Moods 58: DJ horse jeans
The LA-based music writer and DJ shares her sonic journey through country, slowcore, rap, and 00s classics.
As spring re-emerges across the Northern Hemisphere, we look to none other than the phenomenal writer and DJ horse jeans (@horsejeans). As a writer, DJ horse jeans (Jacqueline Codiga) has 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.
When Daniel asked me to do a mix for Moods, I was incredibly excited. I have always had an interest in exploring the possibilities of non-dance music storytelling within the performance format of DJing, and several of my personal favorite mixes like Nicolas Jaar’s Essential Mix and Daniel Lopatin’s (aka Oneohtrix Point Never) Depressive Danny's Witches Borscht–not only featured genres far outside the typical techno or house DJ set, but also presented them in a unique, stream of consciousness style. These mixes pulled from other bits of pop cultural ephemera–ranging from the Oscar the Grouch “I love trash” song to Angelo Badalamenti narrating his process of composing Laura Palmer’s theme–as a way of making them more than just a collection of songs and more so a radio show beamed directly from the creator’s own subconsciousness.
In particular, I was obsessed with that opening of the Jaar mix where the music being played corresponds so beautifully with his narration of creative process-which lead me to an experiment in an earlier mix of mine where I juxtaposed a similar narration of process with anachronistic instrumental beneath it, in that case an interview with John Coltrane and a track from Chaos In the CBD. I was not only delighted by the accidental synchronicities between the two layers of audio, but also fascinated by the way layering a piece of music under plain dialogue can give it an emotional inflection or tone it would not have otherwise.
This mix is me exploring that specific idea at full length, and attempting to create my own entry into this style of mixing that feels distinct to my own tastes and sensibilities. There’s an explicit reference to the Nico Jaar’s Essential Mix that should be easy to catch.
There’s a strong presence of electronic music, including downtempo, ambient, and more experimental sounds, but also hip hop, slowcore, art pop, and more. Many of these songs—like Flying Lotus’s “Camel”—are tracks I have been listening to since I was a junior in high school, while others (like the two tracks from Proc Fiskal) represent the tracks and artists inspiring me most right now.
The music within traverses many of my genre interests outside of dance music and many of my all time favorite artists, but the mix also contains reflections from many important musicians in their own words, specifically ones whose articulations of process have inspired or resonated with me, as well as excerpts from many of my all time favorite movies and other samples. As a result, it feels like one of the most deeply personal things I’ve created in any medium and something I’m excited to share with the world.
This mix is dedicated to the musicians who appear in it, especially those who have passed away. Rest in Peace to Joey Jordison, to MF Doom, to Mimi Parker. To them and all the others not included here, whose work and wisdom stays with us long after they’ve left.
Special thanks to Hayden for giving me permission to sample audio from our interview for PAPER mag <3
Where, geographically, did you grow up? Was it a single place or many places?
I grew up in Los Angeles, specifically in South Pasadena right near the Arroyo Seco river basin. It literally means “dry river” in Spanish, and calling it a river feels generous, but it’s a gorgeous part of a city I have a complicated but largely positive relationship with.
Can you pick one song in the mix and explain where you first listened to it?
Flying Lotus’s “Camel” was a song I heard for the first time in a friend’s car in high school, and his rise to popularity and the entire LA beat scene of the time was incredibly formative to my tastes and interests. Definitely a song and an album I have many high school and college memories associated with, and still probably my favorite FlyLo song.
Who “introduced” you to these songs? Was it a person, a radio station, a CD?
In the case of that song, I think it was my friend Tim, but time (and other things involved) are making this … hazy, haha.
Where and when did you first hear techno? Who did it sound like it was for?
I heard various game-of-telephone bastardizations and trickle-down versions of techno at big festivals like Coachella but my first interactions with anything resembling the real stuff came once I went to Michigan for college (and met lovely people like Daniel from Moods). Very quickly my interests gravitated away from the increasingly repetitive aggro bass music scene of the time and toward house and techno, which immediately rewired my dance music brain. I think the sound had the potential to be so much more nuanced within that 4/4 structure, so many more shades of grey than the “everybody fucking jump” stuff while being actually rhythmically propulsive and interesting as well. It felt liberating to not only hear that music but directly experience the culture it was born out of and see its potential for community building and storytelling. Also, you can actually dance to it!!
You’ve got the microphone. What do you want to say to the techno community?
I would say to the techno community that the genre of scene “purity” that some people get obsessed with is wack and not worth your time. The people who push sound forward are always those who listen curiously and with an open mind. Don’t be a tourist—be sure you’re actually digging into the roots and history of any new genre you’re diving into—but don’t just stick to your comfort zone forever. My musical evolution hopefully never stops and always expands, and my goal of this mix was to demonstrate that in the way I've connected the dots between my earliest inspirations and current obsessions.
Tracklist:
Thom Yorke - interview (Meeting People is Easy)
Scratcha DVA - “Sumbodydefinatelydied”
Hood - “Hood is Finished”
Joey Jordison - interview (Why people = shit)
Shlohmo - “Staring at a Wall”
MF DOOM - “Absolutely”
Joy Orbison - ‘‘rraine”
New Rose Hotel (1998) - clip
Yves Tumor - “Economy of Freedom”
Chief Keef - “Citgo (D33J Gasoline Feelings Remix)”
Scratcha DVA / DJ Polo / KG - “Send That Wav File”
ulla - “gloss”
Yakui - “Ultra Baby Moon”
Fire-Toolz - “To Make Home, To Be Home”
Madlib - “Hopprock”
Flying Lotus - “Camel”
Daniel Avery - “Petrol Blue”
Matrix Revolutions (2003) - clip
Pandit Pam Pam - “Beco”
Midwife - “Song For An Unborn Sun”
Wilson Tanner - “All Hands Bury The Dead”
Madlib - interview (at the pool)
Jesse Bru - “Midnight Rain”
Oneohtrix Point Never - “Time Decanted”
Spring Breakers (2012) - clip
Boards of Canada + Frank Ocean - “Kid For Today / Slide On Me” (DJ horse jeans live edit)”
Jackie Brown (1997) - clip
Teethe - “Lucky”
How To Dress Well - “Brutal (feat. Ocean Vuong) ⏺ False Skull 5”
Jim-E Stack - “Wake”
Yuna - “Lullabies (Jim-E Stack Remix)”
Four Tet - “Alap”
MF Doom - interview (writer’s block)
Bjork - Arisen My Senses (feat. Arca) [Lanark Artefax remix]
Frank Ocean - “Mine”
Skullcrusher - “Pass Through Me”
Ethel Cain - interview (Paper magazine cover story excerpt)
Imagine Drowning & Grouper - “Con”
Malibu - Nana (Like A Star Made For Me)
Nicole Dollanganger - “Angels of Porn II”
David Lynch - interview (creative process)
Brian Eno - “Lux (Nicolas Jaar Remix)”
How To Dress Well - “YOU WILL HAVE HAD A NAME (‘Sunrise Song 2’ interstitial)”
Low - “Whore”
nthng - “With You”
Worriedaboutsatan - “I’m Not Much, But I’m All I Have”
The Beach Bum (2019) - clip
Clip - Suzanne Ciani (Creates The Soundtrack for A Pinball Machine)
Proc Fiskal - “Job Centre”
Proc Fiskal - “8 Megapixel See Thru Phone”
U.S. Girls - “Advice To Teenage Self”
Hudson Mohawke - “Lonely Days”
Clip - Old school ravers 1993 (The Morning After The Night before)
Buddy Ross - “Running Around”
Andras - “Revegetation Area 2002”
Frank Ocean - interview (MTV 2011)
Drowse - “Telepresence”
Eden (2014) - clip
Yungruzt - “I Had A Dream About You Last Night”
Mimi Parker & Alan Sparhawk - Interview (behind the song “Laser Beam” + “In Metal”)
Shlohmo - “Still Life”
loveliescrushing - “Plume”
Bexar Bexar - “Oil Thumbprints”
Sam Wilkes - “Descending”
Baba Stiltz - “Showtime”
We've paired DJ horse jeans’ mix with a Karl Yens watercolor from the 1920s. As a German migrant to the States who eventually settled in California (in parallel to DJ horse jeans’ own family), Yens dedicating the rest of his life to the Southwest's landscapes until he passed in the 1940s. We think both pieces have this not-yet-twilight arc (right after sunset, you could say) of yearning for the next day while delighting in the present.
Mwah from the Moods team. <3