With the focus turned to his upcoming headline performance, we ask Moby how he crafts his DJ sets, and what kind of sound he likes to play out.
When I DJ it tends to be really unsubtle, I love big records. What I don’t like, and I feel bad criticizing anything, but what I’m not a big fan of are the big commercial remixes of pop songs, I really don’t need to hear any more of those. But what I really love are a lot of the big records from Loops of Fury, Tommy Trash, the really interesting electro records that hopefully aren’t too tacky. I especially love big records that are inspired by the old rave scene, which luckily are quite a lot of them. So for an event like this I’ll probably play more big, slightly aggressive electro. If you were having a party and you invited me to play there, I’d play more deep house and tribal techno, but at bigger events like this, the more subtle tracks tend to not go over as well, so I like the big bombastic stuff.
As Moby’s manager pokes her head into the room, we know it’s time to wrap up the interview, so we settle on one fi nal question – do you know what you’re going to open with tonight?
I have no idea. One of the things I love about DJing, is I never really plan it before- hand. When I play live, I usually have a setlist and I have to fi gure out what songs I’m going to play. With DJing, I kind of just make it up as I go, when I’m playing one record I have no idea what the next record is going to be which for me, that spontane- ity is a big part of the fun of it.
“I LIKE THE BIG BOMBASTIC STUFF.”
Taking the stage at 9:30 and playing shortly past 11, Moby delivered some absolutely huge music and one of the most high energy performances we’ve seen in recent memory. Though the comparison might be taken the wrong way by some, Moby was somewhat reminiscent of Steve Aoki in his showmanship on stage, leaving the DJ booth several times to engage the audience who were hanging onto every note he pumped through the system. At the end of his set in true rockstar fashion, Moby took off his coat, his sweater, and stripped down to the fl esh to spend the last couple minutes of music shirtless, standing atop the decks fi st-pumping to the 4,000+ in attendance. Big and bombastic only begins to describe Moby’s performance at Brrrrr Fest, and Toronto will be awaiting his return with huge anticipation.