HEADS KNOW TAPE 021: DJ Girl
An interview and DJ mix from the EAT DIS co-founder who just creates weird shit.
Photo courtesy of the artist.
HEADS KNOW TAPES is our mix and interview series, curated to introduce you to the most exciting innovators, selectors, and artists from New York City and beyond.
DJ Girl has always been an enigma to me. It's not that she's unreachable–since becoming mutuals on social media, she's been open to talking about everything from the fall of Bandcamp and the elitism of record collecting to her own music, yet I still feel like her lore is scattered around the tiny crevices of the internet.
Currently based in Austin, Texas, the producer was born in Michigan before spending some time in Chicago. With Nondi_, she built an online community, EAT DIS, which transformed into a record label with a cult following of real online crate-diggers.
Last year, DJ Girl made her Planet Mu debut with her album, Hellworld, which garnered recognition from the likes of Bandcamp Daily, Resident Advisor, and I even had the pleasure of writing about it on The FADER. The project was an accurate representation of the artist, delivering eight sweeping cuts ranging from breakcore and electro to Detroit techno and Chicago footwork. Praised for being one of electronic music's most exciting innovators, it's not surprising that she strives to reject repetition by continuing to learn and improve.
In this tape, DJ Girl ricochets from genre to genre and talks the evolution of EAT DIS, almost dying for Chicago footwork, and her unconventional introduction to dance music.
This has been a long time coming and I'm so excited about having you on, so thank you! What have you been up to?
Recently I've just locked myself indoors and I've been trying to—not reinvent my musical style, but—just get better at what I love and what I'm doing. For the past two weeks, I've been trying to watch tutorials, build new patches, and get out of my comfort zone with making music and shit because I was feeling like I was shooting out the same thing over and over again.
Whose tutorials have been helping you out the most?
I've been watching a lot of this one guy, Julien Earle. Dude's pretty good. He has a lot of really fun, up-to-date stuff, not just "Make Techno in 10 Minutes" type stuff.
What DAW do you use?
I've been using Ableton since I was 14.
Wow, that's young. How did you even start getting into making music?
It's kind of funny because when I was 11 or 12, I was really interested in metal and stuff like that. I remember listening to the Last.fm Brutal Death Metal Radio as a kid, and some breakcore showed up. It was Drumcorps. That shit blew my fucking mind. I was like, "Oh my god, this is the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life." I didn't even realize that electronic music could be that hard or that ridiculous. That really started off my journey into dance music.
I found an old YouTube video of the dude showing his process, and he was using Ableton 8 I was just like, "I gotta go get this." So I pirated Ableton 7 when I was 13 or so, and the only thing I could figure out how to do at first was sequence drums. I just found it so cool that you could make really fast drum hits, and that started it. I didn't get into making house and techno until I was 14 or 15, when I found out about acid house and shit like that.
You were in Detroit when all of this was happening?
Yeah. One thing is, when I was a kid, I fucking hated Michigan a lot. I thought it was a really shitty, boring state. Then, one night—it's so clear in my fucking head—I just remember finding out about Jeff Mills' Waveform Transmission Vol. 1 and that first track, "Phase 4". It was 3 AM and I wasn't allowed to be on the computer that late, but I snuck upstairs and I remember hearing this and thinking it was the most amazing thing I've ever listened to. I was like, "Who is this guy? Where is he from?" and saw that he was from Detroit. Then, I found out techno is from Detroit and that kicked it off for me. I just became so obsessed after that.
Where did you think techno was from?
I thought it was some European shit. I didn't realize it was such an American invention.
Speaking of the height of American music innovation, I actually know you for your Chicago footwork-inspired tracks. How did you get into that?
I wouldn't say that it was big, but there were people that would listen to juke pretty often back in the day. Tha Pope - "Bob That Back Down" was really popular. I remember watching that video and it blew my mind that it could be that pumping.
With footwork, I heard it through the osmosis and then, when I was 16 or so, I stumbled across Just A Taste Vol. One by DJ Rashad and that first track, "Ghost," destroyed my brain. I didn't realize music could be that complicated. It's funny listening back to it now because it's just some footwork, but back then, it was so mind-blowing—all the triplet grooves, how hard and aggressive it was. I became obsessed after that point.
It's interesting you say that "it's just footwork" because even now, whenever I introduce my friends who are already familiar with electronic music, they're still so surprised by footwork and how they've never heard anything like it before—even though it's not new.
It kind of punches you in the gut when you first hear it. It's so machismo, so masculine, and feels so aggressive.
It's also so polarizing. I almost fucking died showing my friends DJ Rashad once. I was 17 and we were going up north to a friend's cabin. They let me put on music and I put on a DJ Rashad track off of Just A Taste, "You Azz". The person who was driving was just like, "Turn this fucking shit off," and was trying to yank my iPod out of my hand while he was driving. We almost went off the side of a cliff. It was really crazy. At that moment, in my head, I knew I was not hanging out with these people anymore. That was ridiculous.
I get footwork is supposed to be battle tracks, but that’s intense…
It was also 2011 or 2012 and everyone still didn't respect electronic music. They thought it was a fucking gimmick. But I saw the vision. I thought it was really cool and stuck with it. Now I'm here.
Somewhere in between then and now, you started EAT DIS with some people. How did that happen?
It was a gradual trickle. It didn't even become fully realized until everyone started hearing about it. I just wanted to start a group chat on Discord for music and a bunch of people came through. When the pandemic hit, a lot of people were looking for a place to hang out, and I already had the server. EAT DIS was already realized by that time. We released three or four compilations and a couple of other releases.
When Nondi_—we've been friends since I was 17, by the way—was still doing stuff as Yakui, she kept trying to send this album called IMNI to people. I was just like, "I have a little label I can release it on and I can make you a bunch of CDs." It worked out really well. I made 30 CDs and sold out of all of them. After that, I wanted to see how far this goes.
Last year, you debuted on Planet Mu. They just asked you to be on it?
Yeah, they just asked me to be on it. I thought that was kind of crazy. But also the person that asked is Mike Paradinas' wife, Meemo Comma. When she asked, I was already forming together a release and when they asked me, I was just like, "Oh shit, we can be on Planet Mu." I nosedived right into it, finished everything up in a couple of weeks, and sent it over to them.
I was never a label person until I really got into digging. As someone who runs their own label, what's the importance of a label for the average music consumer?
For the average music consumer, I don't really know. But the whole association game helps you contextualize a lot of stuff. Especially if it's a more historic label, you get to see who was in a scene at the time, the overall sound and what it meant at different points in time.
You say "historic labels," but I would argue that EAT DIS records your scene now. In ten years, when people are digging and find your label, what do you hope they get out of it?
Oh damn, I don't even fucking know. I've never thought about this ever. I just roll with the punches. I hope people see EAT DIS as an interesting breath of fresh air amongst all of the labels of its time. We do actual dance music and weird shit—I hope people notice that there was a difference and it wasn't all just "net music."
If someone wants to send you music, what will draw you to a song or project and make you think it's worthy of a release on the label?
It has to feel unique. Everything that I've greenlit, it's all stuff that's very compartmentalized in itself. The projects have to be cohesive with their own bit of flavor. It's not artsy artsy, but I like to think of everything as its own art piece, even if it's crass or rude or strange.
Is your family musical?
Nope, not at all. My mama got a degree in accounting and my dad's a chef. I'm the only artsy person in my family, pretty much.
What in particular made you say: "Fuck it. This is what I want to do"?
Honestly, I really just kind of wanted to die. For a long period of time, I had no purpose. I was just foundering through life, working shitty jobs, doing drugs with losers, and not really applying myself to anything. I always liked making music, but when that got noticed and I played my first show, I got to see my worth.
It was this shitty ass bar gig in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and nobody showed up. But when I started playing, people came off the street to come in and party. It went from a floor of nobody to 30 people in this building. I remember the feeling of everyone being happy because of shit I was playing and it felt great. I needed to do it more. That rolled into a music career. It wasn't intentional at all, but it's the one thing I applied myself to and ended up working and people liked it.
Music is the place I'm respected. Every other job I work at, I'm seen as smaller. Meek. When I do music, it's just like, "Damn, that bitch is crazy."
DJ Girl at Draiimolen 2023. Photo by Angelina Nikolayeva.
Which artists, producers, DJs, labels, collectives, or anyone else, should heads know
What can we expect from the mix?
It's really fucking good. It's one of the best mixes I ever dropped, period. It came out of nowhere, too. I was just recording and made the mix. After that, I was like, "Wow. I didn't even clang at all." It's also one of the first mixes in a long while that I threw some footwork that I was listening to in 2018, 2019. It's a diverse mix and very much my style. It's hard as fuck, especially toward the end.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Correction (September 18th, 2024): An earlier version of this newsletter stated that Meemo Comma was trans. She is a cisgender woman.
Follow DJ Girl on Bandcamp, SoundCloud, Instagram, Twitter, and find out when she’ll be in your city next via Resident Advisor. You can also support EAT DIS on Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
DJ ESP - 4 Days In The Laboratory
SHXCXCHCXSH - Elocution
Paul Johnson - 4 The World
EDMX - The Vigilante
Planetary Assault Systems - Hold It
Mateo Murphy - Blue
Dave Tarrida - Shake Down
London Modular Alliance - Nuclear Rainfall
Fastgraph - 3Des
Carl Finlow - Compliant
DeFeKt - Don't Stop
Detroit's Filthiest - Element of Suprise
Inigo Kennedy - Perpetual Notions
Karenn - Happy Birthday
Wheez-ie - Guttermouth
Pariah - One On One
Baseck - TERMIN8 (Bonus Beats)
Ken Ishii - MOMM
DJ GIRL - TURN UP THE BASS
Robert Hood - Nothing Stops Detroit
Global Goon - Thesques
Le Dom - Water Coaster
twofold - I Just Saw Them (Zvrra Remix)
7th Sense & Aku - PowDee
Uncle Texx - Destroy Tengu
Paisley Parks - RAW
DJ Clent - Fire
DJ Nephets - I'm A Flirt
