, person, or music platform that introduced me to these songs. Since the mix was all-vinyl, some of the albums (like saxophone colossus) were ones I knew about and felt I needed to have a physical copy of. The rest I discovered from shazaming songs off of Jazzy Nights sets, connecting with records from my parents’ collection, being lectured about jazz music by the old hippies at PJ’s Records (RIP) in Ann Arbor, hearing stuff from the WCBN library, or going down discogs rabbit holes. Honestly, my collection is old enough (~10 years) at this point where it’s starting to feel unclear to me how exactly I discovered these pieces of music — they’ve just been in my cabinet for a long time. I do remember in particular someone telling me the story about Miles Davis’s Four and More (the album that has the song “Four” on it), how it was recorded live from the New York Philharmonic Hall, and how Tony Williams was 16 years old playing standards at 2-3x speed like a pro. But I don’t remember who told me that story, I just remember finding the record and being really stoked.

- Where and when did you first hear techno?
I think I first heard something that could be described as Techno back in late 2000s/early 2010s: Hardstyle, UKF Dubstep stuff, Deadmau5, etc. I never thought much about who it sounded like it was for, probably Eastern European ravers and/or gamers. Honestly, I was never really interested in Techno (as a snot-nosed kid, actively anti-electronic music) until I learned about the history/connection to Detroit 4 years ago.  

- Where can we find more of you?
Would just like to promote my weekly internet radio show Finjams and remind people to tune in every Sunday from 10am-noon on 8ballradio.nyc & say hello in the chatroom - archive: https://www.mixcloud.com/8ballradio/playlists/finjams-with-jordan-and-gilad
If you want, check out my house EP under the moniker coffee enthusiast https://coffee-enthusiast.bandcamp.com/releases
Here’s an ambient album I did over a year ago wow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5el_VfN95c&t=1s

And always know you can support Moods by donating $1, $4, or $20 a month to continue paying artists, our SC, and archive maintenance: https://substack.com/@moods

Moods 37: Gil A.D.

Up next in the Moodsphere is Honey Bun (@honey-bun-sounds), an emerging Texas/NYC DJ and multidisciplinary Afrofuturist artist. Her work aims to reclaim the black past, affirm the black present, and demand the black future. We cover some brilliant territory here, from the tropical to the icy to the stormy. 

For the playlist, interview, and more, head to our archive: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-38-jack-withers

To help Moods, throw us $1, $4, or $20 a month to help pay for contributor commissions, our Soundcloud, and our archive: https://substack.com/@moods

Or buy merch here: https://endash.bandcamp.com/merch

Moods 39: Honey Bun

Our closer for Moods Season Four is BlackMoonChild (@medusamakesbeats), curated by Crystal Moiner. This mix is a family affair, pulling inspiration from Blackmoonchild's family seeped in live music, funk, jazz, and rock in Southwest Michigan from Flint to Funkadelic. For the full interview, tracklist, and more, head to our archive: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-43-blackmoonchild

Moods is community curated and community supported. By helping us out, you're helping pay for artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Give us a buck, four, or twenty a month here: https://substack.com/@moods
Tracklist

Lyn Collins - Think (About It) 
Funkadelic - Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On 
Rick James - Bustin out 
One Way - Cutie Pie 
Steve Arrington - Weak at the knees 
Zapp & Roger - Dance Floor 
Tom Browne - Thighs High (Grip your hips and move) 
Teena Marie - It Must Be Magic 
Vanity Sixx - Nasty Girl 
The Mary Jane Girls - Candyman 
Chemise - She Can’t Love You 
Cherrelle - Saturday Love 
Shelia E - The Glamorous Life 
Mya - My Love Is Like… Wo 
Usher - Seduction 
Aaliyah - Are You That Somebody? 
Nicole Wray - Testing Our Love ( Suga ) 
Kut Klose - Surrender 
Michel’le - Something In My Heart 
The Emotions - Don’t Ask My Neighbor 
Alexander O’Neal - My Sunshine 
Aaliyah - Choosey Lover 
After 7 - Ready or Not 
Willie Lindo - Midnight 
Eddie Hazel - So Goes The Story 
Bootsy Collins - I’d Rather Be With You 
D’Angelo - Lady 
Mary J Blige - All Night Long 
Tevin Campbell - Can We Talk 
Brandy - I Wanna Be Down Remix (ft Queen Latifah , Yo - Yo & MC Lyte)

Moods 43: Blackmoonchild

Welcome to Season Five of Moods. We're starting with Molly Smith, a visual artist and head at Ghostly International/Spectral Sound. Smith's hand-stippled drawings (https://mollypearsonsmith.com/) are immensely detailed explorations of dream states, and her work here with Moods explores the idea of extrasensory pop—a cosmic journey to a few other dimensions. For more visit: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-44-molly-smith

Moods is community curated and community supported. By helping us out, you're helping pay for artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Give us a buck, four, or twenty a month here: https://substack.com/@moods

1. Laika - Starry Night
2. Bowery Electric - Fear of Flying
3. Love Spirals Downwards - Sound of Waves
4. Leila - Underwaters (One for Keni)
5. bis - Sound of Sleet
6. Barbara Morgenstern - Ein Versuch
7. tonikom - The Outside
8. ACO - 真正ロマンティシスト
9. Smoke City - Underwater Love
10. Insides - Darling Effect
11. Windy & Carl - The Sun
12. Beth Gibson & Rustin Man - Sand River
13. Leslie Winer - Dream 1
14. Broadcast - Ominous Cloud

We've then paired Smith's mix with her own Sharpie-on-CD design. Less of a relic—and more of a talisman—of the years spending nights drawing on burned CDs, Smith wanted to treat this Moods mix just like she'd treat sharing a cherished collection of songs to a close friend.

To keep in touch with Smith, head here: https://www.instagram.com/dogpasta/

Who “introduced” you to these songs? Was it a person, a radio station, a CD, or something else?
Growing up in the early file sharing age, I'd spend hours trying to recreate My Bloody Valentine's Loveless cover in sharpie on a reflective CD face, crafting mixes for penpals in different countries, making the dull CDs that lined my binders as intriguing as possible.  I tried to get back in that same mindset to make this mix for Moods too - a mix for a friend, lovingly crafted by hand, to transport them somewhere you're familiar with, slipped in to their bag in the back of the library.

Where and when did you first hear techno? What drew you to it? Who did it sound like it was for?
I have no idea - I'm sure it was the result of a late night genre-hopping wormhole and being predisposed to loving anything with a synthesizer in it.  And as a kid who exclusively wore black, I felt as at home in the aesthetic as I did the sound itself.  Techno in particular struck me as music for night owls: people whose energy peaked when the rest of the world was quiet, people who existed in the fringe and somehow represented a vision of the future.   

You’ve got the microphone. What do you want to say to the techno community?
Don't forget that music is at the root of our souls, comforting us when the world is an unforgiving place, giving us connection even when we feel completely alone.  Let's all stay safe and try to weather the storm together in this weird time period <3 I love you.

Smith redirected her Moods commission to the BNCC's Restoration & Staff Fund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/bossa-nova-civic-club-restoration-staff-fund

Molly Smith's Album

Moods 44: Molly Smith

Moods 47 has us ushering the summer in with Katy Trame (@corpor3al), a DJ, @memco alum, and host of WCBN's radio show Francis’s Trip Sunday’s 5-6pm ET. Plug in, play loud, you'll love it. 

Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By donating once a month to Moods, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for events. Give us a buck, four, or more here: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-47-corporeal

Tracklist

Kelsey Lu - Dreams
Mica Levi - Burial 
Anna Wise, Jon Bap - i c u cumming
FKA Twigs - Water Me
Nina Simone - He Needs Me
Jill Scott - Comes to Light (Everything)
Tinashe - Sunburn 
Kacy Hill - Foreign Fields
Broadcast - Corporeal
Björk - Unravel
Sonnymoon - Just Before Dawn
Portishead - The Rip
S.Maharba - W.I.G.T.S.
Tei Shi - Justify
Okay Kaya - Damn Gravity
Mazzy Star - That Way Again
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

QnA

Where did you grow up? Was it a single place or many places? How did this influence the songs you listened to?

I was born in Ann Arbor, lived in Redford for a year of my life, but spent majority of my life in Highland, Michigan. The rural midwest is a moody place. I spent a lot of time alone, at empty playgrounds or vacant parking lots, in empty lots waiting for homes to be built. I’m also a highly dramatic person, and spent my time recording these moments, finding songs to layer over them. My music taste growing up was heavily influenced by the internet, by tumblr and film scores (like Mica Levi’s).

Can you pick one song in the mix and explain where you first listened to it?

“The Rip” by Portishead was introduced to me by my sister. It was one of the first records I got and she told me it was mandatory listening. I remember being amazed at trip hop and how it seemed to combine these different elements from other genres I loved.

Who “introduced” you to these songs? Was it a person, a radio station, a CD?

It’s hard for me to trace back the exact moments of most of these songs. I see Portishead and Nina Simone as sort of my centerpiece influences, and everything else can trace back to either of those. Portishead lead me into artists (suprisingly) like Tinashe, but also like Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and FKA Twigs. Nina Simone lead me to Kelsey Lu, Anna Wise, Mazzy Star. I’ve always been attracted to poetic women in music, and I think this mix reflects that. 

Where and when did you first hear techno? Who did it sound like it was for?

I first heard techno at a club in Detroit sophomore year of college. I was into more experimental electronic music at the time, Arca was probably my gateway into techno. Shortly after I attended my first Interdimensional Transmissions show, and became obsessed with the complete freedom I felt at shows. My teenage years were spent at concerts every weekend, but only when I discovered electronic music did I discover my love for dancing and for the curation of a space.

You’ve got the microphone. What do you want to say?

Techno, electronic music, and clubbing has the power to be revolutionary if we let it. Like Emma Goldman said, If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”

Art

We've paired Corporeal's mix with a still from Lucy Raven's Ready Mix—a 45min video piece documenting the vibrating, earth-moving, and destructive process of creating concrete. Both pieces have an open-air, open-road, open-ended quality—perfect for a hot summer day.

To read more about Lucy Raven: https://www.diaart.org/collection/collection/raven-lucy-ready-mix-2021-2021-013/page/19

To follow more from Corporeal: https://www.instagram.com/corporeeal/

Moods 47: Corporeal

Moods continues in its middle age with entry number 48 by Detroit-based musician Detroit Bureau of Sound (@detroitbureauofsound) who takes us on a crushing journey through rock, lasers, guitars, and percussion threaded between John Cage poems. Check the tracklist, QnA, and more below.

Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By donating once a month to Moods, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for events. Give us a buck, four, or more here: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-48-detroit-bureau-of-sound

Tracklist

John Cage anecdote about a mushroom haiku
Pauline Oliveros - Alien Bog (Music from Mills)
Hideous Gomphidius - Wrath of the Fungal Ones
Iannis Xenakis - Diamorphoses
Laurie Anderson - O Superman
Arca - Big Science remix
Iannis Xenakis - Concrete ph
Björk - All Is Full Of Love (Guy Sigsworth mix / DBS edit)
Matmos - Semen Song
Geotic - Beaming Husband
Ryoji Ikeda - Luxus 1-3
Diamanda Galas - Free Among The Dead
John Cage - Lecture on Nothing (excerpt)
George Crumb - Vox Balaenae
Suzanne Ciani - Concert at Phil Niblock’s Loft
Steve Reich - Sextet (perf. by Amadinda)
Nigel Westlake - Omphalo Centric Lecture (perf. Melbourne Guitar Quartet)
Uakti+Philip Glass - Aguas da Amazonia: Amazon River
Phurpa - Bon Ngo (part 2)
Plastikman - Ask Yourself
Hawtin/Xenakis (remixed by Xavier Garcia/Guy Villerd) - Bureau A
Hawtin/Xenakis (remixed by Xavier Garcia/Guy Villerd) - Bureau B
Xenakis - Rebonds b (perf. Steve Schick)
SOPHIE - Faceshopping (Lipstick Gel remix)
Dan Deacon/Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe
Julius Eastman - Feminine
Slipknot - Iowa
Boris/Merzbow - Klatter 1
Sunn O))) - Hunting & Gathering
Dan Trueman/So Percussion - Feedback (in which a Bach prelude becomes ill-tempered)
Rocky Horror Picture Show - Don’t Dream It Be It
Dir en Grey - Ain’t Afraid to Die (live)
Alabama Shakes - You Ain’t Alone

Liner Notes

I was a classical music kid who kept quiet about my love for techno. Growing up in a culturally bountiful place like Dearborn, on the western border of Detroit, I found out about a world’s worth of music - it really felt like growing up in many places at once. Around age 10, techno music came into the picture via the older siblings of my childhood friends, all while I was immersed in my nerdy little classical music world of piano, and then percussion in high school (“you can’t march with a piano” they said). 

Percussion is paradoxical… it is, by far, humankind’s oldest form of communication/music, but percussion as a solo artform really got going in the mid 1900’s, around the same time as the birth of electronic music. More and more the traditions of percussion and electronic music seem to intertwine so closely that they couldn’t be separate. Now I see techno music as an inevitable outcome of thousands of years human communication through sound. 

This mix is a distillation of everything I feel connected to in music. I promise it could have been much weirder; I tried to gather more palatable sounds that inform my personal taste in music while still staking territory firmly in the realm of strangeness. I love extreme music, aggressive sounds and delicate sounds alike. I love experimentalism, when the composer clearly feels the need to be other and different. There’s post-war avant grade percussion, experimental electronics, a little bit of brutal noise, free jazz, a few flavors of minimalism, and of course there’s strong queer representation throughout. 

Art

We've paired Detroit Bureau of Sound's mix with a sculpture by Cady Noland, one of the most incisive artists who skewers American politics, borders, and identity. We at Moods have been waiting for years to find the right mix to pair Cady—and the home has been found.

To read more about Cady Noland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cady_Noland

To follow more from Detroit Bureau of Sound: https://www.instagram.com/detroitbureauofsound/

Moods 48: Detroit Bureau of Sound

Gavilán Rayna Russom (@gavilanraynarussom), boss witch at Voluminous Arts, takes the helm of Moods this November with a collection of recordings from study trips she has taken to Cuba that feature Cuban musicians. Having released music extensively under her own name, aliases like Black Meteoric Star, Hail of Arrows and Gavin Russom, and collaborations like Black Leotard Front and The Crystal Ark—as well as touring with LCD Soundsystem—Russom’s approach to music moves past genre, gender, and frameworks, and her acute ears have collected recorded live sounds and music from Cuba for her mix.

For more background on the mix, QnA, and more, head to our archive: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-53-gavilan-rayna-russom

--

Moods is community curated and community supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Give us a buck, four, or more a month here: https://substack.com/@moods

--

We've paired Russom’s mix with a piece from Manuel Mendive, an Afro-Cuban artist whose work considers and encorporates the legacies of Yoruba mythology, colonialism, and the Middle Passage.

For more on Mendive‘s work, we recommend this article and interview with him: www.medicci.com/en/our-artists/manuel-mendive

For more on Russom, follow her here: www.instagram.com/gavilanraynarussom/

Moods 53: Gavilán Rayna Russom

Moods Season Five closes out with Denver-based duo Peer Review (Manny A and Nico Tobón). From South Chicago to cumbia to spoken word to cloudy walks against the mountain range, the prolific duo's two-hour mix is split by the first half by Manny and the second by Nico: two stories and trajectories that talk, walk, and salsa together.

For the full tracklist, QnA, and more, head to our archive: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-54-peer-review

Moods is community curated and community supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Give us a buck, four, or more a month here: https://substack.com/@moods

Peer Review have an intimate after hours all-vinyl event on January 14th with PLO Man, My Flower, and Alala.One. They have more special things planned in terms of both their residency at Hi-dive and our own fleshed out visions. Stay tuned on their newsletter: https://gmail.us10.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9a8d13a025d1bfdafba26a700&id=7bdccce4e5

We've paired Peer Review’s mix with Navid Nuur, an Iranian-born Hague-based artist whose practice “applies concepts that often relate to a temporary in-between state that places his work between the audience and an often abstract phenomenon, such as light, energy, air, or ‘rest space.’” (Max Hetzler 2022). Broken Blue Square takes something impossible to miss—neon—and renders them like blinds—something that can hide and determine interiors.

For more on Nuur, we recommend this artist talk: https://www.maxhetzler.com/video/27428/artisttalk

For more on Peer Review, follow them here: http://www.instagram.com/peer.review.co/?hl=en

Or subscribe to their newsletter: https://gmail.us10.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9a8d13a025d1bfdafba26a700&id=7bdccce4e5

Moods 54: Peer Review

As spring re-emerges across the Northern Hemisphere, we look to none other than the phenomenal writer and DJ horse jeans (@horsejeans). She’s covered Ethel Cain for PAPER, runs The Indieheads Podcast, and regularly discusses music-ness and music-ing across her Twitter and website, and we’re honored to have her sonic journey to and through techno here on Moods.

Moods is community curated and community supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack, or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: https://moods.substack.com/

For the interview, tracklist, and more, read on our Substack: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-58-dj-horse-jeans

Moods 58: DJ horse jeans

May is DEMF (Movement) in Detroit, and we’re bringing the celebration home with AK. Playing Movement this upcoming weekend—along with the Detroit staple event Blueprint—AK takes a beat to navigate her extensive catalogue outside of the dance floor, and honor the legacies from which it comes.

Moods is community curated and community supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack ,or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: moods.substack.com/

For the interview, tracklist, and more, read on our Substack: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-59-ak

We've paired AK’s mix with a drawing from Do Ho Suh, whose work often explores interiors, bodies, and cultures as sites of memory, family, and memorial. His work is some of our favorite, as it often flips colonialism and patriarchy on their heads—see his piece we pulled for AK’s mix, ScaledBehaviour_drawing(InvertedMonument_1.28.1)-B.

If you dig Suh’s work, we recommend this short film on him: https://art21.org/artist/do-ho-suh/

You can also follow AK over on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ak101010101010101010101010101/

Moods 59: AK

Up next in the Moods roster is bakesbasha (@bakesbasha), a rising U.S./Jordanian DJ and multidisciplinary artist. As a Developer of Jordanstreetart and alum of MEMCO, we know Ali's selection and mix is top shelf. 
 
Moods is community curated and community supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack (moods.substack.com/), or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: danielsharp.cargo.site/Moods

For the interview, tracklist, and more, read on our Substack: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-60-bakesbasha

We paired Basha’s mix with a 2018 work by Sirous Namazi titled "Unfolded." Namazi was born in Kerman, Iran, and came to Sweden at the age of fifteen. Recurring themes in his art are erased memories, forgetfulness, sight and time. The metaphors informing his work could to some extent be said to revolve around our fragility and the multiple definitions of “home.” We think both Namazi and Basha, while distinct in their own lanes and stories, resonate across these themes: how does home travel? How does it fit in your pocket, your heart, and your headphones? And, maybe most importantly, how can it be shared with others?
Read more about Siroius and his work here at https://www.sirousnamazi.com/

Hear more of Ali's curation on his show titled Coffeesada: https://www.coffeesada.xyz/

Moods 60: bakesbasha

With fall around the corner, we look to Sold (@soldchicago) to take us through the feeling of trying to feel again. It’s time to decompress, grab some tea, take a seat, and ride the wave.

Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack (moods.substack.com/), or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: danielsharp.cargo.site/Moods

We paired Sold's mix with a work by Frank Bowling titled “Head”. Bowling’s work in abstract expressionism and color field painting resemble a similar mastery in handling and composing dramatic saturation using raw form.  

For the interview, tracklist, and more, read on our Substack: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-61-sold

For more on Frank Bowling: 
Frank’s Site - https://frankbowling.com/
And the piece Head (1974)- https://www.wikiart.org/en/frank-bowling/head-1974

<3 Moods

Moods 61: Sold

Amber Gillen (IT / WCBN) meditates on craft, American music history, and the roots of funk right before Samhain. 

Moods is community curated and community supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Give us a buck, four, or more a month here: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-62-amber-gillen

For her first mix released in over a decade, Amber Gillen (immersive installation artist and visual artistic director for Interdimensional Transmissions) takes us on a journey through time—and ultimately ourselves. It’s also Samhain: the end of October where the boundary between the past, present, and future feels thin and energy flows thick. It reminds us of Keith Moxey’s suggestion that time might not “run at the same speed and density” in all places. Either way (or any way), it’s the right time to have Gillen take us through her sonic past across ambient, rock, and funk.

Read her interview, tracklist, and more on Substack: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-62-amber-gillen

We’ve paired Gillen’s mix with a piece from Berlin-based, Sulaymaniyah-born Hiwa K. Hiwa, while originally a realist painter, now crafts sculptures, videos, and sounds that  “aim [not] for an accurate depiction of a reality that could be, but reinvent and transform the reality at hand.” Work such as Blind as the Mother Tongue unspool the debris of capitalism to better see how social structures like borders and time zones are reinforced. “The work I do is very much about reminding how many fingerprints we have onto each other,” Hiwa mentions, “[and] how much we are embedded into each other.”

For more on Hiwa, we recommend reading about his exhibition at the New Museum in 2018: https://brooklynrail.org/2018/11/artseen/Hiwa-K-Blind-as-the-Mother-Tongue

For keep up to date on Amber Gillen’s work, head here: https://www.instagram.com/amber.gillen/

For the interview, tracklist, and more, read on our Substack: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-62-amber-gillen

Moods 62: Amber Gillen

Philadelphia-based filmmaker, deejay, and host of The Beauty Parlor nail salon (@nailsalon) threads sounds from his everyday across songs that offer a moment of respite against the banal corporate grind. A format well loved by Moods where artists take a time or moment as a point of departure (see: Anne Lacy, Icarus Redux, Jasen Loveland), nail salon fills critical caps across our sonic catalogue from rap to ambient to left field. To read the full interview, head here: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-63-nail-salon

Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack (https://moods.substack.com/), or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: danielsharp.cargo.site/Moods

We’ve paired nail salon's mix with an org chart work by Simon Denny, the legendary artist whose practice takes the material (or debris) of corporations to point out hypocrisies, redundancies, and the failure of business to meet the demands of today’s world. It’s a clean, neat match for a mix that considers just the same.

For more on Simon, we recommend this interview with Duncan Ballantyne-Way: https://fineartmultiple.com/blog/simon-denny-artist-interview/

For more on nail salon, keep up on his Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/nailsalon

Moods 63: nail salon

Detroit dancer Amina Ahmed blends her youth spent across the dark corners of the net and the dimmest dancefloors.

Moods is community curated and community supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Give us a buck, four, or more a month here: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-64-amina-ahmed

Amina reminds us why we do what we do - for the love of it. Going to your first show in high school, finding some obscure band on a message board and obsessing for months, making mixes on your family’s computer and singing along in your hoopty. We recommend you listen loudly. 

Read her interview, tracklist, and more on Substack: moods.substack.com/p/moods-64-amina-ahmed

We paired Amina’s mix with an early net artwork from 2000 from Mark Napier, one of the early/earlier net artists. Below, his write-up:

The Tompkins Square riots and the state sponsored enforcement of gentrification in New York’s East Village in the ’90s inspired Riot, an alternative browser that crosses the virtual boundaries in the web. Riot breaks the software-based rules of Internet domains and blends web pages together as users surf from site to site. Playboy.com blends with whitehouse.gov, CNN.com with NPR.org. Visitors surfing with Riot see their own pages merged with pages from other users. Riot was the first and only multi-user browser. Riot revealed the soft territories of the web, enforced by the rules of browser software and domain name servers

You can still access the work online if you want to see it in action: https://potatoland.org/riot/riot.html

To keep up to date on Amina Ahmed, head here: www.instagram.com/animinals

Moods 64: Amina Ahmed

There’s 8,000 miles between the Midwest and Somaliland but if you close your eyes, for a moment, you can feel the bumps of the taxi on unpaved road traveling between Hargeisa to Gashamo, the lyrical Somali language passing around the cabin. Minnesotan Somali-American DJ and founder of UNBOTHERED, a party magnifying the best in the underground, YASMEENAH paints a colorful image in 63 minutes.

To read the full interview, head to our Substack: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-66-yasmeenah

Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack (moods.substack.com/) or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: danielsharp.cargo.site/Moods

We paired YASMEENAH's mix with Marie Watt's Skywalker/Skyscraper (Axis Mundi). 

For more on YASMEENAH, keep up on her Soundcloud: @yasmeenahxo

Moods 66: Yasmeenah

Musician, artist, and DJ Tammy Lakkis (@tammylakkis) scores February as a lighthearted film with an edge. Brew up a pot of tea, prepare a craft, or travel along with Tammy and songs gathered from Ares. 

To read the full interview, head to our Substack: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-67-tammy-lakkis

Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack (moods.substack.com/) or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: danielsharp.cargo.site/Moods

We paired Tammy’s mix with a work by Shirin Towfiq, a multidisciplinary artist who explores the complexities of belonging and placemaking through archival research and intergenerational communication. Learn more about Shirin here on their site at https://www.shirintowfiq.com/about

Moods 67: Tammy Lakkis

As we leave winter behind, we transition out of our dens and into spring with a mix that reflects on the best of what the cold brings so we may not forget its serenity. Get comfortable, this mix is a train ride through a Midwest wonderland.

To read the full interview, head to our Substack: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-68-kerosine

Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack (moods.substack.com/) or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: danielsharp.cargo.site/Moods

We have paired kerosine’s mix with a work by Julie Mehretu, “Among the Multitude VI.” This suite of works follows Mehretu’s interest with spotlighting contemporary political crisis. Using images that document the active migrant detention centers at U.S. borders and the violence of far-right anti-immigration protests. Mehretu remains dedicated to drawing attention to critical social and political concerns across the world through her work. Click here if you’d like to learn more about Julie Mehretu: https://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/51-julie-mehretu

Moods 68: kerosine

@purefastmoods (Devon P.) is simply un-summarize-able. Whether they are acting as a guide, advisor, artist, musician, dancer, or curator, their work has that unmistakeable, tactile craft of care for the people, places, and identities of the Midwest. Some have said purefastmoods is their favorite DJ’s favorite artist; others call them the patron saint of the dancefloor.

For their Moods mix, purefastmoods condensed their sonic journey toward, in, and past techno. So, in a soft break of tradition (because what’s tradition anyway), you’ll hear techno tucked between punk, house, acid, and Madonna. Open the windows, turn on the surround sound, and let the spring rains come.

To read the full interview, head to our Substack: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-69-purefastmoods

Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack (moods.substack.com/) or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: danielsharp.cargo.site/Moods

Moods 69: purefastmoods

90s and 00s downtempo, in our opinion over at Moods HQ, informed an entire generation of artists’ tastes and directions. It’s well understood by musician and DJ @agraybe, and for our next mix, she explores the depth of the oft undersung genre. Remember the feeling of inserting that mixtape in your siblings’ sedan; watch the trees blur by; see the rain yield to sunshine.

Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack (https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-70-agraybe/) or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: danielsharp.cargo.site/Moods

Moods 70: agraybé

Recorded set with Mike Servito (@mikeservito) and Bileebob (@bileebob) at Moods @ Movement 2024.

For more information, head here: https://moods.substack.com/

Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack (moods.substack.com/), or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: danielsharp.cargo.site/Moods

Mike Servito b2b Bileebob at Moods @ Movement 2024

Recorded set with Naygod (@djnaygod) at Moods @ Movement 2024.

For more information, head here: https://moods.substack.com/

Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack (moods.substack.com/), or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: danielsharp.cargo.site/Moods

Naygod at Moods @ Movement 2024

Our 72nd Moods mix comes from Sam Hooker (@tarpit-michigan), label head of Two Rooms Records and staff at the beloved People’s Records on Gratiot Avenue in the heart of Detroit. Sam’s mix calls back to his suburban younger years searching for the rare, weird, and out-of-place. Local radio spun the legends before us, whispering to him the underground ethos on CDs, tapes, and records. This mix is an ode to them: the people committed to digging, discovering, and redefining the sound of today; or, the “Midwest Freaks.” 

For the tracklist and more, head here: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-72-sam-hooker

Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack (moods.substack.com/), or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: danielsharp.cargo.site/Moods

We’ve paired Sam’s mix with a still from Sky Hopinka’s film Fainting Spells. Sam and Sky both have a dedicated practice to understanding context, history, and topographies—visible or invisible, singular or multiple, Detroit or Indigenous. We think listening to Sam’s mix in between watching Sky’s films is a strong audiovisual pairing.

For more on Sky, head to his website to see the full Fainting Spells: https://www.skyhopinka.com/fainting-spells  

And for more on Sam, head to his Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/tarpit-michigan

Moods 72: Sam Hooker

Detroit-based deejay and host of Close Encounters of the 3rd Thursday Craig Gonzalez (@craig-gonzalez) takes the autumnal helm at Moods HQ with a look back at 2000s hip hop, plus or minus a few years. A nod to his time across the genre in the Midwest before his ascension vis-à-vis Interdimensional Transmissions, The Bunker, and more, we recommend a listen on your next crisp walk to the store, the corner shop, or the lake.

For the tracklist and more, head here: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-74-craig-gonzalez

Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack (moods.substack.com/), or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: danielsharp.cargo.site/Moods

We’ve paired Gonzalez’ mix with the 2023 leather work CUIRS ET PEAUX from Raphaël Matieu. Matieu’s work often traces the legacy of objects—how the things around us have power, generate more power over time, and share that power with others, from leather padding to shipping boxes. We think both Matieu and Gonzalez look at things from the past and help us see how they weird influence on today and the future.

For more on Matieu, head here: https://r-m.works/

And for more on Craig, head to his Soundcloud: @craig-gonzalez

Moods 74: Craig Gonzalez

We begin Season 8 with Bounce House organizer and resident, DJ Anarres who shepherds us through shame to get us back up on our feet. For Andi, there you ought to know how to experience the bad, so you know how to experience the good. Those familiar with Andi’s style should expect the same depth and variety they always deliver, but this time with an 80’s soul flare and Kermit the Frog. 

For the tracklist and more, head here: moods.substack.com/

Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack (moods.substack.com/), or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: danielsharp.cargo.site/Moods

Moods 77: DJ Anarres

Atlanta-born, Brooklyn-based organizer and deejay Zarina (@zarina0) takes us on a nonlinear sonic walk across her influences from southern rap to the archives.

For the tracklist and more, head here: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-76-zarina

Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Consider subscribing to our Substack (moods.substack.com/), or give us a buck, four, or more a month directly: danielsharp.cargo.site/Moods

We’ve paired Zarina's mix with a still from artist Diane Severin Nguyen's film If Revolution is a Sickness (2021). Nguyen's film considers the legacies history leaves behind, and how those legacies—written by winners and losers, the strong and the weak—affect children and young adults' perception of power. We think the film and the mix have a lot in common.

For more on Zarina, follow her Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zariiina000/

For more on Nguyen, we recommend this article: https://opencitylondon.com/non-fiction/issue-4-peculiar-forms/if-revolution-is-a-sickness-a-conversation/

Moods 76: Zarina

Spring’s coming. We’re bearing witness to the thaw in Detroit, and it’s mirrored across the pond in Toronto. The city’s rising DJ and community organizer, 999ADJ (@999adj), takes up the Moods mix helm through a gallery of music that distills a sense of geographic movement and mobility. Lift your tray tables; buckle into your seats; prepare for takeoff; and plan to land somewhere warmer with foliage and forgotten frost.

Moods is community curated and community supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Give us a buck, four, or more a month here: https://substack.com/@moods

We've paired 999ADJ's mix with a work by Kapwani Kiwanga titled Flowers for Africa (Ghana). Read more about it here: https://orgallery.org/exhibitions-projects/kapwani-kiwanga-flowers-for-africa/

For the interview, tracklist, and more on the artist head to our Substack :https://substack.com/@moods

Moods 78: 999ADJ

Moods is flying to Des Moines for the very first time with Mina Mills (@minamills333), a Chicago-based deejay, promotor, and sonic explorer. For this mix, Mills sidesteps her usual vinyl techno sound to cassettes obtained at noise shows in her home town.

Moods is community curated and community supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Give us a buck, four, or more a month here: substack.com/@moods

We’ve paired Mina’s mix with a work by Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles titled Babel. The “tower of incomprehension,” Meireles has called it, is a stack of second-hand analogue radios tuned to different stations and adjusted to the minimum audible volume. What happens is a static hum of nonstop sound—information, music, and ads blending and competing for our ears.

Follow Mina: @minamills333

For the interview, tracklist, and more on the artist head to our Substack :substack.com/@moods

Moods 79: Mina Mills

Afro.fem’s breakbeat and house productions, their Universal Wi-fi show on Great Circles, and sets at events from Sonidero to Le Freaq scratch just the surface of the Philly-based musician’s archive. Their Moods mix takes us deeper—through pivotal moments of sonic discovery from friends sharing tunes to the beloved dubstepforum.com. Move through their deep house, grime, dubstep and more below.


Moods is community curated and community supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Give us a buck, four, or more a month here: https://substack.com/@moods

We’ve paired afro.fem’s mix with a work from 1975 by Stan Douglas from the Disco Angola collection titled “Kung Fu Fighting.”

Follow afro.fem here: @afrofem69

For the interview, tracklist, and more on the artist head to our Substack: https://substack.com/@moods

Moods 80: afro.fem

Colliding Pin’s dance floor driven productions (No Floors and Red Ribbons from 2024 to name a few) and work as a label admin at Apocalypse Rave Culture feel at home during the month of May in Detroit—aka Movement, aka the Techno High Holiday. Pins, née Joe Wright, departs from the main floor nonetheless in their Moods mix, orchestrating waves of sonic selections across drone, jazz, ambient, and Irish traditional folk.

So, while the Moods team gets ready for our barbecue next week, pull up to the pitstop with us before we all get slammed with a wall of techno for five days.

Moods is community curated and community supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Subscribe here: https://moods.substack.com/

We’ve paired Coliding' Pin’s mix with a work by Guillermo Galindo titled “Espejismo” - 2018. For more on Guillermo, head here: https://www.galindog.com/wp3/about/

And to follow Colliding Pins, head to their Soundcloud: @joseph-wright-510264476

Moods 81: Colliding Pins

Ms. Ed (@ms_ed)—the prolific Maryland-born, California-raised deejay, producer, and label organizer at Acid Camp—has been on the Moods wishlist for a few years now. After sets at The Great Beyond, VPN, Made to Move, Anemone, Kajunga, and more, we’re excited to release her downtempo-meets-uptempo mix across 90s trip hop and 00s blog house. Tune in and read more about the mix and its tracks on our Substack: https://moods.substack.com/

Moods is community curated and community supported. By helping us out, you're directly supporting artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Subscribe here: https://moods.substack.com/

Moods 82: Ms. Ed

Welcome back to @mooooods, your monthly install of non-Techno mixed by techno lovers. A second warm welcome to the new year too, and a third warm welcome to the 17 Founding Members (humbled forever by you). I'm determined to start on the right foot this year, so January's artist is the brilliant Lorelei (@lorelei_lorelei) - someone I have respected, looked up to, and been moved by for the past three years, and someone you'll love too soon enough. https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-01-lorelei

Here, she takes us on a road trip from Atlanta’s southern soul to the sounds of Detroit Motown, with pitstops in dubstep, funk, and rap.

--

Having already played in Detroit, Berlin, Ann Arbor, and Atlanta, Lorelei's (née Laura Vicinanza) rock, R&B, southern soul and dance roots shine through on this mix. The first half hour explore Vicinanza’s roots from Atlanta to Ann Arbor. “Atlanta is nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains,” she notes. “It’s a very forested and green city. The weather is beautiful almost year-round,” which often meant music was shared with friends, over her father’s guitar, and with the warm outdoors. Some gems that nod to these moments include Ana Tijoux’s “Volver” and Cavern’s “Liquid Liquid.”

To contrast, Vicinanza notes that Michigan is “much flatter and colder than Atlanta.” The biggest change: “four months of darkness,” which means more time to “stay inside and reflect.” This opened her up to cooler, more ambient textures like George Maple’s “OPST.” Vicinanza joined (and now runs) Ann Arbor’s DJ collective MEDMA (now MEMCO), spends hours in the student-run radio station WCBN, and plenty of space to host and DJ allowed her to flex her music muscles while learning classics like REM’s “Computer Communication.” Detroit called too: “I fell in love with the music history of the city rooted in Motown, funk, and soul music.” Now Vicinanza’s helping to show the next generation of Southwest Michigan DJs this rich history and context that’s next door.

By halfway the mix, we start blitzing through releases as Vicinanza warps us to dancier, dubbier territory. It’s a nod to her earliest dubstep days and to the industrial gravitas of techno, euro disco, and house. “Thanks to an internet friend,” she mentions, “I discovered UK artists like Kode 9 and Benga. It was the most exciting thing in the world for a 15-year-old from Georgia.” She then brings us full circle, ending the mix on a strong Atlanta note with the Outkast classic “SpottieOttieDopaliscious.”

--

--

TRACKLIST

Volver - Ana Tijoux

The Nylon Dollar - Gigi Masin

Trigger Hippie - Morcheeba

Black Milk - Massive Attack

OPST - George Maple

Takes You Back (Unexpected Dub) - Jazzanova

Freakmeister - King Kooba

A Bunch of Guys About to Turn Blue - Drain

Cavern - Liquid Liquid

Rose Quartz - Toro y Moi

Your Love - Frankie Knuckles

Computer Communication - REM

Italo Journey Part II - Luke Million

If It Wasn’t True - Shamir

Love Letters to Japan - The Bird and the Bee

Brush the Heat - Little Dragon

4 bit 9d api+e+6 - Aphex Twin

Idioteque - Radiohead

Evolution - Benga

The Goose that Got Away - Objekt

Stop Watching - Benga

Mr President - Pearls Negras

Silk Road - SevnthWonder

Spottieottiedopaliscious - Outkast

--

ARTWORK + MORE

The mix's album artwork is paired with Mel Bochner's 1969 piece Measurement: Plant (Palm), which aims to juxtapose natural growth and measured growth. It's a theme that resonate on Moods and Lorelei own work: how do we, as curators of our own past, balance what grows naturally with what grows systematically? Our own moods develop each year but swing throughout our own phases in life. It's a nod towards what's come, grown, gone, and left an impression.

To hear more of Lorelei, head to https://soundcloud.com/lorelei_lorelei.

To learn more about Bochner, check out this collection of words and reviews by the artist: https://www.amazon.com/Solar-System-Rest-Rooms-Interviews/dp/0262026317

Moods

Moods 01: Lorelei

Welcome back to moods y’all ~ May 2018 has our guest as none other than Kayla Hensley (aka @khlonez), a knight and light in shining armor who’s laying down R&B and disco from Detroit and beyond. https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-05-khlonez

Hensley's mix is hearty: it takes you to dinner, swings you through a shared milkshake, stops by a karaoke bar, then ends with chocolate in bed. We're talking a strong showing of 2000s experimental R&B and rap from Earl Sweatshirt to Onra to K Murdock. She also doesn't shy away from giving us softer moments to balance us out with Quadron, Little Dragon, Four Tet, and Charlotte Dos Santos.

Hensley's tastes, on the other hand, were founded by her mother, father, aunt, and her first gig at a record store. From Toledo, Ohio to Ypsilanti, Michigan, immersion into rap, jazz, soul, and electronic worlds were innate, if not required. “When your boss has a collection of 20,000 records,” she notes, “it’s easy to feel like you don't have a clue... so I listened a lot in those years.”

Living in Ypsilanti now offers a chance to live in a city that has space to breathe creatively. “I'm constantly inspired by the do-it-yourself mentality that takes place in this community. Punk shows in basements, Totally Awesome Fest, art shows, porch shows—Ypsi really uses the people and resources in a really tactful way. I've been so lucky every year since I moved away from home to find groups of people who live for the scene that happens on the weekends and who find joy in going dancing til whatever time our bodies give out. This has been a common thread no matter where I am or who I’m with.”

On Detroit, Hensley notes that techno is starting to come back to its early black- and queer-centered roots. But there’s still a long way to go for the city to actually come together as a family. “So much of what exists right now is because of what was fought for in the late 80's, early 90's. I see clubs coming to life with both new sounds and paying homage to why they exist. But pockets and groups of people who know each other still stick together based only on their friendships. We aren’t disconnecting enough from technology to fully let lose and really be our full selves. I still don't know if this is a genre, societal, or class problem... [but] I do hope we can have more safe and open spaces for people that are affordable and bring together different stories here.”

TRACKLIST

1. Dam Funk- I appreciate my life
2. Onra- Porn
3. Elaquent- Neon Glow (Turquoise)
4. Eric Lau- Begin 
5. K Murdock- Coin Toss
6. Madlib- Pyramids
7. James Pants- Now, Let me brush you
8. Shalamar- Night to Remember
9. Little Dragon- Constant Surprises
10. Video 7- The Lab w/ Asya IzMe, Omar Aragones and Veniece Sessions
11. Oddisee- Boston  
12. Vanity 6- Nasty Girl 
13. ESG- Moody
14.Contact Lens- STEPPING
15. Raj Mahal- Rario
16. Ohbliv- Tanta Master (Morning Sex)
17. Toro y Moi- Room for 1zone
18. Four Tet- Kool FM
19. ghostwerk- DANGER
20. AshTreJinkins- JemEnEye
21. LoVibe- Let Me Know
22. CHALK.- Sum1likeu ft.Lofty 305
23. James Blake- Buzzard and Kestrel
24. SWV- Use Your Heart 
25. Samiyam- Mirror (ft. Earl Sweatshirt)
26. Quadron- Sea Salt
27. Charlotte Dos Santos- Take It Slow 

ARTWORK + LINKS

Kayla and I picked Lauren Halsey together to pair her mix with her work that's up at MOCA in Los Angeles right now. Halsey's work activates black narratives, stories, and artifacts that reflect South Central LA where Halsey has lived since birth. This particular work is rooted not only in engagement with its visitors (people can literally walk in and around) but also in elevating the everyday black cultural experience. It's a fitting parallel to Kayla's work, mix, and method of approaching music culture.

Moods 05: Khlonez

Good morning, good evening, good new year. Moods is starting 2019 with An Lacy, an archangelic operator of NYC's techno scene. Lacy's mix is a ki to the ki—or, the music they blast on the aux cord in the Uber on the way to the party.

Lacy grew up primarily in the Bay Area—which immediately helps parallel and tie their dedication to hip hop, R&B, and rap. "All of the classics were in constant rotation around me - on the radio, in my friends cars, at the mall, at school dances - I was fully immersed in it," they note. "In my teens, my sister and I started taking hip-hop classes in Oakland taught by a dude who was choreographing and dancing for Aaliyah and Usher at the time. His classes opened a lot of doors to this music for me, as well."

Taking "Hot Boyz" by Missy Elliot, for example, helps ground Lacy's love for the queen. "[It's] a huge one for me. I mean, any track produced by Timbaland at that time was. I’m not sure the first time I heard this track for sure, but I assume it was either in my older sister’s (Sarah) bedroom or in her car. Sarah was such a huge part of my musical discoveries and learnings. They were constantly taking me on adventures into San Francisco in her car—a massive CD book filled to the brim with mix CDs of this shit always in toe. Missy was doing something not a lot of womxn were getting shine for at that time, and I was perpetually in awe of it."

A shift to punk and across the country to Chicago (then to NYC) led Lacy on their path to noise, house, then techno. "I spent a good chunk of my 20s doing vocals in two different bands, which is where I eventually found noise music. I was living in spaces throwing shows, which eventually was a mishmash of punk music and noise music. Noise was definitely my segue to grungier-sounding techno.

"But by proxy of living in Chicago, my first love in dance music was for house music, and from house I found a home in techno years later. My roots in hip hop, rap, and R&B definitely drew me to the percussive and rhythmic elements of house music. It felt familiar and warm."

And last words? "We’re in this scene together—not separately. Make space, learn from one another, admit and apologize for your wrongdoings, grow, and share all that you’ve got. Less ego, more community. Less hypocrisy, more action."

LIST

Souls Of Mischief - 93 ’til Infinity
OutKast - Rosa Parks
Lauryn Hill - Doo Wop
Q-Tip - Vivrant Thing
Amerie - One Thing
TLC - Creep
Big Pun ft. Joe - Still Not A Player
Ghost Town DJs - My Boo
KP & Envyi - Shorty Swing My Way
Ciara - Oh
Whitney Houston - It's Not Right But it's Okay
Missy Elliot - Hot Boyz
Tweet - Call Me
Toni Braxton - He Wasn’t Man Enough
Mariah Carey - Obsessed
Busta Rhymes ft. Janet Jackson - What's it Gonna Be?!
The Roots ft. Erykah Badu - You Got Me

LASTLY

Lacy's mix is paired with Sarah Lucas—a foundational queer British artist who's been working since the 80s. I saw her work at the New Museum during her retrospective and it blew me away—not only does she deal with gender, she breaks it. 

This detail of a car seat she's fitted perfectly with cigarette butts fits perfectly with Lacy's concept of the mix being the tunes you listen to as you ki to the ki. I think it's a perfect fit.

For more visit: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-13-anne-lacy

Moods 13: An Lacy

February 2019 means a mix from Icarus Redux (@icarus-redux) who's run with the likes of Ninja Tune, Alpha Pup, and more. Now a cybersecurity professional based in Minneapolis, he's whipped us up a mix that takes us from DC to LA to MN.

Sarvesh grew up in suburban Maryland outside of Washington, D.C. "My parents pushed me into singing Carnatic music at a young age, but I'd say I was surrounded mostly by the media my parents enjoyed—a lot of dubbed cassettes of Carnatic and Hindustani music, Kollywood soundtracks, and the odd, accidental hints at other musical culture (Jean-Michel Jarre's "Oxygene Pt. 4" inexplicably appearing in Mouli's teleplay Flight 172)."

Electronic music, especially live sets, began a bit later in college around 2011. "A few internships and short-lived, underpaid positions later, I had defaulted to a 'regular' white-collar job while promoting warehouse parties." These influences are why we hear Prefuse 73 and Mount Kimbie in the second phase of his set. "But—love for music breaks down, and I was getting trapped in the darker aspects of club culture. A sudden job transition and shift to Minnesota got me into Midwest techno (fast, dark, acidic), and DJing, but I continued to spiral downward.

"It took a family bereavement and a trip to India for things to reset somewhat, and although I take every recent day one at a time, I can safely say I've learned a lot about myself and my musical interests in the process. Constantly interrogate yourself and your motivations. This music has always, always come from marginalized people, and if you're not making a pipeline to get those people into your shows, on your bills, and integrated into your community, you are part of the problem—and there is very little separating yourself from the big-money operations a few pay grades up."

LISTTTTTT

For the entire setlist, head here: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-14-icarus-redux

L'ART

I paired Icarus's set with a photography print from Wolfgang Tillmans from 2001—not only because the year fits many of the songs on the set, but the mood of a quick snapshot of time moving forward (like a rainy car ride) echos a lot of the dub, ambient, and early drum and bass tracks we have. It's also a suggestion of sorts: listening to this mix in the car or in transit is the prime time for it.

Moods 14: Icarus Redux

Summer is here! And the winds are warm :) We have the perfect June match with this month's mix by Nancy Kim (@niteplant) and Erin Keeffe (@perlin_noise). Nancy (the first half of the mix) is by trade an architect, designer, and apparel mastermind; Erin (the second half of the mix) is a photographer, designer, and co-founder of Acid Camp. Together, I call them my rave parents (and many of you do), as they help usher in new talent across techno and make space for newcomers from Taiwan to New York.

For the full interview, head to the archives: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-18-nancy-kim-and-erin-keeffe

List
Logic - The Warning (Inner Mix
Robert Owens - Bring Down the Walls
The O’Jays - I Love Music
Jomanda - Make My Body Rock 1990
Black Box - Everybody Everybody
RuPaul - Supermodel (You Better Work)
Barbara Tucker - Beautiful People (Underground Network Mix)
J.J. Fad - SupersonicDMX Krew - Bump to the Beat
Chris Clark - Slow Spines
Prefuse 73 - 90% Of My Mind Is With You
Kristuit Salu - êthno-cen
Squarepusher - Beep Street

L'Art

We paired Nancy and Erin's mix with an infamous detail of a poster by artist Jeremy Deller. The yellow smiley face—eponymous of the acid house genre—has the words "Do you remember the First time?" with the "First" and "time" replacing the eyes of the face echos the moments Nancy and Erin highlight in their interview. The first time—which could mean the first time on a dance floor, the first time listening to music, or something totally different—is a method we've also been using on Moods to discover each other's paths and directions. "How did we get here?" has really become the question we've been answering here. And I want to thank y'all again for sticking it with me here, and for the future. We're archiving together <3

Moods 18: Nancy Kim and Erin Keeffe

Hieeeeeei. This July we've got the mythical mastermind Jasen Loveland on Moods dooties (@jasen-loveland), who's made a mix he's titled Sur le Pavé la Plage.

For the full interview, head to the archive here: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-19-jasen-loveland

TRACXS

Playlist (In general order)
Current 93 - A Voice From Catland
Autechre - All End
Carla da Forno - You Know What Its Like
Cocteau Twins - Persephone
Coil - Finite Bees
Idea Mind Fire Company - The Terrible Comet Salt
Jon Hassell - Hamburg
Zoviet*France - They're Eating The Passengers
Trapaeng Ray - s/t
Michael Gira - Blind
Si Mohammed Bel Hassan Soudani - Gnaoui Solo Song (Marrakech)
Pharaoh Sanders - Harvest Time
Current 93 - Dormition and Dominion

ART SHIT

We've paired Loveland's beachy mix with a literal beach opera by Lithuanian collective Neon Realism. The hour-long piece has viewers look down upon a half-cast, half-volunteer beachgoers as they lament about SPF, access to their sugar daddy's wealth, spray tans and work woes. It's a siren song to many vacationer's inability to see the world burning in front of them—something you might say is also Loveland's mix as he cautions techno to not steer into capitalist black holes of hypebeasts.

Moods 19: Jasen Loveland

Moods is delighted to present mix number 24 courtesy of Underground and Black's Ash Lauryn (@ashlauryn). The Detroit native, now based in Atlanta, has proven herself as an accomplished conductor of soul and warming sounds. This mix, done in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, presents a different side of Ash, one where you can take off your dancing shoes, light some incense, and vibe. For the full tracklist and Q+A, head to our archive: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-24-ash-lauryn

This mix was curated by Crystal Gause. Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By helping us out, you're helping pay for artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Give us a buck, four, or twenty a month here:
https://substack.com/@moods

Tracklist:
Jill Scott - Love Rain (Ft.Mos Def Remix)
Brandy- Best Friend
Patrice Rushen- Remind Me
Aaliyah- Back and Fourth
SWV- Love Will Be Right Here
Jill Scott- Slowly Surely
The Roots- Ain’t Sayin Nuthin New
Black Star- Thieves in the Night
Was feat. Q-Tip- One Love
Common- Nag Champa ((Afrodisac For The World)
Solange- Down with the Clique 
Jay Daniel- Cherubim 
Children of Zeus- Hard Work

Ash Lauryn runs the blog/party Underground and Black along with a monthly NTS show of the same name. She holds a residency with Deep South ATL and throws a party with her partner and collaborator, @rekchampa, called Expressions. Follow Ash on all platforms at @ashlauryn.

Moods 24: Ash Lauryn

May 2020. Whew. We have arrived. We've got the Michigan born, raised, and based rare bird kevinmcq (@kevinmcq)on Moods dooties this month. This mix is an all-drum sweat session—a first for us (we love firsts!). So hit play, read below, and enjoy. x

"Lately, when I’m not listening to electronic dance music, I listen to the Grateful Dead. Their sound is rock and roll, quite different from techno. But the performance is similar: continuous and seamless. The band’s approach to live performance influences the way that I DJ. Each live performance is unique, and the 'drums' section presents a challenge to the audience’s expectations. During drums, the whole band leaves the stage except for percussionist Mickey Hart and drummer Bill Kreutzmann. These two would improvise a wide-ranging jam filled with everything from African polyrhythms to xylophones. Few would expect MIDI synthesizers on a folk rock band’s concert stage, and few would expect a folk rock band on a MOODS mix.

"But here we are, bringing these concepts together. The approximate track list is below. The mix was recorded using two Pioneer CDJ 2000s, an Allen and Heath Xone 43 mixer, and a Tascam recorder. Please enjoy."

TRAXS

August 27, 1980 Pine Knob, Clarkston, Michigan
July 1, 1984 Pine Knob, Clarkston, Michigan
April 11, 1988 Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, Michigan
April 6, 1989 Crisler Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan
April 8, 1989 Riverfront Coliseum, Cincinnati, Ohio
April 15, 1989 The Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena (MECCA), Milwaukee, Wisconsin
April 16, 1989 The MECCA, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 
December 9, 1989 The Great Western Forum, Inglewood, California
December 30, 1989 Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland, California
July 10, 1989 Giants Stadium East Rutherford, New Jersey
July 19, 1989 Alpine Valley Music Theater, East Troy, Wisconsin
June 23, 1990 Autzen Stadium, Eugene, Oregon
June 24, 1990 Autzen Stadium, Eugene, Oregon
March 14, 1990 Capital Center, Landover, Maryland
March 18, 1990 Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, Connecticut
March 22, 1990 Copps Coliseum, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
March 24, 1990 Knickerbocker Arena, Albany, New York
February 2, 1969 Fillmore West, San Francisco, California

For the full interview, head here: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-26-kevinmcq
__
We've then paired kevinmcq's mix with a detail from a recent piece from Nikita Gale, whose work here reveals the cycles Detroit often spirals around: access to water, access to sound, and access to platforms to speak your mind. Paired with an all-drum mix from a Michigan native, the pairing couldn't be cleaner. More of her work is here: https://www.nikitagale.com/

Moods 26: kevinmcq

Moods welcomes livwutang to the family (@livwutang), a Seattle-based DJ and organizer known for their work with TUF Seattle and blistering, acidic sets. liv takes us downtempo for these long and humid summer nights. For the full tracklist and interview, head to our archive here: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-27-livwutang

This mix was curated by Crystal Gause. Moods is community-curated and community-supported. By helping us out, you're helping pay for artist commissions, curator fees, merchandise, and materials for parties. Give us a buck, four, or twenty a month here:
https://substack.com/@moods

Tracklist:

Blue Iverson - Jenna’s Interlude
Space Afrika - oh baby
KeiyaA - I Want My Things!
Pink Siifu - step out (prod. deleon)
Dean Blunt - Punk
Shabazz Palaces -  Swerve... the reeping of all that is worthwhile (Noir not withstanding)
Shawty Pimp - Play No Playa (feat. Reddog)
De La Soul - Dog Eat Dog
Ol’ Dirty Bastard - Drunk Game (Sweet Sugar Pie) 
Slum Village - Ooo Wee
Da Brat - Funkdafied 
Cibo Matto - Sunday Part I
Sade - Flow
Zhane - Sending My Love
Erykah Badu - Green Eyes
To Zion - Lauryn Hill

We've paired their work with Sable Elyse Smith, an emerging visual artist based in NYC whose work prods, pricks, and picks apart masculinity and its failure to show up for women, nonbinary, and trans folk. It's a pair we've been waiting to make happen on Moods for quite sometime. To learn more about Sable Elyse Smith, head here: http://sableelysesmith.com/

Moods 27: livwutang

Episode 28 of @mooooods is a rock, alt, and cross-country road trip journey from Aaron Davis of @acidcamp. Take this mix on your next bike ride, drive down 94, or wherever the world wants to take you. For more visit: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-28-aaron-davis

Can you pick one song in the mix and explain when you first listened to it?

Brian Eno - 2/2 from Music for Airports. I have to thank my mom for having a great music collection and spurring my interest in performing arts at a young age. I found Music For Airports among her cds and started listening to it as a bedtime ritual.

Who "introduced" you to these songs? Was it a person, a radio station, a CD?

I listened to Godspeed You Black Emperor and Sigur Ros for the first time with Jonathan Stafstrom. We were jamming together in hopes of starting a band. We added Leigh Wasson, Marta Horner, and Jake Wasek to the band and we called ourselves Wood and Wires. At that time I was posting album reviews and download links on a LiveJournal page called Postrockxchange. There I was turned on to many of the bands that are featured in the Moods mix.

Where and when did you first hear techno? Who did it sound like it was for?

I first heard techno when I saw Blade. This implanted the image of techno being for vampires on ecstasy. "Did anything like this really exist", I thought. Then I met Erin Keeffe, a fellow Moods participant, and we bonded over Aphex Twin and Squarepusher. Erin introduced me to the dance music scene in Madison and showed me how to DJ and make edits. Years later, I had my first techno experience that "turned on the light" for me at Berghain. It was exhilarating to see a dance floor packed with people in full expression. The energy there is infectious.

You've got the microphone. What do you want to say to the techno community?

I'm incredibly thankful to the techno community and all of the DJs, producers, promoters, dancers, and music lovers that fill it with life. I feel lucky to have met so many talented people who inspired me to grow, open my mind, be less judgemental, and embrace myself and others for who they are. Thank you!


Tracklist
Do Make Say Think - The Landlord Is Dead
Godspeed You Black Emperor - The Dead Flag Blues
Silver Mt Zion - 13 Angels Standing Guard ‘round The Side Of Your Bed
Mono - Mere Your Pathetique Light
Explosions In The Sky - Yasmin The Light
Mogwai - Hunted By A Freak
M83 - Let Men Burn Stars
Mum - Green Grass of Tunnel
Sigur Ros - Samskeyti
Wood and Wires - Canes Venatici
Brian Eno - 2/2


We've then paired Davis' mix with a collage piece from Swedish artist and jazz musician Jockum Nordström. Both their work have simmering, haunting qualities, like unfinished narratives or notes left from a bygone era. To tap into something melancholic, yet find positive growth and strength within, is a strength of both Davis and Nordström. For more on Nordström, head here: https://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/jockum-nordstrom

Moods 28: Aaron Davis

Moods turns 30 with @dirtydaddydon, resident of @dumpparty and programmer at Boar in Berlin. Don takes us away from his typical full-throttle, one-two-knockout style of techno to a survey of 90s and 00s post-trip hop, grunge, and downtempo. It plays fantastic on these short autumn Sundays. Gather 'round the speakers, friends and family.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in a small, redneck town north of Toronto. I went to a tiny Catholic school and a lot of my friends lived out in the sticks. I was the oldest of 3 with a single, working parent so a lot of my first influences of music came from the car radio, my mom’s CD collection as well as friend’s older siblings.


Who introduced you to these songs?

I fit into the millennial chunk that feels like they missed out on the grungy, druggy, moody era that really defined the 90s by being slightly too young. But my pre-teen self lived through my friend’s older goth sister whose tape and CD collection had a massive influence on my early music tastes. Saving enough money working in a movie store got me my own computer which led me into the pit of napster/limewire/torrenting and finding every dark, mysterious sub-genre that matched my teen angst.


Where did you first hear techno?

I had heard bits and pieces of techno throughout my teenage years without it having any sort of lasting effect on me. The first place was probably Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music but I feel like I didn’t actually experience techno until I moved to Berlin - that with a proper sound system, strobe, fog… being able to truly get lost in a trance on the dancefloor. I was hooked after that.

It sounds like it could be for anyone desiring to be in this similar trance-like state, but overtime that’s become less so. Techno has been commodified, and with that comes the expectation of looking or being a certain way to match this ‘idea’ of what techno is and who it’s for. It’s sad to see it move away from its roots, but I try to always believe in the underground.


Tracx
Perera Elsewhere - Tomorrow South
Portishead - Numb
Wagon Christ - Down Under
Tricky - Suffocated Love
Sneaker Pimps - Roll On
DJ Cam - No Competition
Boards of Canada - An Eagle In Your Mind
Gorillaz - Tomorrow Comes Today
Wagon Christ - Rexcist
The Bug - Those Tapes Are Dangerous
Sneaker Pimps - Blue Movie
Esthero - I Drive Alone
UNKLE - Unreal
Depth Charge - Bounty Killer II
Leila - Feeling
The Chemical Brothers - Lost In The K Hole
DJ Shadow - Organ Donor
Physical Therapy - Male Tears
Britney Spears - Breathe On Me

For more visit: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-30-dirty-daddy-don

Moods 30: Dirty Daddy Don

We close out Moods 2020 with @savile, a producer, cook, DJ, and tender soul. Most known for his work organizing the Chicago-based event series Service, the Copenhagen-based Self-Disrupt, and abolition-centered productions (cc: https://savile.bandcamp.com/album/the-abolitionist), we hope this is a sound send-off to this year. For more visit: https://moods.substack.com/p/moods-31-savile

xx from us to you.

Tracklist:
1. Laraaji - The Dance # 2
2. Navy Blue - Ode2mylove
3. Jeff Majors - The Chant
4. Jill Scott - Slowly Surely (Theo Parrish Remix)
5. Makaya Mccraven - Holy Lands
6. Radiohead - MK2
7. Laraaji - Change
8. Medicine - Heads
9. Acemo - Mind Element
10. Fauzia - When It’s All Over (ft Kelela)
11. Basic Channel - Roll Off / B
12. Gigi Masin - Clouds
13. QNS - QNS#2 Version
14. Theravada - 99 Coupe
15. Savile - Take Back (w/ Jacques Greene, Anne Lacy)
16. Terekke - Nuwav2
17. Chiwonsio - Zvichapera 

QnA:

Where, geographically, did you grow up? Was it a single place, or many places?
I grew up in southern Michigan, about 10 minutes from the Indiana border. I spent my entire childhood there, and moved to Chicago when I was in my early 20s.

Can you pick one song in the mix and explain where you first listened to it?
I remember the Fauzia & Kelela track very clearly when it dropped on a Bandcamp Friday this summer - so imaginative, expressive, and beautifully produced. It really struck me and was something I turned to again and again. I feel like one could find a lot of that energy in music this year, and I’m grateful to have heard it. 

Who "introduced" you to these songs? Was it a person, a radio station, a CD?
This music spans some 10 years of listening, being shared with, stumbling upon, and so forth. I think the moment I realized the music I play as a DJ—or share with others in a public way—could be informed by any source, it made the act of finding music a much more open-end process, full of possibility. Some of this music is random algorithm recommendations, some of it was shared by friends, and some if it I’ve had in my iTunes since high school. 

Where and when did you first hear techno? Who did it sound like it was for?
My first encounters with dance music were associated with something very distant from the place I existed. My first dance music encounters were about traveling to a place where I could be more myself. So I suppose, in that way, it sounded like it was for a freer, more expressive, and less bound and defined place.

You've got the microphone. What do you want to say to the music community?
I think that in my time in dance music thus far, I have been afforded a lot of space to say my peace, and I say that with deep gratitude. In this time, I want to continue to de-center myself and let the vanguard speak and shape their world into existence. I’m here to help serve that in whatever ways I can. 

Thank you for having me. My heart goes to all who’re struggling in this moment, especially those cast aside by the system here in amerikkka. 

I miss you all very much <3 gianpaolo

We've paired Savile's mix with the essential Teching Hsieh, a performance artist whose primary medium is time; or, rather, the demarcation of time. Both artists play quite literally with time, whether it is punching in at a gallery on-the-hour, every hour, or filling a moment in time with sound. We've wanted to pair these two in conversation for a while now, with a portrait of Savile by Moods Alum Anne Lacy. 2020 ends strong with this.

Savile also elected to move their $40 commission to Bed Stuy Stong, a mutual aid network of over 4,000 people from across Bed-Stuy who are supporting our community during the COVID-19 crisis: https://bedstuystrong.com/

Moods 31: Savile

https://www.instagram.com/mooooods___/
https://endash.bandcamp.com/merch
https://moods.substack.com/

Moods (2017-ongoing) is a community of nightlife workers, techno fans, and artists that platforms music outside of techno. We explore our community’s roots and origins to understand how music migrates from one geography and generation to another. We do this through monthly mixes, merchandise, and low-capacity events.

You're welcome to help pay and pave the way by giving $1, $4, or $20 a month here to support the project. Each Moods Mixer gets paid $50 for their mix—or we donate it to a cause or charity of their choice. The rest of the money fronts costs for merch, a Soundcloud or Substack subscription, and archive maintenance. To do so, head here: https://danielsharp.cargo.site/Moods

Season Seven (2024) is co-organized by, in alphabetical order:
Miguel Cisne, he/they (@miguelcisne)
Crystal Gause, she/her (@etta_sound)
Daniel Sharp, they/he/she (@endash)

Moods

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks