Beats with Vinyl

In common with many DJs, the pandemic obliterated Eris Drew’s schedule, which had recently expanded to almost a hundred gigs globally. So Drew took the bold decision to trade her hometown of Chicago for a secluded forest cabin in New Hampshire, living with production and label partner Octo Octa (Maya Bouldry-Morrison), and started work on her debut album. Titled Quivering In Time, Drew’s solo effort feels not too dissimilar to her DJ sets, fast-moving percussion-heavy dancefloor tunes alight with upbeat party vibes. With her tracks built from a stack of vinyl samples, Drew added kicks, scratches, vocal samples, hand-played keyboard riffs and percussion to recreate the communal euphoria of a club scene slowly returning to life.

Beat / Tell us about the move from Chicago to New Hampshire on the US east coast…

Eris / The practical story is that I fell in love and wanted to move here, but there’s a spiritual story too, as for years I dreamt of having a life where I could be in nature and make music but still have some connection to cities and DJing. As a Chicago girl, the move seemed so irrational to me because the music I make is so in the bones of the city and leaving seemed something distant for my older years, but I fell in love with Maya who grew up here and ended up in rural New Hampshire in a log cabin. I look out my window now and it’s just forest.

» I wanted to make an album that was programmed and hyper-arranged and I think it‘s cliché to say that, but it was supposed to be a journey from beginning to end. «

Beat / Your partner Maya published a DIY guide to building a home studio. Has that helped you both settle into this new environment?

/ I wouldn’t say the guide was related to that, but it’s the first time I found an environment where I shared a studio in a space with someone else, so there was constant collaboration and discussion about music. The cabin itself really does affect our music-making