Erin Arthur

The first winner of our New Blood 2017 competition is New Yorker Erin Arthur who also goes by her DJ name Animalia. Erin received her higher education in visual arts and has been exploring the relations between sound and emotional states since she was at school. This naturally drew her to installation art and thinking about space, performance and narrative. Another medium she found for putting these ideas in action is the DJ set and mix – some of her previous mixes can be found on her Soundcloud. We’re happy to have her clever offering on our roster!

For her New Blood entry Erin chose to focus on experimental/noise/IDM genres and their intersections. The mix starts with a personal touch – the elegant, exotic flow of a Cibo Matto track. The playfully cinematic alt-pop tune shifts into the minimal droney pulsations of Ø, which is a type of contrast that recurs throughout the mix – the same Cibo Matto stands next to the ambient of O Yuki Conjugate or Elbee Bad’s uplifting and soulful pulsations, which merge into early Plastikman’s stark cuts. There are also a number of IDM classics incorporated into the selection spanning the last couple of decades and presenting a kaleidoscopic history of the genre. These carefully woven gems induce an airy and deep vibe in the selection, whether it was Autechre’s “Kalpol Introl” or Seefeel’s blurry shoegaze patterns. The mix mostly maintains unusual rhythmic patterns and rarely jumps to 4/4. It is a very focused, floating affair – a personal journey through a rich electronic music landscape. Erin’s selection brings a variety of spaces to mind, from white-walled galleries to suburban woodlands. The mixture of irregular geometric shapes, the airy pastel palette, the circular and straight lines of Lawren Harris’ “Abstract No.7” capture the dynamics of the mix rather nicely. The abstract structure has some sharp and static futuristic traits, yet at the same time is very integral and lively, similarly to this sonic narrative.

In the records

Erin Arthur on the mix

I started off by remembering sounds of the nineties within the music scene but also extending beyond that to films and video games. I normally work off a theme of my own but for this mix I started with an artist I wanted to feature and the rest came out of that. I remembered finding Cibo Matto in high school and thinking they were so cool and different. I still feel this way so I wanted them to start things off, found a track I liked, and developed a loose narrative from there. As the mix developed so too did my own personal theme and I had a very vivid sense of place (or places, as there was more than one) and I wanted to interpret these environments sonically. I decided the Free Jazz/Experimental/Noise genres gave me the most freedom to interpret and explore so I kept within that realm. I sought out tracks with unusual rhythm patterns and even tried experimenting within the blends of the mix itself, putting two different bpms together to play with the ear a bit and create rhythm shifts. I also kept an ear out for tracks that used sound and/or distortion to create a sense of atmosphere; in particular I was attracted to watery, windy, and electrical sounds.

Because of the nineties element, I found myself thinking more about specific artists than I usually do when making a mix. This was a challenge for me because I usually make choices based on something more nebulous, like a mood or feeling. Despite any struggles I may have had, the challenge was incredibly worth it! I discovered new artists, re-discovered artists I hadn’t listened to in years, and was continually amazed at all the work being produced during this decade that seemed to go virtually unnoticed in its time, at least here in the U.S. This added a nice rich layer to the entire process that was new to me but enjoyable, and some exciting things came out of it.