Moods 64: Amina Ahmed
Detroit's favorite dancer blends her youth spent across the dark corners of the net and the dimmest dancefloors.
Amina reminds us why we do what we do — for the love of it. Going to your first show in high school, finding some obscure band on a message board and obsessing for months, making mixes on your family’s computer, and singing along in your hoopty. We recommend you listen loudly.
Inspiration
Blur's Think Tank and night drives.
Where, geographically, did you grow up? Was it a single place or many places?
I have lived in many parts of Southeast Michigan and have even spent a couple of years in Windsor as a child. The adventures of having immigrant parents, eh! Of these various places, I mostly grew up in Northville. It was pretty... bland and lacked diversity. Because of this, I spent a lot of time on the internet. I found a community on a message board dedicated to The Strokes and spent countless hours exchanging thoughts and music. Once I got to high school, I was frequenting Detroit to see rock concerts. You could say Magic Stick was my second home.
Can you pick one song in the mix and explain where you first listened to it?
I first heard Blur's "Ambulance" fifteen years ago and I still come back to it. This track is off their seventh album Think Tank and I like to think of this record as a hybrid between Blur and Gorillaz. This makes for a compelling sound pairing elements of dub and electronic with rock music. I have always gravitated towards music that blends multiple genres and have attempted to showcase that through my Moods mix.
Before I move onto the next question, it was a pretty mundane way I discovered this tune. Whenever I was interested in a band in my teens, I would explore their full discography in chronological order. And so, one day at sixteen, I downloaded Think Tank to my laptop and listened to it.
Who “introduced” you to these songs? Was it a person, a radio station, a CD?
These songs are from different points in my life. As I touched on earlier, I grew up on the internet, so message boards and Livejournal communities are where I came across some of these tracks. In recent years, I’ve been listening to mixes and browsing YouTube more. A couple of new friends and past partners have had an impact as well! In fact, one of the songs included made my heart melt when an ex first introduced me to it.
Where and when did you first hear techno? What drew you to it? Who did it sound like it was for?
I cannot remember the exact moment I first heard techno but have been enjoying it more in the past few years. What draws me to it is the energy felt on the dance floor when a great set is being played. Truly mesmerizing.
You’ve got the microphone. What do you want to say to the techno community?
Take care of each other and Free Palestine!
Tracklist
Laila France - Trashy Like TV
Ive - Hanime
Akis - Into the Light
Romie Singh - Credo
Shakti - Forbidden Dreams
The Flamingos - This Heat
FMT - 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (feat. Camilla)
Lisa M - No Lo Derrumbes
Gabriel O Pensador - 2345MEIA78
Alisha Chinai & Vijay Benedict - Zindagi Meri Dance Dance (Olefonken Edit)
Martine Girault - Been Thinking About You
Outkast - Player's Ball (Reprise)
Kate Bush - Watching You Without Me
Cocteau Twins - Ribbed and Veined
Richard Dorfmeister - Original Bedroom Rockers
Blur - Ambulance
We paired Amina’s mix with an early net artwork from 2000 from Mark Napier, one of the early/earlier net artists. Below, his write-up:
The Tompkins Square riots and the state sponsored enforcement of gentrification in New York’s East Village in the ’90s inspired Riot, an alternative browser that crosses the virtual boundaries in the web. Riot breaks the software-based rules of Internet domains and blends web pages together as users surf from site to site. Playboy.com blends with whitehouse.gov, CNN.com with NPR.org. Visitors surfing with Riot see their own pages merged with pages from other users. Riot was the first and only multi-user browser. Riot revealed the soft territories of the web, enforced by the rules of browser software and domain name servers
You can still access the work online if you want to see it in action: https://potatoland.org/riot/riot.html
Keep up with Amina on Instagram: @animinals