"Our Warehouses Are Our Imploding Temples"
the minds and musical lores of the ambient artists playing at Cuntillion
Hi princesses!
The streets in LA are buzzing about Another Castle’s Cuntillion this weekend—a decadent ball running from midnight to noon (!), and featuring a dazzling lineup of techno and ambient music all-stars. It’s going to be major, and if you’re in town, I highly recommended snagging a discounted ticket before the prices go up again!
I’ve been put in charge of the chill-out room—a task that has tickled my growing interest in curating spaces designed for softness, introspection, and psychedelic journeying… you could call it “soft clubbing.” As such, I’ve invited a cast of colorful characters plucked from the forests and dark warehouses of Los Angeles and Berlin, where they have been playing soul-stirring music made with everything from field recordings of raindrops to classical Turkish lutes. The conversations I had with them are like road maps to some of the most amazing ambient-adjacent music and happenings around right now… Dive into it below.
ELIJAH BADUA — SC / Spotify / IG
Track that reminds you of your earliest rave days:
It’s hard to even remember who was playing my earliest rave days. I was literally a rave baby, the first warehouse I lived in was in Oakland when I was six years old, with my mother who was a touring musician and artist and her friends. There was a wall dividing my bedroom and where they’d play everything from psytrance to happy hardcore til there was one guy left dancing his ass off in the morning.
I grew up going to shows and festivals with her while she toured, and was exposed to a lot of music. I honestly didn’t start paying attention to techno or artists in the rave scene though until I went to Europe, in particular one cold Berlin evening where I encountered DJ Stingray, and by effect Drexciya for the first time. I think hearing it there really put the music into context for me. It felt like a visceral response to the harsh realities of war and trying to cope with the mind boggling pace of post war technological and social change.
Best album/mix to play for a friend who wants to go deep and introspective on a psychedelic trip:
Most unlikely inspiration source recently:
Just, the ground. Sometimes I look at the ground, kind of space out on the cracks in cement or different particles of sand where I find my thoughts. Pattern recognition is a kind of game I play that conjures ideas running parallel with each other, some of them musical.
You just got back from an Asia tour. What excites you about the underground scenes you experienced there?
China is a trip, I’ve experienced probably the most contrast between futuristic and ancient here then any single place I could say I’ve been. Chengdu took us in like it was home, it just happened. It’s like the precious cradle of creativity, you could be in a rave 30 floors high one night and the next in a cave near the Tibetan plateau. It’s a true melting pot for the world, no wonder they eat so much hot pot.
Tell us about the tanbur, the instrument that you are playing during your set at Cuntillion
Yaylı tanbur is the recently invented (hundred or so years) bowed variant of the mizraplı (plucked) tanbur from ottoman times in Turkey, a classical instrument played in the courts of sultans, as well as dergah’s which are the tombs of passed Sufi saints and ceremonial meeting places for those that pay respects to them.
Saddest sound you’ve ever heard:
My ravanhattha teacher, Ramlal Bhopa’s fiddle playing. He was a Romani from Rajasthan, India, the last of a generation of oral storytelling priest musicians from a 2000 year old clan called Bhopa with no place in today’s society after the partition of India in 1947. He was illiterate but knew days worth of songs and would teach them to me crying because he knew there’s some that would die with him. I could not keep my tears back. He died from throat cancer smoking beedis since he was two years old.
A musician that has deeply influenced your work:
My dear friend Yaarrohs, who just recently passed away. She helped me find my voice, my musical identity, and is one of my biggest inspirations as an artist. She was so gifted, like magically. I really cherish the time we spent together, her insights were some of the most meaningful anyone’s ever imparted, not just to me.
Fantasy chill-out room of your dreams:
Hot sexy penguin pile.
Recent photo from your camera roll:
011668 - website / IG / BC
What inspired you to start the Church of Toyota?
My family, starting with my grandmother, was part of a church called Seicho No Ie, a non-denominational church that was influenced by a mixture of christian, buddhist, and shinto elements. The church says that all religions emanate from one universal source, and each religion differs because of cultural, historical, and environmental influences.
My grandmother also passed down a Toyota vehicle to me. I thought that the Toyota logo evoked the feeling of a venn diagram, or the overlapping beliefs between multiple religions. It reminded me of all the religions that currently coexist in the USA. All of these religions are also in conversation with Christianity, since America was "founded"/settled upon Christian ideals. Every household has its own unique blend of spiritual beliefs.
With all of these things in mind, I decided to use the Toyota logo as a placeholder for my personal religious experience, one that is definitely influenced by industry, capitalism, and car culture.
Most sacred site in LA:
The LA River - Arroyo Seco Confluence is my favorite place in LA. This area has been officially designated as the First Temple of Toyota in Los Angeles. I enjoy coming here to watch birds, listen to the train pass, and think about the passage of time. According to New Toyota Theory, the LA River will break apart in the year 2378 and I believe that the next God will rise from beneath it. According to the book of Exodus, God occasionally lives on Earth within a tabernacle for 440 years at a time. The LA River was paved in a tabernacl shape (inverted trapezoid) in 1938.
Ideal DJ mix/album to trip to:
Malibu - One Life, Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Ariana Grande - Eternal Sunshine
Most unlikely recent inspiration source:
Food, specifically soup broths, have been my most recent fascination. They remind me of the formation of the Earth, and ancestral memories.
Craziest/spookiest/coolest place you’ve thrown a rave:
Song playing as you die and are reincarnated into the next life:
Three performance artists that have had a deep influence on your work:
My grandmother loved Cirque du Soleil. I loved the acrobat/juggler Viktor Kee in Dralion.
The first Butoh dancer I saw was called Yokko. I saw her perform in Hollywood sometime in 2018-19ish. I had already been touching on butoh elements but this was my first introduction to butoh as a style. From there I started to research more.
Lunice.
Fantasy chill-out room of your dreams:
Cement floor, empty room with a tatami mat, pond or lazy river, speakers, skylight, cool temperature lights
Recent photo from your camera roll:
DJ TY — IG / SC / radio show
Song that reminds you of your childhood:
It's a cheese track, sure, but my earliest memories at Hollywood YMCA's daycare are full of excitement for when this song would play on the little boombox they had in there.
Best album to play while tripping on mescaline in the desert:
Most unlikely inspiration source recently:
This was a bedroom production by two high school kids in the 80s. It has seen vast recycling into the purgatorial zones of corporate hold music. It also happens to be a downtempo banger.
What excites you about the underground in LA? What do you want to see more of?
LA is actually a raw and chaotic city, and that rawness is nowhere more honestly distilled than into the venues we use. Our warehouses are our imploding temples. I would love to see more unexpected collaborations between crews that promote very different types of music. I am easily bored by pretentiously singular lineups and moods.
California DJs or rave collectives that have inspired your sound:
Bay Area's Wicked is a point of origin for me. Also Kandel's Exist Dance era. Inner Sunset Recordings. Modularz.
It's 6am on a beach in Croatia, the sunlight is breaking through the clouds as you emerge from the ocean after dancing all night at a beach rave. What do you want to hear?
Pretty much any Pete Namlook and Mixmaster Morris collab.
A DJ who has deeply influenced your style:
DJ Marcelle. Her mixes are creative in the strictest sense, abstractly fusing disparate elements into a new rhythmic unity.
Fantasy chill-out room of your dreams:
It would probably have a wide spectrum cushioned floors/pillows - but there would also be a lot of scrap metal at perhaps dangerous orthogonality from the floor. Also a sandbox on one side of the room and some sort of silent stretching session. Perfect speaker coverage and tuning. Minimally visible DJ.
Recent photo from your camera roll:
JAKE MUIR - website / BC / SC / IG
Fave secret nature spot in LA:
For a long time I would regularly hike the eastern section of Temescal canyon. The trail started up some steps behind the community center building at the parking lot. I'm not sure if any of it is left from the fires... I should go check it out. It was less maintained than the main trail on the left side of the park and barely had any traffic. It also had some very lush sections and these narrow ridge parts that would plant you in the middle of this canyon. All of that made you feel pretty removed from the city.
Describe an ideal DJ mix:
One of my favorites is this heater from Keith Fullerton Whitman:
Not a "Greatest Hit" per se, but easily my favorite (early) Mac song, edited across multiple versions & fidelities to play somewhat seamlessly for over 2 hours, with the mix slowly being eroded by a cavernous echo that is being gated by the dynamics of the dry signal.
Most unlikely inspiration source recently:
I never thought I’d end up in Berlin making an album about church bell ringing, but here we are!
What excites you about Berlin’s experimental music scene right now?
Unlike most cities, Berlin is lucky to have multiple spaces that host nights on this axis, on a regular basis; KM28, Silent Green, Morphine Raum, 90mil, Arkaoda, Bar Neun, plus others like Panke here and there. I've seen some great performances at these places. When it comes to ambient music specifically though, I find that whether it's Berlin or somewhere else, not many risks are being taken.
Gayest sound you’ve ever heard?
*Censored*
Artist or field recordist that has deeply influenced your work:
The Voigt brothers [Wolfgang & Reinhard], Marina Rosenfeld, DJ Olive, DJ Spooky, Philip Jeck and Janek Schaefer’s collective efforts in abstract sampling and turntablism have had the biggest impact on my work. I was drawn to their productions over others as I found them to be more conventionally psychedelic sounding; I've never really enjoyed the noisier and highly cut up end of turntablism/sampling music.
Hearing how they processed and collaged together existing music really unlocked something in my brain. I guess it showed me there was a way to structurally make the music that I like the most, using the kinds of materials that hip hop was made with. I also came across their music before I stumbled upon musique concrète composers like Michel Redolfi, whose work has been an influence in recent times. I started messing around with samples and field recordings in May of 2013 and I've never looked back.
Fantasy chill-out room of your dreams:
I think my ideal chill out room would be a combination of: the layout of Light & Sound Design (LSD) in NYC, the environment of the Absurd Lustre events at Arkaoda in Berlin, and the visual work by the Groupwork crew in Buffalo; shout out Frankie. LSD has a Moroccan lounge aesthetic that I like w/ the rugs and different kinds of seating, Absurd Lustre had loads of plants which felt inviting, and the light work from the Groupwork show I played last summer was very tasteful and trippy; Draped cloth hanging from the ceiling with visuals projected onto it. All of that mixing together would be a big vibe.
Recent photo from your camera roll:
NINA KEITH - BC / IG / Spotify
What have you been working on lately?
I built this sound sculpture recently called Periphone that was displayed on the roof of the Printed Matter Art Book Fair. It involved rain water, an Ableton-rigged system, and metallaphone bars. One day I’d like to build a version that’s 12 feet tall, with a bunk bed that’s the size of my body next to it. I would be lying on this structure eight feet in the air, with a bunch of EKGs hooked up to my head, which goes to the computer, which dictates what the water is doing.
I like the idea of being able to control it posthumously, like a haunted water avatar that I can step into. I’m just trying to figure out the right way to present it, so that it’s like a shitty gay miracle.
Give me a shitty gay miracle in the form of a song:
I was obsessed with this song for years now, specifically this unreleased YouTube version. She has this insane quote where she's like, I wrote this song about being a trans woman.
We're doing this interview while walking by LA River at sunset. What’s a song that conjures the vibe of this place?
You co-run the outdoor ambient music series Living Earth. What’s the coolest / craziest / spookiest place that you guys have done a concert?
A graffiti-adorned water tower in Malibu Creek State Park.
A song of yours with a hidden field recording:
In the very first second of it starting, you can, hear a child screaming 300 feet away. I am obsessed spaces in general, and the way field recordings do something different to the way you remember stuff. I feel like music that contains more of the energy of a physical space gets stored in your brain in a much different way than like electronic music recorded in a studio or something. Walking around with a field recorder, I create this romantic way of living with this musical practice where I can reference magical pieces of time.
Song playing in the background as you do a rain dance:
Recent photo from your camera roll:
Sounds like a dream hang - wish I could be there!