Moods 79: Mina Mills
A cassette retrospective on the Des Moines noise scene.
Moods is flying to Des Moines for the very first time with Mina Mills, a Chicago-based deejay, promotor, and sonic explorer. For this mix, Mills sidesteps her usual vinyl techno sound to cassettes obtained at noise shows in her home town.
Where geographically, did you grow up? Was it a single place or many places?
I’m from the east side of Des Moines, Iowa. I talk about this a lot because I really like to represent Des Moines. This mix is dedicated to the cassette culture of experimental music in Des Moines, and in the Midwest in general.
22 of the 31 tracks are from artists who are either based in or from Des Moines, Iowa, the rest are from other cities in the Midwest like Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Chicago, Omaha, and Minneapolis (a place where I lived for several years). There is one track that's from an artist based in Tennessee named Torschlusspanik. I included it because it invokes the feeling and sound of where I grew up.
Two artists who appear multiple times in this mix are Brian Noring (EHI) and Kristian Day (Kwaidan, Raven). They are both prolific musicians from Des Moines—Brian Noring being especially important because he's from the east side like me.
It was difficult to find 22 tracks made in Des Moines. This may sound mean, but I say it with love: Des Moines has to get better at music. There's a real plainness and lack of style these days. And don’t get me wrong—I’m also affected by this Des Moines plainness.
Can you pick one song in the mix and explain where you first listened to it?
The track I need to draw attention to is Lamentations 3’s 4110 SW 9th St, Des Moines, IA, 50315. This is an excerpt from a 15-minute sound collage and techno-influenced piece of music that I recorded in winter of 2018. I made it and listened to it in my basement apartment in Minneapolis late at night over the course of a week. The music is mostly not good, but this is definitely the most personal music I’ve ever made. It was on the internet but I've taken it off, and barely anyone has heard it. It was made to raise awareness of my childhood viola teacher, a man named David Leach (look him up on Wikipedia or Youtube). He’s a fundamentalist Christian pro-life activist who condones the murders of doctors who provide abortions and the bombing of abortion clinics. He wrote the manual for the pro-life organization that he’s involved with, The Army Of God. Abortion is his obsession, and his life's work is fighting to end sodomy and abortion.
I have appeared on his public access TV show to play Mozart as an introduction to his panel, discussing abortion and gay marriage in his living room. I honestly still get confused on why he was my viola teacher, since I grew up with pretty aggressive atheistic anti-religion parents. I wanted to include this track because it's my sonic past, and a way of saying that I hate David Leach and people like him.
Who “introduced” you to these songs? Was it a person, a radio station, a CD?
I went to noise shows and record stores, found tapes, and tracked down music on the internet as a youth and a young adult. I also obsessively track down all the music I can find from Des Moines—anything I can find. There's a lot of it, and most of it is not good but I still listen to it. I have to.
Where and when did you first hear techno? Who did it sound like it was for?
My dad used to have the key to the dumpster of a bookstore that would throw away tons of books, DVDs, tapes, and records. He would fill his car up and sell it to second hand stores. I would go through a lot of the records and find stuff like Raze’s Break 4 Love, the compilation Chicago Trax Vol. 1 and Indeep’s When Boys Talk. That was a part of my early introduction to dance music.
I didn't really understand the context of it being played in a party, because it sounded so different from what I thought of as party music at that time. It sounded really raw and dark and beautiful to me. Raze’s Break 4 Love is an amazing song, it gives me goosebumps and it's so haunting. I don't remember the first real "techno" I listened to, but I do know I heard Model 500” No UFOs from googling something like "first techno song" on the computers at school. Techno seemed like it’s for smart people, Black people, gay people, Latin Americans, people in the midwest, and people who dress beautifully. Turns out it is.
You’ve got the microphone. What do you want to say to the techno community?
I don’t think I have anything to say to the techno community really. Free Palestine.
Tracklist
Slipknot Interview (1999)
Kwaidan- Pissing Nails
Lamentations 3- 4110 SW 9th St, Des Moines, IA, 50315 (excerpt)
Kristian Day- Your Toes Curled In The Sand
Newtined- Peak Filter Q factor
blackt00th- Halloween Field Recording (10-31-19)
CBN- Neblastya III
EHI- Happy Holidays
Rosi Gowdey- Soft Hills
Raven- Atomic Garden
Ministry- The Nature Of Love (Cruelty Mix)
Moth- Gray Dog
Torschlusspanik- effeminate violence
SULFFFFFFUR- CRIES AND BETRAYALS
Diaphragmatic- Sheepish Grin
Newt Grundy- Library
Aged- Pointless Gestures
Gnawed- Culturing A Virus
Jerry Smith- Dear God Please Send My Darling Back
Hal McGee & Thomas Sutter- Echolalia
Controlled Opposition- Ode To 3rd Precinct
violeer- anguish
EHI- Brief Travels
Wealth Enhancement Group (intro)
Henry Knollenberg- Six Wheels
Other Mother- Urn Of Charred Seed
EHI- Solar Energy
Netherwolf- Delirium
Graham Bly- Ice Box Sonata No. 1 (Kitchen)
Die Kreuzen- Don’t Say Please
Roze- Livin’ In A Fantasy
Pairing
We’ve paired Mina’s mix with a work by Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles titled Babel. The “tower of incomprehension,” Meireles has called it, is a stack of second-hand analogue radios tuned to different stations and adjusted to the minimum audible volume. What happens is a static hum of nonstop sound—information, music, and ads blending and competing for our ears.
For more on Babel, we recommend Tate’s video on the piece. visit this site on the work.
For more of Mina, visit her Soundcloud and Instagram.
<3 Moods Team :)