Moods 57: Loamsy
Loamsy guides us on an Internet all-nighter with nothing but the sun to wait for. She recalls that teen feeling of learning about music—and your favorite band’s favorite band.
Hello! This March for Moods we are happy to host Loamsy as Moods 57, aka Paloma, Founder of Imbricate Coil.
Loamsy brought us back to our teenage lust for a new feeling in music. As a regular at 734 Brewing’s “The Fallout Shelter” and officially ordained Wax King, there is no questioning Paloma’s exposure to music, storytelling, and importance of community.
Where, geographically, did you grow up? Was it a single place or many places?
I grew up in Northwest Indiana, about an hour outside of Chicago, colloquially known as “The Region.” I lived in many towns in the area, but most were (mostly) similar. My youth was defined by the suburban, and, as I got older, the semi-rural. The midwestern beachiness of Lake Michigan definitely inspired my music tastes, especially when I was a teenager, before moving to Michigan for college.
Can you pick one song in the mix and explain where you first listened to it?
I honestly can’t remember the very first time I heard most of these songs, mostly because I’ve been listening to a lot of them since I was in high school. I do remember when I found Câmera’s “Lost Cause, I Surrender!” after discovering their album Mountain Tops. I listened to it in my family’s van through its car cassette tape audio converter. I loved the whole album but knew “Lost Cause” would be my favorite right away. In my early teenager years, I was intrigued by a mix of whispery soft rock and moody electronica. Listening to Câmera’s quizzical chords and occasionally grating instrumentation, I was particularly attracted to the noisiness of their songs. A sense of fullness is still something I really appreciate in music.
Who “introduced” you to these songs? Was it a person, a radio station, a CD?
The mix comes from a lot of sources. Most of it is music I heard as a teenager, when I spent an absurd number of nighttime hours scouring YouTube and using every last Pandora skip to hear something new. And a lot of other tracks come from people I love – it’s easy to love music when it is sourced from a loving place. Some of it is from friends, from family, from my partner.
Where and when did you first hear techno? Who did it sound like it was for?
The first time I heard any kind of techno that I can remember was seeing DJ Taye and DJ Paypal b2b opening a HOMESHAKE concert in 2018. It was the first time I’d ever heard anything like it. The people around me were either enthralled or confused, with the fast-paced, loud bass immediately replaced by HOMESHAKE’s melancholy softness. I think the first time I truly got hooked on techno was at one of MEMCO’s shows in the fall of my first year of college in 2019. The novelty of experiencing life outside of my many small towns made the music all the more exciting. To me, techno sounded like it could be for anyone willing to indulge in the energy.
You’ve got the microphone. What do you want to say to the techno community?
What I love about techno, and dance music in general, is how community-based it is. It’s about sharing, reciprocity, and growth. Music is communicative, it’s a language, and it can be such a powerful tool, for better or for worse. But, even more than community, techno, and all music in general, is individualistic. Before music is a language, it is a sensation; before you know you’re listening, you hear it. Just like anything our senses interact with as we move through our lives, it has the power to touch us deeply. We are our bodies and our experience of our bodies and music allows us to connect with ourselves from our roots upward. Music, more than any other art form, has a unique power to unite what makes us individuals with what brings us together. That is what I love about techno.
Annddd tracklist <3
Tide Pool – Cofaxx
Sertão Urbano – Curumin
Lost Cause, I Surrender! – Câmera
Swords and Knives – Tears for Fears
Humbling Love – John Klemmer
Even The Shadow – Porches
all will be faded – Plage 84
Instantané – Paradis
Cherry Coffee – Kelela
De Mi Ser – Boundary, Cult Exciter
Shaver – Porches
Movement 3 – Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, London Symphony Orchestra
(Secret Track) – HOMESHAKE
Blonde – Ivy Lab
jog – Devonwho
Never Will You Be Without – Helios
Dreamcatching – Magdalena Bay
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Paloma donated the mix fee to Sickle Cell Disease Association of America on behalf of the Fallout Shelter / Wax Kings Collectives.
We've paired Loamsy's mix with a work by Deborah Stratman titled "Park." Stratman is a filmmaker and artist based in Chicago whose work deals with power, control and belief. Read more about the work here www.pythagorasfilm.com/park.html
:) <3 :)