Maya Bouldry-Morrison & Eris Drew: „It’s a minefield out there“

Eris Drew (le) & Maya Bouldry-Morrison (re) (Photo: Artist Copyright, Source Instagram)

Even if the dancefloors of this world have always been declared a biotope of freedom and equality, such claims have always been partial and the truth often looked rather too male-dominated. Even in the noughties of this century, gender equality and the adequate representation of LGBT*IQ people (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, inter* and queer people) were foreign words for many bookers (deliberately not countered), who preferred to stick to their white cis male world.
The fact that the situation has changed is due to the passionate insistence of musicians like Maya Bouldry-Morrison and Eris Drew, who see their transsexuality as part of their artistic identity and consistently stand up against exclusion and oppression, while also producing and performing terrific liberating music.

I had imagined the opening scene for this post differently. The plan was to visit Maya Bouldry-Morrison (better known by her producer and DJ alias Octo Octa) and Eris Drew in their cabin in the woods of New Hampshire to explore the oasis they have created there with their partner Brooke. And thus to understand where the two draw their energy in order to confront, with unflagging confidence and against all odds, the still far too white, heterosexual and often massively exclusionary dance floors of the world with an alternative. Because against all odds, with their last albums “Raving Disco Breaks Vol.1” (Eris) and “Resont Body” (Maya) – both released on their own label T4T LUV NRG – and passionate DJ sets, the two have played their way onto the big festival stages between Barcelona (Sonar) and Amsterdam (Dekmantel) and in front of more than 10,000 spectators.

But instead of walking through the woods together in New Hampshire, I’m now looking at my laptop -– and into a clearing where a DJ setup is being built. It’s early May 2020, and we’re in the sixth week of the pandemic lockdown (by German reckoning) – and Maya Bouldry-Morrison and Eris Drew are spinning slightly husky records. It’s the first of several “Forest Throwdowns” with which the two – like so many other DJs – wanted to make the forced hiatus a bit more bearable, for themselves and for their friends and fans. But at first it’s not that easy for them. First the technology goes haywire, then they have to deal with the complicated legal situation on the Internet (the very first record Eris puts on violates the YouTube policies and it’s just quiet). But towards the end of the more than three-hour set, the world looks a little bit better again. The two have tuned in and dance happily across the meadow to a blissful mix of UK garage, house music, trance and Euro disco, always with the other in mind.

Somewhere in New Hampshire (Photo: Artist Copyright, Source Instagram)

Into the woods

Three weeks later, Maya Bouldry-Morrison and Eris Drew look back on the first “Forest Throwdown” with pleasure. As absurd as it sounds at first, the setting reminded Eris of the “Honcho Summer Campout”, a festival explicitly for the queer techno community of the USA, which takes place deep hidden in the woods of Pennsylvania. Only with the small difference that instead of several hundred ecstatic bodies around them, this time there were just three people present: Maya, Eris and Brooke. But on the other hand not, because of course all their friends were with them in their thoughts – and they with them. 
The situation is hard, Eris remarks: „To see everyone within our industry suddenly suffer like that… I went into the set trying to project positivity like I normally do.“ And yes, it seemed – at least temporarily – as if all the socio-political fears and economic problems suddenly no longer mattered, once again the music healed all the wounds of our lives.

Somewhere in New Hampshire (Photo: Artist Copyright, Source Instagram)

It would have helped to break up the per se strange distance situation that they always hang up for themselves before anyone else anyway, as Maya tenderly explains: „When I am picking certain records to play after you (she looks to Eris), I am actually playing for you a lot of time. To talk to you, to express my emotions to you.“
Eris says she still remembers very well the first time she put on her track “Hold Me” in front of others, a production in which she put all her feelings for Maya. „I was so in love with Maya, I wanted her so much in my life. It was really uncertain what our relationship would be at that time. It’ s pretty explosive when you play music when it has all this hope and expectation in it.“

The tender way in which Maya and Eris pass their thoughts to each other in conversation is immediately noticeable in a positive way. A great intimacy characterises their interactions, from the direct body language to the intense eye contact to the verbal exchanges. Time and again during our almost three-hour conversation, the two of them forget that they are not alone in the digital space. For example, when one of them is not sure whether she should tell something because it is of a very personal nature. Whereby they fortunately always opt for the act of sharing and against keeping it to themselves.

„Her and I bring for our T4T LUV NRG parties a totem with us“, Maya tells in a low voice. „Then we pour our magic numbers with salt on plates and put them behind the speakers, while doing so we play my record „My Body Is Powerful“ –  a wonderfully floating ambient piece, into which field recordings of animal and nature sounds from New Hampshire are woven.

The ritual is just for the two of them, explains Eris: „We do this to get grounded and send our minds in our home space in the nature. Cause often we come directly from the airport, had to deal with a flight and hotel check in and dinners. It is about putting the whole life in a bag.“
The T4T LUV NRG parties are an important part of Eris Drew and Octo Octa’s success stories, because in them all artistic, personal and socio-political strands come together. On these nights, they basically always DJ together and all night long, meaning they play from the first record to the last. To make sure that everything goes exactly as they want it to and that the club is a safe space, a place where everyone can feel comfortable and safe, no matter what gender, skin colour or age, they have drafted a one-sheet agreement that has to be implemented by the promoters. For example, in addition to the standards of respectful treatment of all visitors at the door and all-gender restrooms, it is important to them that no body images are used in advertising the party.
Eris: „Otherwise people would be excluded. When somebody has mobility issues, why are they not on the wall. Why is there not a trans body in the sexy picture? Why are there not any black people featured in the advertising for the party? Who are we trying to reach here?“
The fact that these topics are so important to the two is inherent in their own biographies. Eris and Maya have long led a life in the shadow of their own feelings and struggled with coming out as transgender. Music, their music, has played an immensely important role in the fact that they have managed this not easy step.

T4T LUV NRG (Photo: Artist Copyright, Source Instagram)

Eris Drew had her coming out at 39, by which time she had already been DJing for 20 years, but the international tours that shape her life today were not in the cards back then, she had to fight for every gig in Chicago, as she recalls with tears in her eyes. „That is quite a change to go through at that point in your life. You lived so long already, how do you recover from that?“
And also Maya could already look back on a decade as a producer and Dj, when she was finally noticed beyond her own small circle from 2011. In this respect, she feels the current success neither as normal nor takes it as set. „When I see people who have instant success I tell them to get ready: You gotta hold on and be grateful for what you got – if it should go on, you gotta keep working, it is hard.“

„I, I, I / I need you / I need you / I need you / I need you / I need you / I need you / I need you / I need you / I need you / I need you / I need you / I need youI, I, I / I need you / I, I, I / I need you / I, I, I / I need you““) 
(Octo Octa, „I Need You“)

The question arises as to how strongly the respective success and the coming outs are connected. Would Maya and Eris have been able to muster the courage to take the big step and leave the male identity assignment behind without the music? And do they feel that coming out influenced the music?

For a moment, both are silent. Then Eris gives very intimate insights, not without hesitantly breaking off again and again at first:

„There were times in my life – this is very personal trans stuff people normally do not talk about in the mainstream … What a lot of people go through when they are adults and they are not out is that kind of process of engaging with it and then backing off, engaging with it and backing off – you go and buy some clothes, or you read about something online, but then you throw it away and ignore it for one year. But then you still feel yourself having difficulties – I hate the word difficulties, but well that’s how it feels. A lot of people come out by lets say using a different pronoun, and six months later they are scared or they try to get a job and that’s impossible… so there are all these things that cause a person not to have a straight path with their called outness …
There were times in my life when I tried to retreat from who I was. The music was kind of like a mirror. My queerness was always revealed in that somehow – I don’ t know how. Maybe it was just the fact that I would dance and let myself be feminine. I would always be at home wearing dresses when working in my studio, doing that to get into a creative space, because I felt this helped me make music. Of course, because it eases this constant rational nightmare in my head.“

Eris Drew (Photo: Artist Copyright, Source Instagram)

Please don’t think of coming out as the all-redeeming moment, after which only the sun will shine, both emphasise emphatically. Unfortunately, it’s not like that at all; the problems only get worse. Eris continues:

„My life felt kind of apart. It was really tough, it was hard on the people around me. I lost a job, I lost a relationship. It is not my fault that I am trans, but my goodness, this melted a lot. I was 39, I had a family life, it was all built on gender, thats how our society works. I was really depressed and self harming. I almost hit the end of the rope in kind of functioning in the dominant society, pretending to be a cis person. Literally the only place where people called me Eris was when I go to Smart Bar in Chicago. Friends were supporting me and I go on stage and play the best set I could play. This little nest where I was able to become me. And when I say become me, I mean just to have a social life as myself that’s it, not to become a different … as people are talking: „Now you are a woman“ – fuck that! I’ve been trans my whole fuckin life, I am dealing with this!“

Much of what Eris elaborates here has long been true of Maya as well, who even when she released her debut album “Between Two Selves” in 2013, which is held together by a trans narrative from the first note to the last, wasn’t entirely sure if coming out would really happen. „I was myself when I went to clubs, when I was DJing, playing live, doing things in my free time and being with our partner Brooke. But then I had to go back to work and not be the person I was. It was a year of that and I just couldn’t take it anymore. So I decided to come out publicly and deal with everything. That was all reflected in the music I was doing the entire time, cause that was helping me work though and process what I was struggling with.“

All Octo Octa releases are autobiographically coloured and represent very openly the respective emotional states of Maya. Thus, on her second album “Where Are We Going?” you could still feel the insecurities that the world caused her with the reactions. Only with the album “Resonant Body” the dark clouds have dispersed, the eight tracks tell of a happy protagonist who believes in her own strength and can thus shine beyond herself.

You can hear in the releases how, peu à peu, the content changes from a “coded queer message” to a “frontly queer message”, Maya analyzes her own music.„I want it all to be contextualised in who I am as a trans person.“

❤️❤️❤️ (Photo: Artist Copyright, Source Instagram)

The future, a queer message

It’s no surprise that the pair feel music is not only the soundtrack of their lives, but that they speak of it as a “healing technology“ with which they confront the “topics of the challenging world”, with themselves being healed by the parties on the weekend to the same extent that their audience (hopefully) is.

„Our people are understanding what happy music is all about, it is all about how you overcome difficulty“, Eris observes. „If you look at people who really struggle in the world, their music is happy music – that way they can process their pain and their emotions.“

Her music of choice ranges from house to garage, dubstep to grime, with vocals and uplifting slogans and imperatives. Maya speaks of “casting spells” to further describe the act of DJing, and that their sets are about meeting the “struggle in the world” with love.

Eris mentions “The Future“, a record by British producer LMajor, which means a lot to both of them. “He probably didn’t intend his song to have the meaning for us,” Eris elaborates. “He is a male, white, straight man, not a transwoman, but in the song, it all breaks down and what does the voice say?”

Maya: „Where do all these people come from?“
Eris: „And then another voice says?“
Maya: „The Future!“

At this point they both burst out laughing. For them, the song has become an anthem for trans-ness, an ode to the departure into that new world, for the creation of which they spend all their energies. And the beauty of it is that the song immediately worked beyond their two-person bond. On the T4T LUV NRG tour, which took them to Europe, Asia and Australia in late 2019 / early 2020, Eris said, „all the trans ravers in the front of our sets bonkers to it – everybody in the room is dialled in the private coded communication.“ Whereby the two emphasise once again that it is not about “queer coding” for them, they do not want to communicate in a secret language and certainly not only to the “inner circle”. No, the universal message of their sets should be understandable for everyone.

Maya Bouldry-Morrison & Eris Drew don’t see it as a contradiction when, after a very intimate T4T LUV NRG party or a performance at a queer-only festival like “Summer Campout”, they suddenly find themselves on one of the big summer festival stages in front of rather little to no people familiar with queer topics.
Eris: „The trance community is always the smallest circle, but I also view the greater rave scene as my community. I have a lot – I hate the words followers and fans – I have people I communicate with about my music in places like Iran. They are not necessarily trans, they might not even be queer, some of them are woman who view this as a kind of freedom music. So, I do think there is a lot of people who want to access the freedom in rave,for their own reasons, whatever they are.“

Maya stresses how important it is to them to carry the queer message: „We both grew up in a world with essentially zero information about who our community is and what’s going on. I was searching for my community through listening to music. For a long time I did not see representation of myself out there until seeing Terre Thaemlitz, DJ Sprinkles, and listening to her album „Midtown 120 Blues“ with a trans narrative encapsulated in the music. So what you and I try to do with our DJ sets is process our lives and talk about them and express that to the community. Because every time there’s gonna be people out there who are not out and never will be out –  hopefully they get some strength from that.“

Big Festival Stages & Honey Parties

And so Maya and Eris are extremely happy to have reached a point where big festivals like Sonar in Barcelona or Dekmantel in Amsterdam book them on the main stage at prime time. Eris: „The Dekmantel set 2019 was some kind of coming out moment, cause that was a big stage to put two gay trans women up.“

With their music and sets, the two are making a fundamental contribution to finally giving trans narratives a positive message and not joining the long history of rather tragic or medical narratives. Maya: „There has been queer tragedy for forever. I like that you and I do not put that forward. Hopefully we are building a wider community.“ Because only then, so Eris, „the world will get any better for trans folks, everybody has to change their attitude.“

This is not an easy process, they themselves also need loving confirmation experiences again and again. The increased media interest is important in this respect, especially since not only the sophisticated part of the music press such as XLR8R, Resident Advisor and Pitchfork reports on them, but also major newspapers such as the New York Times and the Guardian and even formerly cis white male-dominated music magazines such as DJ Mag or Mix Mag – the latter even put Maya with flowers in her hair on the cover in August 2019. She is still amazed and flattered when she thinks about it, Maya confesses.

Now, one can explain this media interest in two ways. On the one hand, as an economic decision by institutions that have understood the zeitgeist and know that they can no longer avoid reporting on queer artists, just as veganism and environmental protection have become consensus topics that can’t be ignored. But one can also read it positively and grant that this is a finally dawning realisation. Eris agrees with this positive reading: „I think the simple truth is that a critical mass of people within the dance music community have decided that they wanna evolate people who have the ability and the identity.“

We’re still a long way from reaching your destination anyway, she adds. „The reason that it is unusual to see us on a stage or on a cover is cause in other places in the world this is not happening in the same rate.“

The process of opening up is a difficult one, and not only outside one’s own scene. The problems already start internally. It is often not appreciated when non-queer visitors show up in a queer space. „We got a honey party going on, why is that straight guy playing?“, Eris comments in a high-pitched voice. But Maya remarks that it shouldn’t be seen that way: „You have no idea what this person in their thoughts is struggling with. You don’t know that type of freedom they are getting by being in that space.“

The two know exactly what they are talking about. In the clubs before their coming out, they sought the security they could not find elsewhere in society, the exchange with like-minded people. 

Maya: „This perception of having been one thing and becoming another thing isn’ t true and never was. I never felt that way, but I was perceived that way. Because I had created a system of protections around myself to be accepted in the wider social community. It was a role I was playing.“

Eris: There is a real tension in the underground between maintaining safe spaces for queer folks, but also creating spaces that are really inclusive, because lots of queer people don’ t look queer, lots of queer people don’t identify as guys in the strict sense of being exclusively homosexual. So weird to talk like this.“

The accusation that is in the room: if you have not come out, then you do not face the same oppression, you make it too easy.
„It is easy to say: „You are queer – you should dress or wear something“ or „you should be out“ – but that can mean you are dead in some families, that could mean you are dead in some places, including here“, Eris points to the dark side of the issue.
Once again, both laugh liberatingly. Partly in order to distance themselves from the drastic nature of the topic, but also because they are aware that they are making a major contribution to improving the situation. If you compare today’s parties with those of previous decades, they are noticeably less white and male-heavy. „The representation of people of different age, race and expression is much better“, Eris agrees.

„I remember I was on my way into a harpsichord concert that had already started / And a friend said, “Here, this is a very special joint, smoke this one” / And we did and then walked into a, y’know a beautiful storm of harpsichord notes / That were moving and dancing with a apparent individual and collective will / And so that was my, it was apparently marijuana laced with a little DMT / And then, um, I didn’t encounter it again for years until, um / I was offered a pipe full of the pure substance and that was 1975“
(Eris Drew, „Transcendental Access Point“)

Besides the T4T parties, Maya Bouldry-Morrison amd Eris Drew are also associated with the Motherbeat parties – although this is not quite correct, since formally it is a series hosted by Eris alone, even though Maya is certainly always present in spirit.
So far, there have only been three such Motherbeat parties – one in Seattle, together with the TUF Collective; one in Pittsburgh, together with the Hot Mass Collective; and one at Trauma Bar and Cinema in Berlin – due to the fact that the club not only has to agree to the party going on for 12 hours and there being no alcohol sales, but also to the visitors consuming psychedelic drugs. „It is tough to pull off, but when we do its magical, it’s beautiful“, comments Eris.

The inspiration for the Motherbeat parties can be found in the rave scene of the early ’90s, which had a huge impact on Eris. She recalls: „The people were pretty much only doing acid and ecstasy back then, there was a certain degree of intentionality regards substances that you don’t see in the scene now.“

She doesn’t see herself as a revivalist, nor as a follower of old school nostalgia, if only because she looks back realistically enough on the history of dance music to know that it wasn’t free of dark clouds. For example, things didn’t look good for a long time with the adequate representation of all people within the community. In this respect, she is not concerned with just creating a “safe space for psychedelics,” but a generally free place where all are welcome.

In the philosophy behind the Motherbeat parties, everything comes together that characterizes the spoken and unspoken world of Maya Bouldry-Morrison and Eris Drew. They see themselves as “psychedelic witches,” according to Maya. Eris regularly gives lectures to introduce the rave community to anthropology and psychedelic substances, showing them the parallels between shamanic rituals and DJ sets, sensitising them to the spaces of possibility they’ve carved out for themselves and are so eager to share with everyone.

„A lot of my lectures are about what Wendy Carlos said,“ Eris starts to explain. „You know, composition has always been a very much solitary process, on a global scale millions of weirdos in their rooms are making strange things by themselves, we are almost like a global chemist league, like the alchemists in the Middle Ages. We are doing something like that, we talk about how to make music yourself and use machines.“

Maya Bouldry-Morrison (Photo: Artist Copyright, Source Instagram)

Maya comments on Eris work: „Her talks and how she is communicating to people what she knows and believes about dance music is really important to them. She has given the language to us that we have been searching for. It was incredible when I met her, when I felt in love with her, she is this person that has the same understanding of everything I feel – about dance music, about being at the club and dancing in front of the speakers, sending messages with the music.“

When the two speak of using magic, it is not in the sense of a higher science based on hierarchies and scriptures and dogmas, but rather in an emotional spiritual sense. Eris: „Most modern people are really confused, they think religion means spirituality. They are very different things. They also think that human spirituality when it is organised is always religion – it is not. For most of human existence we had shamanism, which is all about direct and suggestive experiences of the others, not about a secret text, not about a certain man who said what the nature of god is and the universe. We have no organisation. The music, the dance, the ritual, they all are a way to experience the mystery. We are not gonna tell you what it is. I don’t have a view of the layers of the original plan, or the original story. Science will not provide all the answers. It is a method of conversation, it is a method of interacting with reality, and it is a method of trying to deprogram culture.“

It’s amazing how nonchalantly spiritual thoughts and everyday actions always go hand in hand for the two. For them, the spiritual exchange leads directly to everyday tips like the guides on how to build a studio, what the perfect DJ set-up looks like and how to live an artistic life on their own terms, which are freely available on the website of their label T4T LUV NRG. Because in sharing their knowledge freely with everyone, they help the community “to amplify their lives,” as Maya puts it.

In keeping with the anti-institutionalism of their spirituality, Eris and Maya see the guidelines not as a set of rules, but as an account of their experiences, and thus as an essential part of the demystifying process of their artistic work.

„We are not talking about how to write a track, we explain how to set up everything so you can write a track,“ Maya explains. In this respect, it goes without saying that they don’t want any money for it. The overwhelming feedback is reward enough and gives them the feeling that they are on the right track. In the end, it’s all about one thing: healing. Eris: „The music did something to me nothing else could. All art in the beginning was for healing. Art is a way that we humans can deal with our short lives.“

Even though psychedelics are so in vogue right now that even Gwyneth Paltrow sees them as the future on her lifestyle platform Goop, we’re still on legally, shall we say, difficult terrain – it’s not for nothing that Eris has only been able to find three clubs for her Motherbeat parties. Especially since it’s not just that people have concerns about the illegal nature of the substances, there are often deep-seated doubts and fears. Quite a few would first ask her whether it is possible without psychedelic substances, Eris reports from the exchange with the audience at the lectures and parties. „I alway answer quite direct. Of course one can have spiritual experiences at a rave without psychedelics, the community feelings are strong. But if you want have the real psychedelic experience then … I mean, you could go and be a monk and spend 40 years to learn how to breathe in a way to make things appear in front of you or I can give you this plant in your modern busy life which will give it to you in 40 minutes.“

At this point, they both start to giggle sweetly. But this should not be misinterpreted, it is very important to them that everyone who decides to take psychedelics is well informed. Because as nice and mind-expanding as psychedelics can be, they can also send you on a bad trip if space and time are not suitable. That’s exactly why it’s so important that there’s always a safe space at parties where you can come down under the guidance of a person “who is trained in psychedelic harm reduction”. One doesn’t want to repeat the mistakes made by the hippie movement of the 1960s and 70s, where people often consumed without reflection. 

Following the safe trip claim, the parties always end with a three-hour deep listening session in the tradition of U.S. composer Pauline Oliveros, where everyone touches each other tenderly and slowly arrives back in the here and now through the music and interaction. „This is important and helps everyone to leave without being chaotic“, so Eris.

New York, Berlin, New Hampshire

„We are not just escapists“, Eris states energetically, referring to the small world they have created for themselves with their two-story house in the woods outside Boston. But yes, it is a dream place, a utopia come true that gives them the strength to venture out into the world again and again.
After graduating from school, Maya and Brooke – who I’ve known and loved since the sandbox – moved to Brooklyn for a few years, simply because she felt she needed to get out of her confined environment. The time there was “amazing”, but not least because of the increasingly intense touring life as a DJ, the forest called her longingly back: 
„I missed the trees, the open space – in Brooklyn you can never really be alone. Even if you are in your quiet apartment there are always a million things going on in the building, on the street, its loud…“

When Q, as Brooke is affectionately called by the two, then discovered the house, the move was quickly decided.
Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a quieter place. The house sits on a lonely cul-de-sac that otherwise feeds only three other homes. The community is limited to organising snow shovelling together in the winter to keep the driveway clear, but otherwise they have nothing to do with the neighbours. Which it helps that there’s plenty of space between them everywhere. On one side of the house begins the forest, which is bordered by a river. 
„We are able to be by ourselves and do what we want. It is a quiet space“, Eris remarks. And Maya adds with a laugh, „we are definitely the loudest.“ In other words, for the two “psychedelic witches” it was the right place to isolate themselves from society. 
Maya: „Here we don’t have the constant turmoil of dealing with wider society, no questioning how we are perceived and what people ware saying about us.“

Eris, who moved in a year after Brooke and Maya, still has to pinch herself when she talks about her rural New Hampshire life: „Five years ago I walked into a therapists office and one of the questions asked was: „Where do you see yourself? What do you want?“ – I wanna be a musician, live in nature, come out, find love, It was so ridiculous, how should that work out? I had no music career at that stage.“ The memories make Eris cry – and Maya, visibly moved, whispers an “I love you” in her ear.
For as much as success has given them a worldwide network of peer groups, and as much as they move around in so-called enlightened big cities, the realities of everyday life, they often still look bleak, the love they give each other, it is existential for the two and the basis of all their creative energy. 
Even in Brooklyn, where she had lived for a long time, traumatic experiences had occurred again and again, Maya reports: „I stopped taking the subway, I had a bike and I had a car. Being the person that I am the subway was just constant harassment. And then you would have to move through these public spaces with all the people trying to process what just happened and deal with thoughts like „did I do something wrong?“, „why did that person see that thing?“, „whats going on, am I safe in my neighbourhood?“
Berlin is also not a good place for them, Eris adds. At this point, they both look deeply into each other’s eyes again, and then they talk about a late-night cab ride through Berlin, during which the driver sexually harassed them and wanted to get into bed with them. When they then left the car in a hurry, he continued to chase them through the city streets for over fifteen minutes. “It’ s a minefield out there,” Eris comments in a sad voice.

„There is simply no space for wide acceptance of trans people in the whole world“, Maya sums up her experiences after several years of globetrotting. „Places like to claim that they are safe for queer people – that is just not true. There is always someone there who does not agree with who you are.“ In this respect, they are very happy in the woods of New Hampshire, although they are not kidding themselves, this is not sacred land either, it’s just that the open spaces are greater here. Eris elaborates: „We are not too many hamsters in a hamster cage here – which happens when you are in a big city.“

Deep inside of me / I’ve got so much love / For you, you’ll see, yeah) / Deep inside of me / I’ve got so much love / For you, you’ll see, yeah
(„So Much Love To Give“, Eris Drew)

That New Hampshire takes on this special significance in the lives of Eris Drew and Maya Bouldry-Morrison is also due to their partner Brooke. For her, who often lives alone in the house because of Eris’ and Maya’s many trips, Corona time must feel doubly strange in this respect, since suddenly there are always three of them present. “Oh yes,” comments Maya laughing, “especially as we are very loud people.
„They are a busy professional artist, they do different work,“ gives Maya some insights in the artistic career of Brooke, „They do ceramics, wood works, paintings, drawings, collages – for example they did a painting for the „Resonant Body“ album cover and some stuff for our T4T LUV NRG label. And they work in addition for a non-profit. They are busy.“ 
Eris adds: „They are trans too – and they are non-binary. So they are dealing with a lot of the same issues we are. They try to make where we live a better place for trans and non-binary folks. They formed a coalition of people who are working at local business to make their business more trans friendly, train employers not to ignore pronouns.“

The two emphasise how much they enjoy the time off together. For one thing, they could all work intensively on new productions – and present the results to each other every evening in joint sessions. But above all, they would finally cultivate a real family life and have dinner together every evening, go for long walks, in short, do all the things that otherwise busy schedules don’t allow time for.

It is a beautiful experience to listen to the two of them and to feel how happy the three of them are together in this magical place in the woods of New Hampshire.
I ask Maya and Eris if they would consider themselves role models for others. The two of them look at me in amazement from the laptop. Well, the idea that they could be role models is not alien to them, but it still feels strange. Probably because for both of them it was not so long ago that they gained inspiration from musicians like Terre Thaemlitz or a visionary like Terence McKenna on their artistic path. Terre Thaemlitz helped them to believe that trans narratives are communicable, and McKenna gave them the belief that there is an audience for their thematic complex of psychedelic substances, mysticism and music. 

But the list of people who have had an influence on her is much more extensive, Eris notes. Smiling, she paints a picture of a body made up of many others. „Those artists who were free, who have taken at least some control over their identity and culture. Strong powerful female figures, from Janis Joplin to Little Richard.“

Maya turns the topic gallantly because of from the own person to the own role: „It is important to me to show trans representation by being out playing. To share my knowledge with other people comes with the intention of hoping that other people wanna do it as well.“
And Eris reacts modestly, holding up a self-critical mirror to herself: „I def try to put ideas out there the best I can. Being a role model would be very uncomfortable, I had a pretty fucked up life. I could bring people in the room that would tell you that I hurt them, that I was not a nice person. I am not a perfect person, not everything I do is for charity – real spirituality is helping other people, but I mean I did a few good things.“

But then we have to come to the end of this May day in 2020, even if it feels like we could go on talking like this for hours. One last question is still open: at the end of their “Hot n Ready DJ Tips” the two speak out the advice ” Be Weird”. What exactly do you mean by that? Maya takes the floor first: „Do the things that feel good to you even though not everyone will get them right on. Feel free to have an outside perspective on writing club music.“ And Eris adds: „We both believe, rule breaking is very important to being an artist.“

❤️ This article was originally intended for the magazine Chart – Notes to consider, but never appeared due to the pandemic. However, it has lost none of its urgency, so it feels right to publish it now after three years.
Deep Love for Maya & Eris ❤️

❤️❤️❤️ (Photo: Artist Copyright, Source Instagram)