Interview: Octo Octa's DJ Journey and her latest Resonant Body LP

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Sep 6

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“I am a producer and DJ who focuses on creating and presenting music that has a resonating emotional core to it. I am also a girl who is finally living her life as she’s always wanted and is elated by that fact everyday.”

Maya Bouldry-Morrison, known in the DJ world as Octo Octa, emits an ethereal energy that transcends the role of new darling of deep house and into a universal reverberation of conjuring love and hope. Her music reaches more spiritual and permeating moods with each release and her latest Resonant Body LP is truly a testament of Maya’s communal acosmic stream of contented flow. With organic live engagement, Octo Octa lights up dance floors and festivals with a creative fire that has such a free-flowing tenderness and a zest for bliss, one can not help but open to the movement she weaves into beats, samples, waves of joy. And alongside employing a genuine spirit as an electronic music creator, Maya is a polyamorous, pansexual, transgender woman who likes cute things, being cute and, above all, is facilitating more loving spaces through the gift of sound.

Hailing from New Hampshire with a presence in Brooklyn, Octo Octa’s traction through word-of-mouth and SF-based queer label HNYTRX gained the artist not only an intense jumpstart but an opportunity of self-exploration. “At the time of first touring and playing shows, I was still hiding in a public sense which made me feel like I couldn’t be in those spaces. Now that I’m involved in it, I understand that wasn’t necessarily true, but it took me being involved to finally realize,” Maya remembers. “Working with HNYTRX and queer promoters since coming out let me engage in spaces where I finally didn’t have to keep my guard up. It gave me power and I see those parties giving others power as well which is the most important thing.” Maya’s mingle with the queer dance scene has become a welcomed home she had searched for since her earliest public works in 2011, noting “it’s the community I was desperate for since I was a teenager and came into my sexuality”.

In this jam-packed year, Octo Octa’s third album Resonant Body was recorded in her NH cabin after a year of constant touring and the release of earlier 2019 For Lover’s EP. Resonant Body is the second release from the T4T LUV NRG label Maya co-runs with beloved DJ Eris Drew, a partnership WUSSY has been excited to watch grow as this heartwarming queer power duo further their teamwork truimphs. Maya and Eris not only run on the sparkle of dancefloor sweat and smiles, with touches of how the interpersonal can be revolutionary and reviving, they bring a sense of bravery to the dancefloor with a sense of positivity and purity, the power of love.

“Danceable music has a particular power that I think is very important in the world and is something that hopefully more people can incorporate into their lives since it engages your body in a way atypical of how the world wants you to interact in public,” Maya muses. “Dancing is freeing, however that is for you. That freedom is what I chase, seek, and attempt to communicate with every piece of music I make, with every live performance I play, and every DJ set I spin. Dance music let me express myself before I was out and club spaces are where I first engaged in public as the person I am today. I hope more people can find that for themselves.”

Openers “Imminent Spirit Animal” and “Move Your Body” affronts the listener with high energy, an almost acid house vibe, and within a swoop into “Deep Connections”, Maya’s dreamy energy takes over, coaxing the listener into a deep primal peace. Octo Octa has a way of mixing cream-crop 90’s ambient coolness to a most wild neu-queer club metric without being frantic, building layers of release with precision. Conjuring soundspheres with a touch of past Euro flair akin to Aphex Twin or Orbital, Octo Octa is pure divinity. Maya’s elegant elongation of each track’s flow has brought many house lovers to states of cocooned delight and trance-like glee with roots in house, rave, and techno. Perhaps it’s been perfected as a long practice: Maya has been producing primarily electronic music for over 15 years since the young age of 14, saying “I’ve spent over half my life chasing the sense of creativity and ecstatic release I find in dance music”. In Octo Octa’s music, a communicated cohesion is certainly spoke. Maya’s passion is very clear to the listener and especially any audience present at one of her sets. Resonant Body is able to fully let listener afar experience this for themselves.

<a href="https://octoocta.bandcamp.com/album/resonant-body">Resonant Body by Octo Octa</a>

50% profits of Resonant Body will be donated to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) “which works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence”. Follow Octo Octa on Spotify, Soundcloud, and Instagram.