Moods 40: Elif Cadoux
Moods hits middle age with our 40th contribution by Elif Cadoux (www.elifcadoux.com), a Philly-based multimedia performance artist, writer, facilitator, and bodyworker. They are one fourth of the performance collective Call Your Mom, a facilitator and designer with the anti-oppression education collective Both/And, and a student of somatic sex education with ISSSE. They are in no way shape or form a DJ.
Elif titled their mix "A Little Wiggle Room," to which they note: "this is my offering to people in need of some space. Listen alone, listen in groups, take up some space moving the body you’re in. And, as Padraig Ó Tuama says, 'touch yourself. I’m being serious, touch yourself.'"
Tracklist:
Sunni Colón - Satin PSICODELIC
Sotomayor - Sur
Moonshine, Bamao Yendé - Ginseng
OutKast, Erykah Badu - Humble Mumble (feat. Erykah Badu)
Sneaks - The Way It Goes
bad tuner - Coast
Batida, Spaceboys - Do The Right Thing! Pobre e Rico 2020
Alex Newell - Mama Told Me
Chez Damier, Ron Trent - Foot Therapy
Faka, Surreal Sessions - Inhliziyo
Olga Tanon, Hakim - Ah Ya Albi
Steve Reich, Piano Circus - Six Pianos (Mr. Scruff Rework)
Sultana, Jyoti Nooran - Patakha Guddi
Hope Tala - Mad (Young Franco Remix)
Fauxe - B0unce
Homeschool, Bartees Strange, Arlissa - Smartest Man (feat. Arlissa)
Lynsey De Paul - Sugar Me
EMEFE - Sun Spat
A.R. Kane - A Love From Outer Space
Anjimile - Baby No More
Excerpts from “How To Be Alone” by Padraig Ó Tuama, read by the poet.
Here We Go Magic - Intro
Moods: Where, geographically, did you grow up? Was it one place or many places?
Elif: I grew up in Hastings On Hudson, New York, in a white, Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish, and Swedish family. I also had a big emotional and political growth spurt living in Stockholm, Sweden, with my mom. Though I haven’t lived a lot of my life (thus far) in Sweden, I definitely grew into myself there.
Moods: Can you pick one song in the mix and explain when you first listened to it?
Elif: Noran Alsabahi played me “Ah Ya Albi” in the car ride back to Ann Arbor, MI, after a hard day of co-facilitating Detroit teen activists in the Summer Youth Dialogues on Race and Ethnicity program. We were so tired and a bit slap happy. We rolled the windows down, drove fast, and shoulder-danced together.
Moods: Who “introduced” you to these songs? Was it a person, a radio station, a CD?
Elif: A lot of these songs bring a smile to my face not only because a lot of them are celebratory or bombastic but also because I associate them with wonderful connections. These songs come from friends, mixes by my djs and musicians, hours of avoiding my email by clicking around spotify.
Moods: When and where did you first hear techno? Who did it sound like it was for?
Elif: I first heard techno in a club in Manhattan when I was 16, the unruly teen I was. When I heard it and started moving to it, techno felt like it was for an impossible future version of myself - one who was both humble and unselfconscious. Techno sounds like it’s for people who immerse themselves in sound and who don’t care who is looking. And yet, I’ve never found a techno community that feels liberating to me. As I got into techno, I was sad to encounter the posturing and aesthetic evaluation that happens in a lot of communities. Techno, in my opinion, is best when it is nerdy, resistant, and unapologetically fun.
Moods: You’ve got the microphone. What do you want to say to the techno community?
Elif: Oh gosh! I’d say: Invite people in! Invite people to your parties who are kind, real, sweet, and strange. Expand the techno container instead of collecting people who you think will ‘fit.’ Belonging that does not have to fortify exclusion.
We've paired Cadoux's mix with a still from Wu Tsang's piece We hold where study (2017), which is (in the eyes of this moods curator's) one of the strongest contemporary video works in MoMA's collection. Tsang positions two overlapping videos—one outdoor field and one indoor rave—where performance artists (boychild, Jonathan Gonzalez, Josh Johnson, Ligia Lewis, Julian and Lorenzo Moten) battle, hug, cry, hold space, and release one another to a Bendik Giske score. It echos Cadoux's mix here—a mix to offer space and wiggle room to listeners—while reminding us that the two greatest things to lean on are ourselves and our best friends.
Cadoux also donated their $40 Moods comission to Youth Voices for Consent, an organization dedicated to empowering young people with the skills to recognize boundaries, express themselves, and build healthy relationships. They are dope. Will you match our donation?
www.youthvoicesforconsent.org/
Read more about Wu Tsang here:
www.moma.org/collection/works/290550?
And Elif Cadoux here:
www.elifcadoux.com
Call-your-mom.com
IG: @ekdoux