Written Interview with TEH for FWD.DJ 2019

Listen to the mix here: https://soundcloud.com/fwd-dj/fwd133-teh

Hi TEH thanks for taking the time to take us on a sonic journey and for opening up to answer these questions, let first talk about your amazing mix. Where was this mix recorded and what would you like people to know about it?

I first started working on the idea behind this mix at Wilson's peaceful home on top Russian Hill. Wilson is a good friend and musical inspirer, who graciously allows me to stay with him unconditionally during my homeless stints in SF. I was playing around with some of my favorite down tempo tracks, while he worked a few feet away, he nodded in approval when I was content experimenting. Though the final product was in the den of the house I grew up in, at my father's old desk where he did an array of his research. It is a meaningful spot for me, as the void from his passing cuts deep, but to channel the confidence and exuberance with which he approached life is where I derive much of my new found strength. From my first naive attempt at DJ'ing on father's day at the infamous R3 party, to this solemn 87bpm retrospective, they are all in memoriam of his spirit.

Please take us through the mix, what relationship do you have to each track and why did you choose it?

Some of my choices were deliberate, others based on key matching experimentation within my various playlists. The first three tracks Frau Holle, Vespa, Sesssion Add were a combination I found a few months ago that I enjoyed. I like that they are three very different songs, but have a strange harmony with each other that tell a sort of melodic creepy/mysterious introduction. Similarly View was on key and worked well to move Session Add along, while building some new energy. I had wanted to include both a Nils Frahm track and a new Weval track, so finding the combination between Ross's Harmonium and Silence on the Wall felt serendipitous. I had also felt like mixing with Jasmine, and had toyed with putting other songs in between, but found this order to fit the vibe. Jasmine stands on its own, so it seemed appropriate to have an Interlude, and subsequently I really enjoyed how A2 sounded pitched down. Painting Out is a song that I had on repeat recently, and drew a lot of emotions out of me. I was a little disappointed when it seemed to be out of the BPM range for this mix, but I ended up digging the tone of the significantly pitched down version, as well as adding a thumping transitionary bass from A2. Passage is a very solid track that came to mind as a track that is vaguely ambient then builds in a nicely melodic fashion. Last Remnants has been a track that I always have wanted to use and it happened to key match with Passage, as well as having some nice bell oriented synergy. Lost & Found was a semi recent find with an interesting emotion that is true to its name. No Flowers was a song that I had initially wanted to start with, but eventually rotated it out as I experimented more, and then came full circle as a good song to drive the emotion behind the final vibe. I found Gravity while obsessively looking through the new Kalipo tracks, and Rene is a song that I enjoy a great deal, as it is such a great reflection of both Acid Pauli and Roman Fluegel.

You find yourself stranded on an island which just happens to have a solar-powered function 1 sound system and the entire back catalog of _______ records. What would your desert island label be & why?

Ninja Tune. Fittingly, while cleaning out my childhood room I found a Ninja Tune shirt that I had bought at Urban Outfitters circa 1999, which was some strange foreshadowing because I had bought the shirt solely based on the logo. The biggest reason for this choice would be for Bonobo, who has been one of my top 5 favorite artists for the past 15~ years. Ninja Tune is quite stacked beyond that, in eclectic fashion, with Maribou State additionally being one of my recent favorite artists on heavy rotation.

What are some of your favorite releases on this label?

Days to Come (Bonobo), Kingdom of Colours (Maribou State), Love Songs: Part Two (Romare), Oban b/w Oban (Jaga Jazzist - Todd Terje Remix), & many more...

You founded an online community called Concert Raptors. Tell us a little about it.

I honestly have trouble explaining it to myself at this point. The raptor community has changed so much from where it was "founded", which isn't even very discrete-- I'm still trying to configure a longer writing project to tell the story, but I will try to be short here. Perhaps there is a separation between how it exists IRL, and its form as an online community, though those are inherently connected as well. The initial seeds were produced from scavenger hunts that I ran as The Concert Raptor, with the intention of creating a framework where the true fan would prevail through their intrinsically motivated effort. It took time and patience to garner trust, but about a year into the project a combination of Outside Lands, Jamie XX, and Ratatat created a perfect storm that namely spread through Lyft HQ. I had met many amazing musically minded people a long the way, but at that point there seemed to be rampant growth and attention, and I rode that wave by providing even more tickets in reckless abandonment for my own wallet. The hunts became fun little beacons for people to meet each other, which led to discussions on how to realize and connect this forming community, eventually landing on using the Facebook group that you see today.

Initially even that space was dominated by whatever I was doing to provide tickets and spaces for people to convene. As time went on, and courage built, more people (turned raptors) began to interact with the idea, and either sell or giveaway tickets that they may have once considered putting up on StubHub or what-have-you. Those examples continued to drive the culture of the community, which slowly transformed my undefined role from provider to facilitator. I maintained the scavenger hunts for some time, until the point where basically no one would show up, as the page in itself had become a resource to connect and attain tickets. Though, I seemed to maintain the responsibility as the beacon creator, and so teaming up with my friend Seanco, we started throwing parties as a freeform way for raptors to enjoy each other with music. My own parties were my introduction to DJ'ing, where I started from the extreme naive perspective of not even realizing that beat matching was a thing. Though this sort of party phase began about two years ago, I think it is still very much inconclusive what the raptor page, community, etc. will become. I think the party phase created a divergence that is slowly cycling back to where it started.

What prompted you to start this community and where do you see it headed?

I usually come back to feelings of frustration and isolation. San Francisco in general is such a wonderful place that is juxtaposed by immense pain, which really hit me when I was living within the happy-go-lucky baby bubble of Noe Valley, while gazing onto a metropolis filled with homelessness. Music events were my outlet and escape, yet I noticed a cancerous effect growing within continually disengaged crowds. I thought the root of the problem must have been the point of grabbing a ticket, since every sold out show I attended had distraught fans outside who's place seemed to be taken by yet another loud mouthed musically disinterested tech worker. I've always imagined what it would be like to intentionally hand out every ticket for a show, a true raptor-take-over so to speak, where the entire crowd is in sync because they all share a similar immense love for the artist. The crowd is truly a driving force for the experience at a show, and in turn one that is connected and aware of itself is an experience that transcends whatever space you physically stand between in a venue. I suppose that dream, and the idea of connecting an existing, yet unaware community, is what prompted much of my inspiration. From that lens I have always taken a fan-centric perspective, even as I step behind the curtain occasionally to play into my DJ delusion.

Seeing where it is headed has been about as difficult as figuring out my role within my own life. The two are quite intertwined at this point, especially when I got myself fired via an email I sent while at Outside Lands. Though, I believe it is a time of discrimination, in the sense that the community has been an extremely unifying force, but it may be time for it to exist in a more decentralized fashion. Not to say that there will be conflict, but that people will gravitate toward their various centers, where they will find others on the same wavelength. The easiest way to see this happening is how group pages have sprung up in LA, NY, Berlin, Atlanta, Chicago, and Portland. They are all in various states, and not nearly as active as the main page, but it is just a matter of inspiration and ignition before those build their own collective force. In a very broad sense, I hope this collective ebb and flow of decentralization and consolidation of community provides us all as fans to be better connected to the artists we love, in the venues where we continue to find ourselves. Beyond everything communication is key, and I hope that our ability to communicate evolves with growth.

How can someone join this community?

There are many ways really, though at this point I have become a gatekeeper of sorts-- at least from the online perspective. If you love music, I think it is quite easy to demonstrate that, because to speak freely about an artist/song/genre you love is not effortful. Being kind to others, and asking nicely tends to be a function of that, but that is surprisingly a point of failure for many people. The page will continually be harder to find, because I make it so, as the amount of people trying to join because of their self-proclaimed desire for cheap tickets is an invalid initial intention to be a raptor. There are other groups to join now for those just looking for cheap tickets. In fact some of them were created in response to my behaviors, which has been a very surreal occurrence to watch.

As far as communities and scenes go the Electronic one is in quite an interesting place right now, what are your thoughts when you read articles like the following: https://www.residentadvisor.net/news/43319?

I think artistic appropriation is very interesting and increasingly salient now, especially within electronic music, where you essentially have access to every old and new sound. From that end, DJ's are sort of the ultimate appropriators, where playing out other's music without their permission is paradoxically part of the culture. I personally don't prescribe to any culture, even within DJ'ing, which has made me feel somewhat isolated, though at the same time I enjoy taking the perspective as an explorer and holistic supporter of music. As much as I don't prescribe myself, I enjoy engaging and learning about everything and everyone I come across.

I can't speak to the exact intentions of behind that Jumanji project, and though I agree that if the use of the anthem was a throwaway, then the record is as such, but at the same time I don't think gatekeeping is always the solution. Having said that, there seems to be a pretty powerful influx of world music hitting the electronic scene, which I would describe as "tribal" house. I enjoy it when I'm in a certain heady mood, the chanting, melodic tones, and percussion are very expressive, but I do sometimes pause to ponder where these elements were pulled from, and in turn who is really benefitting. Either way, the electronic community seems to be very receptive and responsive when perceivably at fault. I think another good example from a more popular angle was Porter Robinson changing the name of Multiverse to Second Sky without any sort of friction or resistance. There was an extremely reactive response that was not unfounded, but unnecessarily accusatory of his intentions. It's inevitable that these boundaries will continue to blur, and I hope that in the future it is a cause for more discussion and understanding, instead of the radioactive discourse that tends to occur on social media.

Recently festivals like Primavera and Field days have made the news due to their commitment to a gender-balanced line-up. If you were to organize your (limitless budget) dream festival would it have a gender-balanced line-up? Why/Why not?

When I was in New York about two years ago I had a drink with friends, and friends of friends, one who was a DJ/event producer lamenting the gender balancing rhetoric of his partner. I didn't necessarily agree with him, but I am a firm believer in understanding another's truth, and I do think that his feelings came from experience and not-so terrible intentions. To extend my own thoughts from his lens, I don't believe the corner will be turned as long as these ideas do remain as rhetoric, which is not to say that we should ignore historical gender disparity, but perhaps we shouldn't be patting ourselves on the back for the sake of publicity.

Maybe I am being naive, or maybe I am about to hypocritically pat myself on the back for saying that my dreamfest would inherently be balanced. Admittedly many of my favorite electronic producers are men, but when it comes to (especially) vocalists, and pretty much every other type of musical performer, I tend to prefer feminine expressions. When I think of constructing the lineup for a festival, I think of balancing the music, and I don't think you can separate that from inherently having a balance between men and women. Basically I believe these disparities are not a function of musical appreciation, but instead of decisions based on shallow marketing statistics. I have come across successful promoters who do not have a perceivable taste in music, and so they would fall into the gender bias by booking based on popularity, which still favors men for sure.

Who are you listening to alot these days and what releases are you excited about that are on the horizon?

I've been really into the new Weval and Maribou State releases, additionally Khruangbin's collaborations with Maribou State are something truly magical. I guess the sort of funky deep house vibe has been my jam recently, and I'm looking forward to Boogie Belgique's new EP Machine. Miyagi also seems to be coming out with some new tracks, and I find his style to be amazingly consistent yet unique. I've also really enjoyed Eluize's vibe recently, she seems to be in a prolific phase at the moment. Grimes or c is one of my goddesses, and though I don't think she can ever eclipse the magic of Visions, I am excited to see where she is going-- I believe in her beyond all of the insanity that surrounds her at the moment.

You recently moved from San Francisco to LA - what prompted this move and how would you define the scene/sound/vibe of each city when it comes to music?

I left my apartment in SF after not being able to afford it anymore (this was actually a year ago, but I have floated around), and moved my stuff back to LA to live with my mom. LA certainly has more artists than SF, where a crazy percentage of SF headliners are just passing through on tour. LA also has a much better warehouse scene, which is well promoted and produced from a technical side, which is probably just due to the amount of space at one's disposal in the outskirts of downtown. Though I do feel like there are more appreciators and DJ nerds in SF, which makes it fun to play in any venue, and that energy is what has allowed me to progress-- still much to my own surprise. I find the music community in SF to be more welcoming in general, and LA to be more judgmental and superficial-- as one would probably stereotype it. I actually don't like LA very much, but I would like to throw a warehouse party there someday, or perhaps even in my mom's garage-- with lots of pizza of course.

Though, I actually just moved to Santa Fe this week, or New SF as I am calling it. I'm finding the space and pace of life here to be very comforting. Meow Wolf is building a really nice music scene here, which is where I'm working, though I am currently just doing website development for them. I'm looking forward to seeing art and music being more viewable and decentralized from the overly consolidated city hubs.

What is on the Horizon for TEH & Concert Raptors?

As I said earlier, I really have no idea, but I hope the IRL community connections continue to develop as they have recently. I'm still configuring my space in New SF, but I have already met some interesting music/sound fanatics, so I'm hoping to develop some new abilities and expressions, be more collaborative-- perhaps learn drums, which has been on my mind for awhile. I would like to also provide a connection between SF and New SF, where we can explore the desert in repose from city life.

Nonetheless, I still plan on being involved in SF musically, and building on ideas related to models that are far outside of the toxic perspective that Facebook and other tech companies take on scaling. Nature, music, and other seemingly magical parts of our lives have much more to communicate than merely being sources of euphoria, and there is much we can learn from approaching them sacredly. Collectively we have been given many powerful tools, and it is the right time to put them into action in ways that can solve worldly problems through social shifts of attention and sensibility. In short, there is much to be gained by enjoying each other with music, in new safe spaces, while sharing all that we have, and building upon those simple tenets that have allowed Nature to flourish eternally. In shorter short, mushrooms.

Tags: Bay Area, Bonobo, Deep House, Interview, Ninja Tune