See Moir Music: Tomorrow is June
Listening and learning...
Where I’ll Be
Trying to take my sadness, my grief, my anger, and direct it toward community engagement and involvement. I’m trying to focus on continuing to build the city that I want to live in, so I’m taking this opportunity to donate to local organizations when possible, and stay civically engaged. t’s important to act, especially living in a city with such a conflicted relationship with the tech industry and those of us gentrifying the city.
Donating to:
Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective (local, alternatives to the prison-industrial complex)
The Bail Project (national, working to end bail and pay it for those who can’t)
Black Visions Collective (minnesota, transformative justice)
Bay Area Anti-Repression Committee Bail Fund (local, pays bail for those who can’t)
The Advancement Project (california and national, transforming public systems for racial equity)
Dignity in Schools (national, working to eliminate the school-to-prison pipeline)
If you can, make some/all donations monthly and spread the wealth year-round.
I donate because I can. If you aren’t as privileged as me in that way, you can always use your voice. I’m trying to find the ways that oppression wend its way into the things I care about—that’s why I give conference talks about bias in data, why I read books and share articles about algorithmic bias and how it perpetuates oppression. That’s why I’m grateful for the reporters pitching stories about (and the publications publishing them) about race and oppression and cultural narratives in electronic music, like Collateral Damage: Tony Herrington on the soul of electronic dance music.
Our existing justice system is unjust, and everything from our housing system to our banking system to urban design perpetuates oppression of Black people and other people of color. I get scared of speaking up sometimes because I’m worried I won’t say something “right” or get called out. But the fear of getting called out (or called in) is absolutely nothing compared with fearing for my life, my home, my health, or my education because of who I am.
Just Announced
Special Events
Fri June 5 – Sun June 7 — Digital Mirage 2, featuring A-Trak (drum machine set), Aluna, Baauer, Big Gigantic, Boys Noize, Chet Porter (underwater), Chromeo (DJ set), Dombresky, GRiZ, Hot Chip (DJ set), J. Worra, Kaskade (redux set), Netsky, Oliver Heldens, Party Pupils, Robotaki, San Holo, SG Lewis, Shiba San, Snakehips, Wax Motif, Whethan, Yung Bae, Zhu (club zhum set) and more.
RAC has started streaming regularly on Twitch, a combination of Q&A and playing music. I tuned in for about an hour and it was nice. Continue keeping an eye out for your favorite artists on Twitch and Instagram and the like.
Livestream highlights
TOKiMONSTA (Tracklist) was the best of the EDC Virtual Rave-a-thon sets that I skipped and listened to bootlegs of instead. Oliver Heldens did have super entertaining visuals though.
Moonshine DJ collective premiered a set for Batekoo featuring San Farafina and Akantu (1 hr, YouTube)
SET’s Stay at Home Virtual Festival has started to upload videos from their festival. My favorite was Enamour (1 hr, YouTube) and my other favorite was Guy Mantzur (1 hr, YouTube).
I am halfway through this Nora En Pure set that she played at home. (1 hr, YouTube)
Looking forward to checking out
Black Coffee was one of 5 DJs that played an “Africa is not a Jungle” livestream DJ set, but it’s 5 hours long so I haven’t listened to it yet! Soon. (5 hrs, YouTube)
Verlk’s set from SET’s Stay at Home Virtual Festival (2 hrs, YouTube)
Kölsch streaming live from Copenhill (1 hr, YouTube)
Other notes
Recent great releases
Boys Noize put out a great track, Mvinline
Lxury also released No Real Rush, a track I heard on a DJ set and was like “I need that”.
Carly Rae Jepsen put out Dedicated Side B, with some gems. My favorite track is Let’s Sort The Whole Thing Out.
Shazamming while Dancing
Still keeping my quarandjed playlist updated with my favorites from all the live and recorded streams I’ve been watching.
Not too many streams in the past week, but I’m making more of an effort to put my ears where my heart is by paying attention to the geographic and racial representation in the music I listen to. My recommendations so far include:
My friend and colleague Malcolm Moore’s album, Deep Core
Local DJ and producer MPHD
A Music is King DJ mix by Black Coffee
Afrohouse recommendations I collected from a Facebook thread
Another African House playlist
Oya Dance playlist by Spotify
Read Moir Music
RAC in his livestream on Twitch was talking about the music industry right when I tuned in, which resonated me because I’d recently read (or maybe reread?) this classic by Steve Albini, The Problem with Music. I’ve been following and considering the business behind my favorite type of media and entertainment to consume ever since I read Appetite for Self-Destruction as a teenager.
It’s also relevant to consider who succeeds and who gets exploited most frequently in the music industry, especially in the context of electronic acts like Housekeeping that are a collective of rich boys making music and hiding their wealth (and with a name of Housekeeping, no less!) and the long, long history of black artists being exploited and their music being appropriated (1619 project) and the history and importance of black musicians being erased.
My all-time favorite music book, Uproot: Travels in 21st-Century Music and Digital Culture by Jace Clayton, explores a globe’s worth of music and considers place alongside creation, popularity, and exposure of different artists.
P.S. I also published my blog post about how my listening habits have changed during this shelter-in-place, but it seems pretty trivial now.