Ciel Mix
Up next for Tapes #116 is Xi’an-born and Toronto-based music producer, DJ, pianist, and radio presenter, Ciel.
She is the creator of Work in Progress, a women-prioritising concert series in Toronto; a co-founder of the immersive multidisciplinary events platform It’s Not U It’s Me; a co-owner of Toronto electronic music label Parallel Minds; a member of the internationally-renowned women & LGBTQIA+ DJ collective Discwoman; and also produces a monthly radio show on Rinse FM.
Whether a label boss, grassroots rave promoter, established producer or adventurous DJ, the same strongly-held beliefs shine through everything Cindy does: that of focus on the community, upholding diversity and inclusivity, and playing her part to leave the scene in a better place than when she first entered.
Hey Cindy - so great to have you on the Tapes series! Can you start by introducing yourself?
Hello I’m Ciel. I am a music producer and DJ based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I run a label here called Parallel Minds with my creative partner Daniel 58. I am also a semi-retired party promoter, having thrown parties for years under the platforms of Work in Progress, On My Way!, & It’s Not U It’s Me
Tell us about this mix - where was it recorded and favourite track inside?
This is a live recording of my set at Nation of Gondwana 2023 in its entirety (minus the encore). I had such a great time at the German festival. The crowd was lovely as was the natural scenery. Playing to the sunrise was truly magical. My favourite track is the closing song, which I think was also my audience’s favourite song. It was just such a euphoric and sexy finish. The track is called ‘Die Nuss’ and it’s by DJ Fucks Himself & Mathis Ruffing (feat. $ombi).
What is the ideal setting to listen to it?
On a speed boat racing through the Adriatic Sea.
Congrats on the release of your debut album ‘Homesick’ on your label Parallel Minds! Having previously described yourself as a “DJ first, producer second” - tell us what led to your first album-length release?
The lockdown! Two years stuck at home is enough to drive anyone crazy, and I found myself thriving under lockdown once I started to set creative goals for myself. I also think that I often have the tendency to believe the worst of my abilities until I actually try it myself, and usually find myself pleasantly surprised at how I rose to the occasion. I never thought I could even begin to write an album until I wrote my first live set and performed it at Mutek. Confronting that challenge face-on and being pleasantly surprised at my own capabilities gave me the confidence to think about writing an album for the first time in my life. I also needed money, and applying for grant funding from the Canadian government was a natural next step. You can’t apply for funding without a project in mind, and doing one for an EP felt like a lot of writing for very little payoff. So based on all of those factors, I ended up doing it and found myself actually loving the process of locking myself away for all of winter to work on a piece of music. It was incredibly satisfying to brainstorm an idea and see it through to its fruition. I can’t wait to do it again!
Being China-born and Canada based, it’s clear your heritage shines through this album with the use of traditional Chinese instrumentation & sampling. Tell us more about how your background has influenced your sound?
I think every artist is a product of their background and identity. I never listened to much Chinese music growing up but my parents did. And they certainly had a massive impact on encouraging my love of music. I wouldn’t say my production is particularly influenced by traditional Chinese music, but I love sampling and I love working with non-electronic, “primitive” instruments. I love the immediacy of analog instruments, there is no complicated electric wiring I need to figure out before I can play it. And in a weird way, that intellectual distance between my tastes and Chinese traditional music is how I think I was able to creatively sample the source material without the tracks sounding chintzy or hodge-podge. Sometimes too much affinity between the artist and the material they are working with can work against them. It’s like working on a remix of a track I already really love - it can be very challenging to remove parts and be critical about it. It’s the same with sampling source materials, I find.
There is a significant social and political interest in your music and the activities you’re involved in which is admirable, do you feel music can be used as a medium for activism?
I guess it depends. When I first started working as a DJ, it was within the context of organising parties in my scene so naturally there were issues regarding equality and representation that I was passionate about, as the scene in Toronto was quite male-dominated. Over time, I think I became disillusioned with that struggle alone, because I think people in dance music can get too wrapped up in identity and individualism and not think about material conditions that affect artists across racial, sexual, and gender categories. The focus on identity is helpful only to a point. Sometimes it works against our fight for solidarity with each others’ struggles. During the pandemic, I saw and experienced many things that were eye opening. I realised merely using music as a vehicle for my leftist activism and politics was a dead end street. In the grand scheme of things, representation in night life is very minor compared to the host of issues our whole world is dealing with. War, climate change, austerity, homelessness, privatisation & corporatisation - I realised if I cared about these things, I can not organise in music alone. So now I don’t do that anymore. Music as a vehicle is a nice starting point, and I’ll continue to channel inspiration from my leftist politics in my music, but it isn’t the end. The rave will not revolutionise anything and we have got to move on from this.
Talk to us about Toronto where you currently live, there have been some incredible artists coming out of there over the past few years - what is the music scene like?
The scene itself is a work in progress. But the talent that has come out of this place is nothing short of a miracle. We struggle to make Toronto into a world class music scene, for a host of reasons - backwards liquor and zoning laws, the unaffordability of the city, the deeply segregated nature of the scene itself, and the fact that no one looks down on Toronto harder than promoters from Toronto. Locals have an impossible time booking headlining slots in Toronto. It’s not like London, where you work hard and prove yourself and eventually you get the chance to play a headlining slot at FOLD or Corsica or Printworks. I always joke that I have to fly across the ocean to get a headlining DJ slot. In Toronto, it’s quite common for touring DJs like myself to play with my DJ friends from Berlin or London or NYC, and their name is several times larger than mine even though everywhere else our names would be the same size, side by side. A scene that does not hype up its own will never produce success stories. Most DJs from Toronto only achieve success after they’ve moved somewhere else. I’m one of maybe 3 DJs from here that’s managed to tour internationally without moving away. I think the scene needs to seriously grow some self confidence about its homegrown talent before it’s ready to compete with the world.
Lastly, what’s next in the pipeline for yourself?
I have a bunch of collaborative releases slated for next year. 2023 was the year for all my solo work I made during lockdowns. 2024 will be for at least 4 collaborative EPs made during the second year of the lockdown and in 2022 + 1 solo EP. There’s also some live sets planned for Europe in 2024, plus a bunch of festivals and club shows planned for spring / summer / fall. I also really badly need to get back into the studio to work on my next solo releases.