The best mixing doesn’t just jam some bangers together – it creates an emotional topography to traverse. So it’s a pleasure to welcome Moe Nagasi aka Surface Crawler, whose compositional imagination and musicianship shines through in her mixes. Good timing, too, as she’s got a score for a film premiering this weekend in Leipzig.
Moe Nagasi, in this live set from June at Berlin’s Arkaoda playing as Surface Crawler, is a triple threat composer/producer plus DJ plus violinist. Hailing from Donbas, Ukraine, the artist Valeria Khazan is now based in Berlin, where she’s played parties like Interzone. She’s the rare violinist who can juggle her instrument and CDJs in a DJ set, sometimes mixing the two together so seamlessly you’d be forgiven listening to the recording for assuming the violin parts were in the tracks already. And she’s an accomplished improviser with a sharp ear.
For her set for our Establishment night in July, she demonstrates that techno can be expansive and not only four-on-the-floor. Broken beats and experimental sounds seamlessly flow into club rhythms, shifting and passing between locales without ever losing momentum. Cinematic sounds blend effortlessly, too, in line with her musical adaptability from club to concert to score.
Or anyway, maybe you can describe it better than me – give it a listen:
Full playlist:
Eprom – Remorse
Ice_Eyes x Sueuga – Superficie
Jean Redondo – Hypersonic
Two Fingers vs. Muadeep – Blood Moon
Blawan – Toast
PESSIMIST – SPRTLZM
Simo Cell – Short Leg
Siu Mata – Tokamak
Sinusoidal – Mind Killer
4 6 2 5 – Proles
Na Nich – Super Earth
Donato Dozzy – Le Confort Electronique
G Jones – A2C2I2D
Blawan – Under Belly
Rrose – Spore
E-Saggila – Pr1nt
Transparent Sound – No Call from New York
Valeria joined us live in the studios of Refuge Worldwide last month, too, so here’s what happens when she’s in the B2B context and tossing ideas back and forth:
She also co-created the score for Sick Girls, a film premiering this weekend in Leipzig, delving into ADHD. I have not seen this one, so have to see if I can get my hands on a screening copy but – maybe there are a couple of readers in Leipzig who want to go check it!
It’s part of the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, screening at DOK Leipzig:
What does the rise in the diagnosis of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and other mental illnesses since the 90s have to do with the efficiency-driven and dumbed-down civilisation in which the grid of normal is becoming ever narrower? Are ADHD drugs the doping of the performance society? And who actually determines what is normal and what is not? With five different female ADHD sufferers, SICK GIRLS gets to the bottom of these questions and gives insight into the personal difficulties of living with ADHD. The director Gitti Grüter themself examines the own ADHD and interacts with their protagonists partly in front of and partly from behind the camera, addressing chaos, lack of concentration, relationship problems, addiction, depression, insomnia and impulsivity. Gitti builds a bridge between the hardships and joys of the affected women and a society that blows back at them in the form of stigmatisation and stereotyping of the feminine and desolate.
Valeria is one to watch (and listen), so keep an eye out. CDM, over the years, hasn’t done a terrible job of spotting up-and-coming talent early. We’re fortunate to get to know them.
Feature photo: Albert Ovadia.