In The Mix: Moopie
Anthemic. Hypnotic. Eclectic. Those are three of the best words I can find to describe Moopie’s DJ set at Boiler Room x Sugar Mountain 2022. He takes a sound that would fit perfectly in a club environment and brings it into a music festival setting instead. It’s vastly different than anything before, but it still works in some amazing way. The first part of his set sounds like 90’s house meets modern techno, with stomping beats and catchy loops, but it morphs suddenly when the 10-minute mark hits into more futuristic territory, with weird-sounding synths and hard-hitting bass grooves. As soon as we’re accustomed to this alien sound, it shakes up again.
That, in itself, is a major strength of Moopie’s, seamlessly weaving through vastly different subgenres of house and techno, while also keeping the listeners engaged and celebrating out on the dance floor. He is also able to mix different time periods and styles of this kind of music, presenting it in a modern and unique way. Moopie, born Matthew Xue, is an up and-coming DJ out of Australia. His mixes bring back memories of 90’s house and club music of that time, but also infuses this with vocal samples, driving drumbeats, and engaging musical choices in every direction he takes within those mixes. It is all carefully thought-out, with every move made and every switch flipped making sense within the context of the mix.
Now, back to this particular set. Moopie structures it in roughly 10-minute intervals, with the first 10 minutes sounding not too far away from 90’s house and techno, and the following 10 minutes taking a more futuristic flair, even for today’s standards. Once this sequence ends, the spacey sounds and atmosphere turns darker, with a musical phrase of two singular notes, the first one going up and the second going down, dominating the start of this phase. The raw elements from the second sequence are still here, but overall, it has a more darker tone which sounds more menacing and threatening almost to the ear. Still, it is enjoyable and has a solid groove to it, which keeps its listeners dancing sequence after sequence.
This third part originally sounds darker, but eventually mellows itself out. With ever-present chants of “feel the rhythm” and more trance influences taking over, we seem to shed this darker tone pretty quickly, as I would still identify this part as the third sequence or phase. But all of a sudden at the 24-minute mark, the beats drop, and we enter a hard shift into what seems like another, new sequence. There are different synths, different samples, and overall, a different vibe to what we’ve heard so far in this mix. It seems, almost, a culmination of the first few parts of this set, with futuristic overtones but keeping to the structure of 90’s house and techno. Underlying all of this are groove-lined beats and a darker-flavored bass line. The synth line at the center is catchy and infectious, and it, as well as the entire mix, takes various different turns with new and interesting interjections. Nothing gets old or stale, and even as we cross the halfway point, the mix sounds as fresh as it did when it first began.
We enter a completely different atmosphere at around the 33-minute mark, with disco-like beats and light synths that take us to the 80’s, not the 90’s, and that world of club and house music. There are still tones that sound like the 90’s, but Moopie yet again proves to us, as listeners, that he combines different time periods of music, with interesting vocal samples and varying synths that each have distinctive sounds and characteristics to them. Moopie does take influence from older music, and that is clear within each and every one of his mixes. Every new thing that he adds onto the set is unique and is especially interesting to the ear.
One of the things I find is most important to Moopie, is as stated before, the combination of different time periods and genres of music, but not just this combination itself, but rather how he is able to transform different time periods and transcend time itself. The music he makes sounds perfect in a modern club environment, and it still would sound fresh and new as it does today, in the 1980’s, 90’s or 2000’s. And it doesn’t even have to sound as if it’s coming out of a club. It also fits well within the environment of a music festival, just like this very set, and wouldn’t sound strange if it was the soundtrack to a fashion show or runway. That, to me, is the magic of Moopie. Transcending musical time periods but also taking influence from them and sounding unique and fresh in any musical setting or surrounding.
The mix begins its last 10-minute phase with similar sounds from both the futuristic sequence and the darker-toned sequence. But then he adds violins to the mix and other instruments that we haven’t heard at all in this mix. It’s a different turn that is completely unexpected, as everything else in this set has sounded similar, yet could still be identifiably different. The motif of the violins at the end is genius, as it signifies a different direction that Moopie is taking and could also symbolize the end of the set if we didn’t know that the end was coming. Still, we keep the common themes of the solid, forceful beats with futuristic, techno overtones. The crowd hasn’t lost its interest, and neither have I. Moopie then enters with analmost operatic vocal loop, which sounds almost hymnal as the music rises and rises into a different place, one that it hasn’t entered so far. There are still new sounds and energies being reached, even 50 minutes into this set. We then hear a snare drum sounding straight out of a marching band, with all of its trills and repetitions, and after some more vocal samples and other loops and sounds, we reach the conclusion of this epic, almost hour-long set.
All in all, Moopie’s DJ set at Boiler Room x Sugar Mountain 2022 is extremely innovative, while being rooted in classic 90’s sounds. It’s fresh, fun, and totally unpredictable. Moopie deserves to be listened to and to have the attention he is currently getting in underground music scenes, and his energy and style of music is something to watch and something that is attractive and different from anyone else on the radar. There is no other way to describe Moopie besides that.
