Interview with ayokay.
Interviewed by: Sarah Evangelista
You put your cozy pyjamas on, and go under the covers. After closing your eyes, a warm and fuzzy motion picture plays in your mind. Isn’t it crazy how we could literally make a short film, without even trying?
On the topic of dreams, Los Angeles based ayokay recently released Digital Dreamscape. The thirteen part project explores loneliness, surrender, and human connection.
What was the last thing you listened to today?
Today I went through a whole Mike Dimes rabbit hole… I rarely ever listen to hip hop, but while preparing my DJ set for this weekend for a festival in Alaska, I added one of his songs which led me down a Spotify Song Radio deep dive through his entire discography. That’s one way to pump some energy into your day.
Dreams have been a big theme surrounding your musical atmosphere with the new album and the one released in 2018, what draws you to dreams so much?
I have always loved the dream space because inside of a dream, we experience every sensory feeling and emotion that is amongst the human condition, but in a completely limitless space. It is a place for the subconscious mind to flourish. I make sure all of my visuals can live somewhere in this space - I want them to feel familiar and human, yet boundless and provide escapism. At the end of the day, I hope my art offers the listener a little escape from whatever they need escaping from.
On this album, you collaborated with many different producers and writers. What's the main thing you learn by collaborating with so many different artists?
On my EP, we come alive., I wanted to write everything myself. I went back and listened to some of my inspirations from the early 2000s indie electronic scene - I purposely didn’t show the project to anyone until it was finished. Once it was out in the world, the reception didn’t match my perspective of the music in my own head. These opinions reminded me of when I was first starting out in music. I was learning to produce and crafting my sound (around the time I wrote “Kings of Summer”), and the people around me became an extension of my own ear. Their opinion and guidance on the music as it formed made the scope of it a lot more thorough and challenging. For this project, I had come off working a lot with my best friend Quinn XCII and our favorite producer Hazey Eyes on a bunch of music for Quinn’s album. Working with them made me remember the power of collaboration with people you love and whose visions you trust. So that’s what I did.
Which tracks were the easiest and hardest to make?
“I Still Need You” was probably the easiest to write. I wrote the topline with Quinn and Hazey Eyes in a session at my house, and two days later I had the final song… that one just flowed out of me. The hardest songs to write was probably the song “Close Your Eyes and Dream of Falling.” That song probably has over 100 tracks (layers) within it, and most songs that come in don’t repeat. It’s a constantly evolving song with every second of time meticulously crafted. That song actually was the first one written for this project. It gave me the sonic pallet for the entirety of Digital Dreamscape.
Who are your favourite artists/bands at the moment?
My favorite artists for this album cycle were definitely Rüfüs Du Sol, and The 1975. Rüfüs creates emotional house music that challenges and innovates the genre. The songs have musical depth that lives far beyond the dance floor. The 1975 just constantly innovates within the band space. I would like to think this project was a crossbreed somewhere in between those two artists’ spaces.