Get Lost with Guy

A Prism of Your Own Reflection

November 04, 2022

Set your calendars for the November 4th debut of what we would argue is the the upcoming and most inventive Mount Kimbie album yet. The electronic duo composed of Dominic Maker and Kai Campos are evoking all of our five senses with M.K. 3.5: Die Cuts | City Planning, an album as much as it is an intricate palette of sounds, influences, and intentions that push the boundary of what music can be, what it should be and what it is. M.K. 3.5: Die Cuts | City Planning might be new but its certainly a long time coming. With 13 years in the industry under their belts, though the duo is intrinsically different, the manner in which they epitomize duplexity in this project comes to a head in the best of ways.

Text by JoliAmour DuBose-Morris
Art Direction by Frank Lebon
Art produced by Tom Shannon

The two-sided set has collected symbols of perfection through two different artistic journeys. Campos's vision board is derived through the roots of dance music and kinetic sculptures that blend tracks into one loopy rollercoaster ride of an auditory experience. Once the play button is pressed, the listener is taken through the wind of smooth and sleek beats, arpeggios that scream personality, and unforgettable rhythms which recognize futuristic elements that run shivers down amused backs. City Planning is a reference point for infinite, and Campos sets out to make music that builds on forever, like ellipses at the end of a trailing sentence.

In Die Cuts, Maker's side begins somewhere in L.A., where dreams turned into realities and songs were recorded with a be-all-end-all list of artists like James Blake, Jay-Z, ASAP Rocky, and more. The assemblage of objects is parallel to Maker's bug-eyed view of music making. Materials of samples and sounds dissolved into artistic collaborations and, then further vocal methodologies brought on new incites and musical experiences. Reflecting on L.A.'s Koreatown, Maker concluded how he wanted to come up with something from his point of view. Die Cuts worked as a butterfly project allowing him to break free of his shell.

Die Cuts and City Planning are two sides of the same experimentalist coin. A project thats coming just in time to listeners as a portfolio of work to expand their minds. The evolution of Tom Shannon, a grandmaster in the art wold was only another layer of the immaculate project. Throughout Shannon's career, he's sharpened his tools and explored all that art can be. From paintings to sculptures and high-end achievements across new inventions— he exemplifies how great art expands with time. He doesn't shy away from changing patterns— he moves with the currents, letting himself become inspired by the life around him. This only makes his finalized pieces so much more engaging as it holds a reflection to the viewer proposing the question of, "well, what do you see?" The cover art for City Planning was created by Shannon as a momentum to the ever-evolving music of the project. The two artists collided to polish work narrated in building worlds within worlds of art.

In an interview for office, Shannon and Campo sat down— a first for the both of them, as they've never seen each other's faces— to talk about the music, the art, and the future.

So, what's new in your life? What's a random thing that's made your day?

Tom — Well, I suppose the good news is that our recent installation in Menorca looks very nice, beautiful setting. And so, I think, that's what cheers me up.

Kai — I'm in a pretty boring stage of making a record right now. So, I'm in this room without any windows for most of the day. So, my highlight of the day is, is really the chance to speak to Tom, as it actually is the first time we're getting to speak. We obviously corresponded a lot on like through the project, but not on camera or anything.

It must interesting to see each other's faces, and just talk to each other regularly. Now that you've mentioned the collaboration, what went into the process of making the artwork for City Planning?

T — Well, I think it has a lot to do with Frank Lebon. You know, we had met and he had a good idea of doing something together. And I was very delighted to be able to have an opportunity to do something like this. I love the music.

What was the vision board for? Especially since the cover is done in black and white.

T — Well, we had many different ideas of doing it with sculptures of different types of balancing and magnetic sculptures, so there was probably 100 different ideas. But eventually, it became clear to do something practical for a short period, and they had this idea of using four balloons that were packed together and create a little hut that could be photographed, that had unusual optical abilities, where all the balloons touch each other, there's a kind of infinity reflection between which gives it a very interesting look and appearance.

Are you guys both equally inspired by technology and the futuristic concepts?

K — Making lots of work really is about trying to make sense of different thoughts and feelings that you have going on at any particular time and trying to condense those into a artwork. I think that's why it's often difficult to explain what it is until you know that it's right. And because it kind of is able to illustrate maybe like a certain contradiction, or a feeling, or a fear or whatever ,just fills a space that that you're aware of. And so each time that I make a record it's, you know, coming from quite a different place. There's certain themes that come up. And this is the first time that this is, you know, certainly a record that was slightly more conceptual, as it's been different from my usual approach in the last 10 years previous. So, I had more kind of literal ideas that I wanted to try and cover in the making of the music. And some of that is also in reference to other music. And there's a debt that's owed to the music of Detroit in the late 90s and early 2000s, which often was very interested in possible futures. And, in my mind, anyway, it was a forward looking music that was interested in the aesthetics of the future. And yeah, so when I was talking about some of these ideas with Frank, he, he pulled Tom's book down off the shelf, and I couldn't believe from the first page that I turned just how how much it resonated with me. And then every page after that was, it was a very exciting moment, actually. And, yeah, I was overjoyed that we're able to kind of pursue it together. Yeah.

That brings me to my next point, it was brought to me that after 2017, you went into this like venture of listening to different types of dance music. Who were the musicians and artists in your rotation?

K — So, there's probably a lot of kind of American artists, particularly from the beginning— like early 2000s, that were not necessarily the beginning of this movement, but like, to me, the most interesting part of that is they're kind of around the world like Jeff Mills. And then as you get a bit further on in time, there is like Terrence Dixon. And then in the UK, there are people like Regis, Basic Channel, Shinichi Atobe. They were all kind of operating in a sonic world that I was definitely taking a lot of influence from, and then someone more contemporary artists as well, as it was an influence on my work.

How did kinetic sculpture sculptures like blend into this Embarkment of listening to these just like worldwide musicians?

K — There's been a few kinds of pieces of visual art that I was thinking about when I was formulating the start of the record, but the kind of takeaway from all of it was just an attempt to try and represent texture in sound that I hadn't really thought about before. And so I want it to have the same feeling that I had— not necessarily about a particular sculpture, but the sense of being in a room with a sculpture. One of the problems with sound and with music it has a kind of a duration, where you you sit down, and it has a start and a middle and end. And what I was thinking about after in relation to the sculpture work was that I really enjoyed the fact [about the sculpture] is that it's kind of forever. When you experience it, you walk into a room, and it is there. And, you know, you can look at it from different angles, and maybe there's a kind of your relationship with it that changes over time. But I was really interested in capturing the kind of different textures I'd seen. Also, this experience of complete wholeness in being enveloped is something as opposed to experiencing predictability. Like narrative form.

It sounds as if you were trying to contrast a 2D perspective of music and turn it into something more.

K — I kind of wanted the record to feel at times that it was just kind of running in the background forever, and that you were having to just experience it for that period that you were listening, but it would still be going on after.

The idea of infinity is really cool, I think that expands music, because it becomes something that you can press play or pause on, but something that has its own world beyond just the listener. Is this something that you resonate with, Tom?

T — Yeah, in a sense, it's very solitary work. You're in the studio, you're working without time really. The musician, of course, is mastering time, and performing at the moment, and experiencing the feedback of the reaction to it. And it's so that the actual performance part that equates to work you're doing physically in a studio, but what the musician is doing on stage, it's, it's so different. There are overlaps in visual rhythms and I think a sense of newness that's possible to create, however ambiguous, something possible.

What is your process when you're creating art? How do you immerse yourself before you begin in your work?

T — Every day I draw on the same size paper— business paper, and then a flow of ideas happen. And then one thing leads to another. You do one drawing, and then you look at it, and you respond to what you've just done. And then you do another drawing, and then that leads to another thought. So you build up micro impressions of the first ideas, and then you start connecting it to things that you've done before. This tends to add up, it's sort of a accumulation of thoughts that go into the new work. And, you know, you're always trying to improve on things or make inventions of some sort.

Music

Sounds of the City

November 02, 2022

At around 1 a.m. on a brisk but comfortable fall night, our car drops us off at a random gas station in a sparsely populated residential area of outer-Brooklyn. Ravers take selfies under the fluorescent lights and stock up on beer and water for the mile-long hike through the woods we have in front of us. Our backpacks heavy with supplies, we slip into a hole in a fence and stumble through the forest, trying to follow the screen-shot map that’s been sent from group chat to group chat.

Silhouettes of spiked collars and teased hair slip through the trees as we follow the footprints made by platforms and Doc Martens. Once we hit the train tracks, we start to hear the music wafting through the night. At first, it’s hard to make out, but soon it begins to take shape: a hard techno sampling of Crazy Frog.

Text by Julian Wildhack
Images by Anna Bloda

“Pauli’s on!” I say laughing, as my group starts picking up the pace to catch their set. Breaking through the trees we find an anarchic queer utopia; hundreds of well-dressed weirdos climbing trees, kissing, and mingling as if they were at any other venue. At the center of the clearing, surrounded by a mass of bodies all jumping and dancing and cheering, we see Pauli Cakes—the mastermind behind this whole experience—at the decks blending their signature mix of techno, reggaeton, baile funk, jersey, and random sounds from the internet.

The forest raves, as well as the larger renegade rave movement, work in opposition to the current climate of finance driven New York nightlife. They begin with a group of friends lugging a power generator out to some remote location, profit fully from donations (which are many times given directly to in-need community members), and end when the cops arrive—the spectacle of their swarming helicopters and fully outfitted squads scrambling through briar bushes being a big part of the fun. These events are non-hierarchical, spontaneous, and feel rebellious and exciting.

On a sweltering summer day, I ventured to Pauli’s tidy and artfully decorated apartment in Ocean Side, Brooklyn. They answered the door with a hug, donning perfect eye makeup, a sparkly blue tube top, denim short-shorts, and a pair of white ankle socks where their eight-inch platforms should have been—a far cry from their wrapped-in-chains-and-glitter club looks, but still more ostentatious than the average working-from-home outfit.

“Sorry, my place is a mess,” they said, gesturing to a small pile of unopened mail. I was just happy they had air conditioning.

Pauli began DJing in public at 8am on New Year’s Day 2017 at a DRTY SMMR party after the last DJ had finished, but party goers weren’t ready to stop dancing. “I got my laptop and started playing music, and everyone [was super excited about it]. I didn’t really know how to use the equipment yet, I was just boop-boppin’ on my iTunes,” they said.

From there, their career in music joined their background in nightlife, going hand-n-hand, each set of talents being honed and aiding the other. DJing and music became a further creative extension for this Bronx native’s life-long love of community and hedonism.

“I’ve always loved bringing people together. [In high school], I started throwing parties every once in a blue. They’d always get a crazy response. I’d be like, ‘who has a free crib? Lemme throw a party! Maybe a hookie party’… obvy back in the day I was mad boonky, but I loved getting people together.”

Their phone was going off constantly, and they took a moment to make sure it wasn’t anything too important before continuing.

“When I was like 15, I had an idea with a friend to throw a pop-up shop… Put together a place where people can have fun and sell their art. I had this sugar daddy who I would stay with who lived in Chelsea. I begged him, ‘can I use your house to throw a party?!’ He was like, ‘no no no,’ but I had his keys and he left for two days, and we threw our pop-up at his house. He came back in the middle of it and kicked everyone out… it was so embarrassing.”

In their late teens they began taking a crack at working in nightlife more professionally. “At like 18/19 I wasn’t getting booked, so I started throwing little things at bars. I knew how to do a lil graphic design [for flyers], I was learning how to DJ, I knew how to [promote]. I was like, ‘there’s nothing stopping me from bringing people together.’ I wanted to play the music that I wanted to hear. It just made sense for me and what I love. I started hosting parties, [like Robot MoonJuice’s Fight Club and Melissa Burn’s Massive]. It was so cool. I met so many people I still know. Watching the people [involved with those parties] get huge, LSD XOXO, Cardi B, it’s amazing. All these unique souls.”

As it turns out, the music Pauli wanted to hear was a wide-ranging mishmash of everything. “I like genre blending and genre mixing. Playing as many genres as I can in an hour or two-hour set. I will read the room of venues and feel out what is gonna raise the energy the most. I’m not gonna play gabber at every venue I play. I’m not gonna play jersey or baile funk at every venue I play. I mix everything that’s high energy.”

Within this mix, listeners also find collaged sounds and homages to the internet meme zeitgeist. “I was a MySpace baby. I love the internet. The first 13 years of my life were spent in that time when the internet was blowing up [mainstream]. The internet was still this futuristic thing. I’d fight for my time share on a big Dell desktop to go on MySpace and look up music.”

This feeling of Y2K nostalgia permeates Pauli’s esthetic. From outfits that could have been sewn by Romy or Michele to mashups reminiscent of a MySpace welcome anthem. “The 2000s were so [self-consciously] futuristic. The music was so futuristic. Even Soulja Boy or Tela Tequila, The Millionaires. It’s nostalgic and relatable.” By placing these pieces of traditionally lower pop-culture into counter cultural spaces generally reserved for up-and-coming fine art, Pauli accomplishes a sort of post-modernist decadence.

Nostalgia and art-school ponderings aside, Pauli is foremost inspired by the city that raised them. The diversity of sound and sights and culture that constantly surrounds one in New York City. The music pouring from cabs, clubs, and apartments. The five block-parties you walk past while heading to grab a coffee. The three diasporas you venture through on your way to meet a friend at the closest park.

“[I can’t do that] mono-rhythm pots n’ pans. I’m like, ‘let me sprinkle something fun and relatable into this.’ Somethings that relate to my experience growing up in this city that’s so musically diverse.”

This sort of genre-blending stands in opposition to the larger techno nightlife norm of strict genre-adherence. “I’m not a hater,” they said. “But in the techno world people take that shit so seriously… Sometimes I’ll go to parties where they’re only playing monotonous techno, and I think to myself, ‘if I still did drugs, I’d be doing so many drugs right now,’ because the music is so boring. When all the music is the same, when every conversation is the same, when everyone looks the same… it’s not a reflection of New York City at all.”

As an extremely social person, who’s also very prone to anxiety, DJing allows Pauli to interact with large groups of people while maintaining control over their physical space and energy. “I’m someone people feel comfortable opening up to immediately,” they said. But I’m extremely sensitive to energy. A lot of people coming up to me at once overwhelms me. I can almost feel bits of people getting into me… Sometimes after big DJ sets, I feel drained. It’s like running a marathon.”

Thankfully, for their mental and physical health, they’ve gotten better at caring for themselves over the years. “I used to go out so much, I’d never sleep. But… now I understand the importance of [taking care of myself]. Making sure I eat healthy, making sure I drink water. Doing cleanses. Praying a lot. Cleaning people’s energies off my body…. I am still gig hopping, I have these long 15-hour / 16-hour nights, [I must] make sure I [take care of myself] and rest.”

This desire to take better care of themself has also drastically reduced their substance use. “I stopped doing drugs last year,” they said. “I got pregnant and got completely sober for the first time in 10 years.” While Pauli didn’t eventually decide to keep the pregnancy, they had committed to abstaining from unhealthy behavior while making up their mind. “During that time, I felt I was able to strengthen my intuition. My consciousness was heightened. One of my spirits told me to stop doing drugs… warned me of super messy situations. I enjoyed my time doing drugs… but it’s time to cut it out…. The line between recreational and habitual [became] mad thin.”

“I think my music has gotten better. I’ve become more attentive. When I DJ I go into these sorts of trances and drugs interfered with that. It feels more raw…. It’s not a moral thing…. I love my friends who use drugs, but it’s no longer for me. I had to stop.”

For people wanting to throw their own DIY event, Pauli has some tips on reducing harm and creating a safer space. “First of all, free water… our bodies are 70 percent water, when we are dehydrated things [get dangerous]. Second, when throwing an event in a DIY space or anywhere that’s not a conventional venue, try to imagine anything that could go wrong and then fill in those gaps. If there is a section of the space that has exposed wires, fence it off…. Have Narcan, have electrolytes, have glucose on hand. Plan for disaster. It’s like having a baby; childproof.”

“Nightlife is like a garden where people can plant their seeds and just blossom…” they said, before tilting their head to the side and raising their shoulders… “or not. There’s also a lot of weeds. The same way people can flourish from it, they can die… It’s not that nightlife destroys people’s lives, it’s that they’re not in a place where they can set boundaries for themselves and can’t say ‘no’ to anything. Sometimes people get caught up in the toxic aspects of it but that’s a part of everything in life. There’s a duality to every space you enter, even if it’s a [traditional] church.”

While Pauli is currently against what they see as “cancel culture,” they were once an active canceler. “There was a time in my life where I was viewing cancel culture and publicly defaming people as a step towards justice for someone who’d been harmed,” they explained. “But as I’ve gotten older and matured, I’ve realized it’s not a productive [mode of justice]. We are moving away from providing compassion for those who have done harm and away from providing care for those who have experienced harm. [Cancel culture forces] victims to hyper-focus on their trauma. It doesn’t contribute to any cycle of healing. [I’ve learned a lot by reading] We Will Not Cancel Us by Adrienne Maree Brown.”

Going over to their bookshelf, Pauli searched for the book, before tossing it into my lap. “When I was engaging in cancel culture I was acting out of my own trauma. I was thinking in a binary way, ‘oh this person hurt someone, they deserve to be hurt.’ That’s the same system the police use to lock people away for the rest of their lives. I believe in transformative justice and intrapersonal conflict mediation. I’ve had experiences where people have tried to cancel me, where people have tried to define me by a mistake that I’ve made… it takes the humanism out of things…. As Adrian Marie says, cancel culture is a ‘feeding frenzy.’”

For Pauli, cancel culture works in opposition to a larger philosophy of harm reduction—and Pauli sees harm reduction as a vital tool in prolonging the longevity of nightlife and protecting its members; who, throughout history, have often been those at the forefront of art, culture, and activism. Nightlife fostered our Van Goghs and Basquiats, our David Burnes and Bad Bunnys, our Sigmund Freuds and T.S. Elliots, our Harvey Milks and Marsha P. Johnsons. Whom amongst us, wriggling and writhing and hopping on a sticky dance floor to Pauli or a musician like them, might join their ranks? And would that even be possible without the experiences and connections made within culture-focused frivolity?

“I always knew I wanted to be known in New York for something,” they said near the end of our time together. “I had all these issues; fighting, getting bullied, being institutionalized a few times—just being a problematic kid. But nightlife made me feel larger than life. When it started really happening, I didn’t question it. It made sense. I wanted to meet everyone, I wanted everyone to know me. I wanted to look good and feel good. New York City is just a hyper fucking city, there’s so much going on here all the time. I always wanted to be in all of it all at once.”

I called my car home and left with another hug, grateful for the vulnerability and honesty Pauli had shared with me. My headphones in, my finger poised to play a podcast, my car arrived. Getting into the back seat, I decided to take out my headphones and roll down the window. As we drove north in Ocean Side, up into Bushwick, sounds poured from other cars, barbeques, and stoop parties. Migos’ base broken by an ice-cream truck’s jingle, which melted into an old gospel song before grinding into some reggaeton. The city sweated and danced to its song, revving up with half the chorus to Smells Like Teen Spirit fighting with a rival car’s “that’s my best friend,” before sirens and horns plunged the tune into a little Nina Simone. And, in the distance, I almost heard the familiar call of Crazy Frog.

Music

The Freaks Come Out at Night

October 31, 2022

Halloween comes around once a year, providing a release from “real life” and letting us all indulge in our weirdest, wildest fantasies. In Brooklyn’s Navy Yard under pulsating neon lights, New York’s most offbeat crowds came together to let the music take over.

Ibiza’s legendary brand, Circoloco, dominated the warehouse in partnership with Teksupport for two consecutive nights for an indelible experience that brought intricate costume and fashion, contagious music, and dance culture together. The dancefloor witnessed some of the city’s most twisted costumes while a superstar lineup kept the crowd energized all night long.

The night included sets by Seth Troxler, Carlita, Chloé Caillet, Folamour, &Me vs Rampa, and more. It ended with the Martinez Brothers, the duo that commonly provided the soundtrack to Givenchy’s iconic runway shows, and who were first discovered at a Circoloco show by Ricardo Tisci himself. Circoloco has also collaborated with legends such as Naomi Campbell and Virgil Abloh, setting the tone as a platform that truly captures the modern, free-flowing zeitgeist — anything goes at Circoloco, as long as the music doesn’t stop.