EAT ESS: An Interview with the members of Eat Dis
by James Gui, ESS Curatorial Fellow
EAT DIS is a dance music netlabel and collective established in 2018. Originally envisioned as a party series in Detroit, the concept pivoted after founder DJ Girl moved to Chicago. Blossoming from a group chat to a full-blown label, community, and family, EAT DIS and its deeply-online presence flourished during the pandemic. We talked to the six performing members at the upcoming TQC on September 23 to get to know them better before the show.
Tell us how EAT DIS got started, and how each of you got involved!
DJ GIRL
We're still very much at the beginning, but it started off as a party series in Detroit. I was trying to do that, but I had to move to Chicago shortly after that. We didn't really start actually being a label label until we did IMNI and that was just because Kiki (aka Yakui and Nondi_) was trying to find a label to put a new album out. And I was like, “hey, we can do that on EAT DIS!” We actually got somebody to do the cover and made a whole bunch of CDs. That one became the thing that brought everyone into EAT DIS. People actually started sending me demos after that.
Eat Dis, IMNI, 2019.
And then pretty much EAT DIS in its current form started when the pandemic hit, when everyone just needed a place to talk and hang out and vibe, you know, and we started getting more people. It’s gone from just some minuscule group chat to a full-fledged label now.
ALPTRACK
DJ Girl and I both have radio shows on Datafruits and we started talking because we were both trans girls who play dance music on the station. I asked her to come out and play a rave I was throwing and then we hung out for like a whole week after that and made a bunch of music and fucked around. She invited me to EAT DIS later and then I released an EP on the label last year.
TWOFOLD
DJ Girl got me on EAT DIS in August 2019. My first real involvement was that month, working on a track that would end up being on EAT DIS 2021.
TANK JR
So I was redirected right when the lockdown started. My friend was getting turned on to all these URL shows that were happening at the end of March, beginning of April 2020. And he was linking me to some of them. I was like, oh my God, whoa. One of them was Gossamarie’s Quarantine Fest. I tuned in, I was like, God, this is fire, wow wow wow! And slowly but surely I fell in with the Datafruits people, which consequently meant I slowly fell in with EAT DIS people. I think it was in September of 2020, I got invited to do a 2HR challenge. I've just been here since, acting a fool at all times! *laughs*
SEPHA
Mine's pretty similar. Last year, I was playing FTWRK, ETC. FEST on Datafruits. And that led to me hearing Tank Jr’s set and DJ Girl’s set. That's how I met both of them. And I think just through hanging out with each other on Twitter and listening to each other's music, DJ Girl wound up inviting me to EAT DIS for a 2HR challenge and I’ve been here ever since!
ZVRRA
I faintly remember, I feel like it was the beginning of 2020 or the end of 2019. I just noticed that they were doing 2HR [challenges] and I believe Tomu [DJ] hooked it up, linked us together. I just been rocking with EAT DIS ever since.
You’ve all mentioned this mythical thing called 2HR, can you talk about what that is?
DJ GIRL
So actually one of my friends would do these things called something like “1HRSC”. Essentially all it was is you were given a sample and everyone had to make a song out of the sample. And then they just slapped together an EP that day and then uploaded it to SoundCloud. I remember doing this back in like 2015, 2016. And like, I remember it being fun, so when the pandemic hit, we were all talking about trying to do a track challenge and I remembered the rules, but I was just like, well, instead of one hour, let's make it two hours.
After the first challenge, we all were blown away, like how fun it was. As opposed to just using a single sample, someone makes a sample pack. Everyone has to make a track out of it within two hours and then everyone votes on it and the winner makes the next pack. Ever since we started doing them, we just really haven't stopped because everyone just kind of likes it. And it really has helped us all grow as artists.
ZVRRA
Yeah. And it's made us super fast with just getting stuff done, like training us to be fast and effective, get shit done quick.
SEPHA
Yeah. And we're building up a library of more and more sounds through people making these packs and the friendly competition of it is really driving us to try to make our best music. Because we want to win! *laughs*
TANK JR
When you're on a two hour time limit, you don't have time for that silly shit that keeps you from making tracks on your own time. And not only that, but you also, like, I want to fucking own everybody.
ZVRRA
I’m tryna lay the smack down on my friends!
TANK JR
It's very much an inspirational thing, an external motivator, really helpful in that regard.
ZVRRA
It’s friendly competition, too.
DJ GIRL
For sure! We're all like whoa, your track’s so sick! It's definitely like a very homey, friendly, atmosphere. It's not anything too serious, but, uh, we all wanna win.
SEPHA
Since we know we'll have the same sample pack, we all have the same raw material to work with. You really get to hear what the possibilities were like, what you could do with those sounds. I think that's the way that we've all grown and influenced each other. Cause it's like, we're starting from the same base point and making different shit.
ZVRRA
Let's take the last sample challenge. Me and DJ Girl made the kit. We did half and half and some of the kit contained me actually making breaks out of myself beatboxing. Just seeing how people work those loops, work those melodies and sounds, it's mind blowing. Oh, you can take this rubber band sound effect and make a bassline. Oh, you can turn this, I dunno, this slap into a snare or something.
DJ GIRL
The time limit also just makes you do shit that you really wouldn't do ever. With the example of the last one, that beatbox break that Zvrra made, I just slapped two OTT’s on it and let it ride. And there ended up being like a lot of cool high-end information for the track. I would never have thought of doing that just alone.
TANK JR
There’s many instances where tracks ended up the way they did, because I literally didn't have the time to try something different. And I had to put together something that sounded realized and finished. You try a bunch of new things and some of them don't work out so well, but others do. And then those techniques become refined in your own personal work too. I find another really important byproduct of the 2HR challenge is that the samples continue to be used afterwards. And they're a really big source of inspiration after the fact.
SEPHA
Yeah, I think we've all released music that uses samples from the 2HR packs.
One such track is Alptrack’s “Hurt and Traumatized”, which was featured in Resident Advisor this past May.
ZVRRA
And also with the sample packs, we put in sounds to challenge ourselves. We're not just putting basic drum sounds in there. We're just putting some of everything in there. Most of it is out of this world, unique samples.
TWOFOLD
I often try to use the sample challenges as a lab for new ideas or patches that I want to practice. I basically cut my teeth figuring out my current production style on making scary club tracks for the 2HRs. It’s always a very welcome brain teaser trying to figure out how to get tracks out of the random stuff everyone puts into the packs.
DJ GIRL
So actually here's an example of a sample I threw in like the last pack that I think is really funny. This is like the source of it. I was just looking through YouTube shorts and this one just has a lot of good sounds on it. This video makes no sense, but like there's like a lot of “whooeoh phooeeh”, And wet sounds and stuff like that, you know? We throw stuff like that in there.
SEPHA
Just as an aside, I looked up the track, “Hurt and Traumatized”. That was in the December twofold sample pack!
ZVRRA
The twofold samples have been key.
TANK JR
It's really good. It’s organized and archived in a way that's useful and easy to sort through, and the samples are all like not stupid and usually high quality. There's a song coming up on an Autism House EP that I'm putting out soon that was made during a 2HR challenge.
DJ GIRL
I feel like the idea of “Autism House” really started flourishing during the 2HR challenge. Like you just kind of realized that it would be cool to do some Bloghaus and it really became a thing for you.
TANK JR
Yeah. This is kind of an aside, but it originated from tracks that were like five years old. Um, and I had remastered them and rearranged them after [I had] retrieved the master samples and project files. I got some results out of 2HR challenges where I tried to make a track in this style that was unfamiliar to me at the time. And the results were very, very, very good. And I was just like, whoa. The way I sample things in those EPs is a direct reflection of the 2HR shit, because it's all about using vocals and various hits as texture. And so things get really chaotic and irreverent with regards to what samples are used and how, where etc. it was all about creating a track that was dense and texturally interesting.
ALPTRACK
The 2HR challenges have taught me so much about sample usage and how to do sound design using samples as a basis. The limitations can be so strict sometimes (especially if I'm only trying to use that week's pack) that I really have to go far sometimes to achieve the sound I'm going for. But I usually end up with something that's super unique and end up learning some interesting techniques along the way.
What do you think sets EAT DIS apart from other labels/music communities? What has the EAT DIS community meant to you as an artist?
ALPTRACK
EAT DIS really is a community just as much as it is a label - we collaborate with each other, support each other, go to each other for advice and feedback, and just generally chill together online. And as a trans person, it's amazing to work with other trans and gender non-conforming artists - EAT DIS really is for the girls and by the girls.
TWOFOLD
Real community—feedback, resources, guidance, excitement, growth. Being able to give and receive. Again, it’s a real community. We lift each other up, give tips and pointers, show each other opportunities. Lots of other music production communities I see are basically barren wastelands where everyone is posting their tracks for feedback and nobody is actually saying anything. Lots of EAT DIS artists will gladly offer their honest thoughts on your work.
DJ GIRL
I have a tagline for the label. I'm not quite sure if it's still on the Bandcamp profile, but I had something like “spontaneous creation is our specialty”. Even though a lot of us might not have known that, it became very true for the label. There's a freeing aspect of it, you know, it's fun. It's not just not like trying to be anything, not trying to like, get you to buy it or be the highest ranking deal on Beatport or whatever. We're just making tracks and making them fast, really spitting them out.
And just the community, like we all help each other out, we all tip each other off to tracks and help each other out with WIPs, it's a very good atmosphere. A lot of people don't have that with their labels at all, at least from what I notice, unless they’re real tight-knit or IRL, you know? And we're all across the country. At this point, you know, Tank Jr’s in Florida, I'm in Texas now, Sepha is in the Seattle region, like all across the US.
TANK JR
When COVID started properly, I think it was pretty terrifying to be in that position, in that situation. And I feel that EAT DIS did a lot to give me somewhere to redirect my anxious energies towards, and they were all something positive and conducive to growth and communion with others and stuff.
I guess since everything was online, the pandemic caused EAT DIS to flourish this past year!
DJ GIRL
Yeah. Like really, really, really flourish to a level that still surprises me. But it’s turning out to be really beautiful.
SEPHA
I also don't think that anyone other than DJ Girl could have made an EAT DIS, maybe something similar could exist, but it's pretty unique to Terry. I think, in the way that it's structured, and the way we do shit *laughs*
Any shoutouts you’d like to make?
ZVRRA
I wanna say motherfucking shoutouts to twofold.
DJ GIRL
Real shoutout to twofold. I would also have to say especially in terms of people that have been around here the longest, secat’s been here since like the first six months of EAT DIS. The challenges would not be the same without secat.
SEPHA
Yeah. I think secat’s style and ODAE’s style both have influenced everyone.
TANK JR
Yeah, for sure. regresssion too always makes really interesting stuff. Also shouts out Sophia, obviously like it's like they're a blast to talk to and goon around with. There's too many. There's so many.
DJ GIRL
I'm just gonna say it's been like an absolute treat to see Zvrra really get into her style over the past couple years. Beautiful is the word that I'd use to describe it. The Dark Empress of Techno, for real.
ALPTRACK
Twofold! They're always so fun to work with. Also Sepha - she's also great to collab with and an amazing person all around.
TWOFOLD
It’s so hard to pick just one! All of the EAT DIS people are super cool and really skilled at what they do, and there’s a lot of folk who don’t get nearly as much love. I want to give a huge shout out to Ratttznest, who makes super detailed experimental electro/techno type stuff. Also lots of love to regresssion and secat, both of whom helped me out a lot with my latest release.
How about other collectives/non EAT DIS affiliates?
TWOFOLD
I’ve been listening to a couple of people from Qween Beat lately. I’m also excited to be included in upcoming stuff from Spinneret.
DJ GIRL
Shout out Datafruits for allowing us to use their station all the time for the 2HR challenges! Shout out Wet Trax too. I love seeing them pop out stuff all the time.
ALPTRACK
Curiosity Shop and i8i are both super cool and are continually pushing the boundaries of sound design and electronic music. Also, shouts to our friends at Spinneret and Xtended Release!
SEPHA
DJ Elise and everything she has built with Vibetown!
Oh yeah speaking of Elise, you recently got featured alongside other Juke Bounce Werk affiliates in DJ Mag, what was that like?
SEPHA
It's cool. I think the coolest thing about it is like I got to be on a page with JBW between OSSX and Kush Jones and those are people who I listen to all the time. It's an honor!
ZVRRA
Shoutouts to them too. We see y'all out there.
EAT ESS will be livestreamed on Thursday, September 23 at 8pm Central Time. Follow ESS on Twitch to be notified when we go live!