Moods 63: nail salon
Filmmaker Kris Cho scores his everyday morning routine and commute—DMX, alarms, keyboards, and Swans included.
Philadelphia-based filmmaker, deejay, and host of The Beauty Parlor nail salon 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.
Linear notes from nail salon
This mix comes out of a year of frustration at a dysfunctional office job devoid of any real purpose with toxic management looming around the corner. Forced into coming into the office five days a week for a job with no real human interaction, I found myself looking for some sort of internal salvation from what felt like purgatory. My co-workers all either left the job en-masse or seemingly gave up on looking for anything better. I see the people who have been around for more than four years feeling like they’re at the end of their rope, that this is just how it’ll be until they die or the company goes under. I guess the benefits are good.
In the end, I am safe, get a paycheck every two weeks, maintain a roof over my head, and have time to engage in the things I want to do outside of work, so I don’t want to complain too much. I just can’t help but wonder if this is really it; getting a pizza party instead of a raise becoming the highlight of my year.
Recorded using a Tascam DR-40X and compiled with Reaper.
Inspired by:
-The Stanley Parable (video game)
-Trainspotting (film)
-”Slot Machine Music” by Adrian Rew
-COBRA Insurance
-Samsung Galaxy “Over the Horizon” 2019 ringtone
-”Office Myth” by John Feodorov
Where, geographically, did you grow up? Was it a single place or many places?
I was born in Sunnyvale, California, but I grew up in upstate New York in a small town called Vestal. Little to no racial diversity along with next to nothing to do for fun. Strange place, strange people.
Can you pick one song in the mix and explain where you first listened to it?
“Volcano” by Swans was discovered while trying to trudge through their discography. Don’t get me wrong, their music is amazing, they just have a huge catalog. I remember getting to “Volcano” and being a bit shocked; it had all the pieces of a dance song but isn’t meant for dancing whatsoever. I also have a strange habit of falling asleep while listening to Swans albums, so it’s very possible I didn’t even get to this song on the first listen. To this day, I have yet to listen to the second disk of “Soundtracks For The Blind.”
Who “introduced” you to these songs? Was it a person, a radio station, a CD?
Strangely enough, I really don’t listen to other people’s mixes. Not because of some ego-centric idea of my mixes being better or anything, I just find myself opting to listen to albums instead. I would say that almost all these songs were discovered through various internet sources, namely playlists across Rateyourmusic, Spotify, and YouTube. The one exception would be the DMX track, which I found in a skating video (another common source of tracks for me).
Where and when did you first hear techno? Who did it sound like it was for?
My friend and (at the time) roommate Liam showed me “Birth of 3000” by Los Hermanos either in our freshman or sophomore year of college. I had technically heard techno before, but it was more of the variety of large kicks, no funk, and strong industrial influence. I didn’t really ever enjoy that stuff, and much of it blended together. “Birth of 3000” was significant because it felt so different—it didn’t feel like it was meant for a dark, dirty warehouse party but rather as just music to listen to as life goes by, especially in the context of driving. There was something very organic to it that I never expected given my perception of techno at the time. Even still, I didn’t really “get into” techno until I heard “Impolite to Refuse” by Claude Young, which had a similar effect except even stronger. It was then that I knew I had to explore techno further.
You’ve got the microphone. What do you want to say to the techno community?
Few things:
1. I’ve found that, rather than focusing on getting gear first and trying to find what makes sense to make on it, it’s been easier to make work when I come up with goals and intentions first and then find the best tool to achieve that. (Disregard this if you have little access to gear.)
2. Tools and sample flips are cool, but please try making good songs too. Or at least experiment.
3. Remember to give back. Mentorship and the passing down of knowledge and experience is so vital to what we do, especially now.
4. Free Palestine.
Extra content:
I am part of a group in Philadelphia called Bass Down Low with my friends lowiron and Phreakwency. We previously had a monthly party and are currently planning some fun things in the near future. I also have a radio show on greatcircles.net every fourth monday called The Beauty Parlor, much of which is not super far away from what I did in this mix. Finally, I have some video work (possibly finished by the time this releases) for a variety of things but currently for the record label Limited Network along with video promos for my radio show and live recordings of a variety of artists (e.g. Pudding Club). Check it out. Shout out to Max, Miguel, Adlir, B. Rod, Andre, Jordan, and all the wonderful people I met in Detroit, along with Tia, Cam, Andy, Sasha, Emme, Masina, and all the Philly homies.
Tracklist:
Haku - Japanese narration: poetic excerpts from “For Me, The Rays of The Sun”
MIKE - love supremacy
Paulo Sergio - Não Creio Em Mais Nada
Swans - Volcano
Oneohtrix Point Never - Rubio
Babyfather - Sleep It Off (Used throughout)
Loraine James - Gentle Confrontation
Draft - +++
Sam Gendel - Toridasuki (鳥襷, Interlaced Circles of Two Birds)
DMX - What’s My Name
The Crying Nudes - plead the blood
Magazzini Criminali Music - Rotte polari 1
Köhn - Karohte
Rechenzentrum - Norden
Art Blakey - The Freedom Rider
African American Sound Recordings - Our Loneliness May Evaporate The Masses
Headache - The Party that Never Ends
We’ve paired Cho’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 Cho, keep up on his Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/nailsalon