aka-Sol (@acaciabaila) is an Ecuadorian DJ, producer, and multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn. Through their Acacia Baila label, they're also a connector: they've released their own tracks and collaborations alongside releases from their friends and community, as well as thrown events at spaces like Mansions and their involvement in the Dripping event series and festival. As a DJ, their sets are genre-defying and psychedelic, bridging the gap between heady, trippy sounds and groove and percussion that go straight to the body. Their mix for us is deftly controlled chaos — a fresh, freaky take on 'fast' that's as floating and expansive as it is frenetic.

Read the interview and see a tracklist:
spontaneous.zone/052-aka-sol

"I wanted to create a mix exploring the 150-160 bpm pocket. I feel like I have only landed in playing around these tempos a few times while DJing live, and had definitely not recorded a mix up there before. I was itching to submerge into it after a crucial year in my DJ career, where I have widely expanded the limitations of the things I feel comfortable playing.

It’s been refreshing to understand more and more that I am not an artist/DJ that could be defined by a music genre, but rather by the sensibility in which I lace the different styles and sounds I use to create narratives when constructing my sets. Another important challenge I presented to myself for recording this mix was the curiosity of understanding what kind of tunes I would select and blend for this as a non DnB nor hard techno DJ. I feel like by going through this challenge, I have opened a world of possibilities that I can’t wait to incorporate when playing out there.

In terms of feelings explored, I would say that expansiveness of the body and the mind are a recurrent element in my practice and it was very present in this mix too. I wanted to build something that could feel both complex yet fluid. Entering into deeper introspections while feeling your body being pulled in all possible directions at once until the point of surrendering into a floating state of slow movements is the only possible solution to cope with the amount of information being received.

In terms of gear, I used 2 Pioneer XDJ-700s and a Pioneer DJM 450 mixer. For the recording I use a Zoom H6 recorder."

@acaciabaila

Interview + Tracklist

Spontaneous Affinity #052: aka-Sol

Recorded at Room 2 Glow, tobha took us on a wild sunrise journey with a fantastic closing of the indoor Robus Floor from 07:30 to end.
-
01. For Want Of Gelt - Minor Science
02. Upward Current (rRoxymore rRemix) - Prettybwoy
03. Voices - Damian's Ghost
04. Unreal (Rohaan Remix) - Doctor Jeep
05. Eclipse - TYPE
06. Seri (New Player In Town) - A Strange Wedding
07. YA SNOOZE YA LOOZE - Justin Jay
08. Just Like U and Me - Sandilé
09. Skylines - Otik
10. Baianá - Nia Archives
11. Bounce - Ikawa
12. INTOXIC8ED - STRIPE N CO
13. Keep Up - Hedo Hydr8
14. ya tabtabtab - disco samir
15. Aerosol - LWS
16. Insomnia - Otik
17. Jitterbug - Trends
18. Woodpecker - Kaval
19. Sometimes Love Escapes Me - Indigo Plateaux
20. Superspeed - TMSV & CASE
21. 4 My People (STEDIT) - Missy Elliot
22. Hackney Parrot - Tessela
23. Hackney Parrot (10_Ton_Mix) - Tessela
24. Bassline Killed The Trance Star - Skeleton King
25. Recovered Artifacts (LMajor Remix) - Drumskull
26. In Your Absence - Black Cadmium
27. Good Life (Buena Vida) (Way Out West Vocal Mix) - Inner City
28. Obsession (Sieren Back to '02 Bootleg) - Tiesto & Junkie XL

tobha @ Room 2 Glow - Robus floor - RSO - 07.07.2023

A Long Strange Dream is Batu's latest series which allows him to showcase a selection of music not limited to peak time dancefloors. Expect a deep dive into the crates for an eclectic mix of influences and oddities as you transcend into a collective long strange dream.  
https://www.nts.live/shows/a-long-strange-dream-w-batu/episodes/a-long-strange-dream-w-batu-16th-august-2023

A Long Strange Dream w/ Batu 160823

Forward-thinking sounds from across the bass spectrum from NTS WIP artist re:ni and Timedance/Ilian Tape producer Laksa. 
https://www.nts.live/shows/relax-w-reni/episodes/relax-w-reni-20th-august-2023

re:lax w/ re:ni & laksa 200823

"Key songs and voices old and new,” from Natural Wonder Beauty Concept – a.k.a. DJ Python and Ana Roxanne, who infuse their Pop Zone mix with everything from country to baile funk via a Shakespeare sonnet.

Find out more on crackaudio: crackm.ag/47XjwEr
If you’re a fan, become a Supporter: crackmagazine.net/subscriptions

Pop Zone: Natural Wonder Beauty Concept

Yoga w/ Yaya & Nutrition Facts

"There are books about techno and rave, but let's fill in the blanks." The scholar and activist talks about her book Raving, bringing club culture into academia and more.

McKenzie Wark, professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the New School, is a scholar and raver who has written extensively about the world of dance music and its surrounding subculture. Most recently, Wark penned Raving, a first-person account of her experiences in the Brooklyn queer and trans rave scene. Wark's writing is a unique blend of memoir and literary criticism, and Raving takes readers straight into the heart of undisclosed locations around New York nightlife. Raving to techno is an art and a technique at which queer and trans bodies might be particularly adept, she writes—but it's also for anyone who lets the beat seduce them.

In her conversation with the Brooklyn-based DJ Alyce Currier, AKA Lychee, Wark talks about how the book came to be. She explains how entire chapters of the book wrote themselves out in her head, and how she carefully chose 26 characters—all of which have a letter as a name—to represent the friends and acquaintances of hers from the world of queer nightlife. Her own relationship with raving started when she was still living in Australia. At the time, she says, she hadn't yet transitioned and was experiencing an ambient sense of gender dysphoria that only dancing and nightlife could placate. She didn't actually transition until she was in her late 50s, in 2017. "After I went on hormones, I couldn't write," she says. "But the pressure [to write Raving] was enabling, and I found my voice in this book."

Wark and Currier also talk about what it means to bring club culture into academia, working with fellow rave scholar madison moore and how parties can serve the communities they're designed to cater to instead of exacerbating existing social structures that already exist. Listen to the episode in full.

EX.679 McKenzie Wark

Rinse FM Podcast

C to the Power of X: Bake with No Sir - 25 September 2023

Abstract left-field beats from recent digs

http://www.instagram.com/piezopz

Piezo @ The Lot Radio 10-05-2023

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/

RA Mix of the Day on November 7, 2023. https://ra.co/news/79777

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

Piezo @ The Lot Radio 10-05-2023

The Lot Radio

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