Aidai is a journalist, DJ, co-founder of the Sinergia parties in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan). We have talked to Aidai about her art, parties, local culture and music.

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Hi! To start with, please introduce yourself by telling some exciting facts about your life.

 

1. I have experiences of being bombarded with rubber bullets and Molotov cocktails while reporting the majority of mass disruptions and protests, yet not in a search for adrenalin (although it gets my brain, muscles, and instincts boosted up to 100% performance), but due to my job format. I am a journalist. 

2. At my brother’s wedding mum squeezed about 500 people into our place. Since that event, I have been suffering from anxiety in the toi crowds (tois are our grandiose ceremony). Which is quite ironic considering I have found myself in much more extreme situations, yet tois with dozens of relatives whom I do not know are significantly more terrifying to me.. 

 

What was your journey to music?

 

I started DJing when the quarantine began. What I had was a room, a controller, dreadful speakers, a laptop, and several months of confinement. The main advantage of DJing in my life is that at our electronic- and rave-parties, I play the music I actually like. Music, to me, is an appropriate way to spill out my emotions. If I am really angry and I know I could be mean to someone significant to me, in a burst of temper, I get down to creating a new set. And, maybe, it will turn out to be aggressive, but in the course of the process, I get calmer, and finally, tranquility comes. And when I am preparing my sets in a good mood, the spectrum of emotions and shades is completely different. All of the above-mentioned can be combined

 

Please, tell us how you first started to arrange parties?

 

I started to attend electronic events about two or three years ago. At first, I felt weird, but after a while, I realized that such parties are about communicating with yourself, your body and music. Noone cares what is happening around, whether you are surrounded with strangers or your friends; you are deep-diving into yourself anyway. Fully reached Nirvana. Following that, my female friends and I launched the Sinergia parties (https://www.instagram.com/snrgylife/), with a focus on women socialization as DJing is still pretty much about sexism and mansplaining. We want to expand the borders of the current community, as well as convert it into pure art and experiments. It is not just a sequence of boom-boom-boom, it has the main idea, as well of space to search for its own sound. Not a bit of anything toxic, it expresses support and solidarity. I love Sinergia!

 

How do you create a specific mood in your sets?

 

I stick to a harmonic interweaving of various tracks and the transition in between them. At the set, the sensation upon performing a really great, flawless transition is just unbelievable. My taste in music is quite dynamic, I quickly get bored of the currently favourite sound, and, e. g., the sets created last year already get me bored. For this reason, I am always looking for something new that resonates with me.

 

Which DJs would you like to collaborate with?

 

I really would like to collaborate with the DJ female duet Gioli&Assia. The way they interact with music is just incredible: the vocals, a huge number of instruments, the controller. Also, with Solomun as his music is light and chill. And with Amelie Lens because of her sets, every of them, being dense and boosting the fuck out of the audience. 

 

Please tell me about the culture of your country. How is it reflected in music?

 

The culture of my region is significantly different from the rest of the world. We mess things up, mourn, quarrel; and just after, the same scale will characterize someone’s wedding or jubilee, which is: being in the same extremes at the same time. This peculiarity is reflected in the music and art of the region as a whole.

The toi music played at feasts is overly joyful, it inevitably makes you dance. My foreign friends always react to it the following way: Wow, so cool, so groovy. I am not able to listen to it. I have had so much of it in my life that I cannot stand it − therefore, a childhood trauma. 

I really like the way music is filled with the sound of the Kyrgyz language, its tone colour and the lyrics full of archaisms I personally do not understand. Many old songs describe the beauty of the motherland, the country’s destiny, the mountains and the lakes. To me, it is so touching as all of these are dear to me, and loved. 

  

Maybe, you could share three fun facts about the country?

 

1. Feats host thousands of guests. People develop complex money circulation plans, and get loans they cannot return afterwards.

2. In Kyrgyzstan, population 6 mio, there are approximately the same number of sheep. 

3. Over 30 years, Kyrgyzstan saw 6 presidents and three violent revolutions (which is nonsense to our rather authoritarian neighbours i. e. Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan). 

 

How is the queer culture perceived in your country? Can you identify any recent trends in this regard? 

 

In the community, there are a lot of changes: people launch great projects, arrange their own media, parties, and merch. “Queer” is getting trendy and fashionable, yet, again, only to the inner circle. The way non-heterosexual people are seen in the country remains to be just awful; the LGBT agenda is always deployed in political games.

 

What is freedom to you?

 

Freedom means doing what I want to do: joining protests, giving interviews, and not having a fear that thousands of homophobic relatives will keep ringing me endlessly. Freedom is not having to expect that my contacts will be shared in some publics; not worrying that the police will be searching for me because of what I do. Other than that, Kyrgyzstan could be called a free country. Anyway, among your people, it is calm and safe.  

 

The mix you have made for LVBZ, what is it about? 

 

To describe a mix verbally is as hard as, e. g. google something you only know the sound of. The mix describes my feelings, fears, some anger, and the impulsive efficiency over the past week. If a track gets included in the mix it means I like it. I like absolutely all the tracks included, otherwise they would not be there.  

Listening to the mix, ideally, should accompany being on a long journey somewhere far away, or a walking trip, when you need to freshen up, take heart to deal with the mess your life is. There are a lot of energizing bass lines to accompany implementation of Napoleonic plans, or to accompany the moment when they are knocked down as a house of cards.

 

Speaking of the color of your mix, what would it be?

 

Red, initially in a blood colored shade, then getting lighter under the spotlights. 

 

Tell us about three musicians on your playlist you would recommend to listen to? 

 

My special interest and love is something I fell for Zera. We have known each other for so long, and I interviewed her when she just released her first feminist song “Kyz” and got famous. Since then, she has progressed so much, her most recent album EKEK, literally meaning The Free Daughter of Free Kyrgyzstan) breaks my heart every time I listen to it. It depicts harassment on the streets, feeling shame for it, domestic violence everyone has seen to a certain extent, the rights and position of the women of our country. 

I definitely must mention Mirbek Atabekov: everyone has known his songs since childhood, he is dear to everyone’s heart. The song called Muras is my personal favorite. And, of course, Kanykej.

Oh, by the way! A very popular some time ago band, Gorod 312, originally come from Bishkek, 312 is the city’s code, and the guys quite often visit it with concerts.

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Enjoy a fine selection of local tracks which Aidai kindly selected for LVBZ.

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