Moods 70: agraybé
The Ohio-raised, Los Angeles-based musician and DJ takes us to her downtempo days.
90s and 00s downtempo, in our opinion over at Moods HQ, informed an entire generation of artists’ tastes and directions. It’s well understood by musician and DJ agraybé, and for our next mix, she explores the depth of the oft undersung genre. Remember the feeling of inserting that mixtape in your siblings’ sedan; watch the trees blur by; see the rain yield to sunshine.
For this month’s Moods mix, I wanted to write a sonic letter to my middle school self, tying together the 90s to early 2000s downtempo and trip hop sounds that I fell in love with back then. Those classic spacey atmospheres and sample heavy storylines brought out a melancholic escapism that I really resonated with at that time—these sounds left me thirsty to find more music that made me feel this way. The music created in this era were some of the first to get me really digging. Late nights, even back then, searching YouTube and Limewire to fill my iPod with more and more tracks. It felt like a game that was really addicting and fun for me. In a way, I guess this was my origin story as a DJ :)
-Ari
Where, geographically, did you grow up? Was it a single place or many places?
I grew up on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio. Spent most of my life in the Midwest, first Ohio and then Chicago throughout my 20s. I moved West and have been calling Los Angeles a home for the last 4 or so years.
Can you pick one song in the mix and explain where you first listened to it?
My sister, Olivia, introduced me to Zero 7 back in the sixth grade. The mix begins and ends with songs off this band’s album, Simple Things (2001). It’s a record I’ve never stopped revisiting and appreciating since my middle to early high school days growing up in the 216. It’s definitely an album that sonically brings me home.
Who "introduced" you to these songs? Was it a person, a radio station, a CD?
A lot of songs in this mix make me think of my sister. Some I learned through her, others I found on my own back then or later on.
Where and when did you first hear techno? Who did it sound like it was for?
I first heard techno nine years ago in 2015, coming up from Cleveland to Detroit to go to Movement. A friend from there had mentioned it was a community music festival and we decided to go. I remember looking across the dancers at the Pyramid Stage with the backdrop of the Detroit River. Everyone was entranced in their own dance. It was my first time experiencing that many people all in one place feeling the same rhythms in their bodies. The music sounded like it was there for the people’s collective joy, but it also clearly brought out something very personal for each dancer.
You've got the microphone. What do you want to say to the techno community?
Don’t hold back from sharing different parts of you. Express yourself wholeheartedly. Play, create, and move for you. Learn and love deeply, and make sure to take care of one another both on and off the dance floor.
Tracklist
Polaris | Zero 7
Come To Me | Björk
Strangers | Portishead
Aftermath | Tricky
Dawn Chorus | Boards of Canada
Montego Bay Spleen | St Germain
Quiz | Skalpel
Theme From Behind The Curtain | Skalpel
Triptych Pt.3 | Blockhead
Metteng Excuske V1.2 | Squarepusher
Snip & Lick | Funki Porcini
Hypnosis Theme | Wax Tailor ft Marina Quaisse
Upmann | The Octopus Project
Pyjama | Tosca
Tomorrow | Thievery Corporation
La Femme D'argent | Air
Red Dust | Zero 7
We have paired agraybé’s mix with a code-based work from Maya Lin. Produced in collaboration with poet Tan Lin, Lin—also from Ohio like agraybé—built the piece in reference to punch cards and computer systems:
As a junior and senior in high school, the artist studied Cobalt and Fortran computer language at the University, spending many hours programming at the Clippinger Labs. She was a terrible typist and made countless mistakes making the computer data punch cards. Her memory of the hours spent punching out those data input cards at Ohio University has led to the overall shape of this piece. Tan Lin, the writer, poet and brother of Maya Lin, collaborated on the piece by creating its landscape of words. The words chosen correspond to Maya and Tan’s shared memories of the place - they are personal text-images evoking the artists’ past history at Ohio University and in the landscape of Athens. These visual memories, written as a poem, are more universal than one would believe, and resonate with anyone who has spent time in Athens or at the University.
Read more about the work here, and keep in touch with agraybé on Soundcloud or Instagram.
agraybé donated their commission to Feminist Synth Lab, a synthesizer lending library for all marginalized genders. Learn more about their fantastic work here.
xx!
Moods