As the musicking arm of the multidisciplinary Stööki art collective, Stööki Sound’s tight branding and meticulously crafted sound are delivering an immersive experience to every face their bass blows off.
DJ Lukey and Jelacee @ CODA in Toronto
Jelacee and DJ Lukey, the lads that comprise the London-based production & DJ duo, pride themselves on their ability to read a room. They know the ins and outs of music – both theirs and others’ – on a level that raises the art of production to a sixth sense.
“We perform in the way of like, energy – so we’ll make sure that if we want you to be here you’ll be here, if we want you to be there you’ll be there. […] We just wanna redirect that negative energy and turn it into positive energy, to get it out of you so that by the time it comes to next week you’re like, ‘Aight cool, I’m fresh again – let’s go.’”
Like many artists, Stööki Sound has a give-and-take relationship with the necessary evil of simplified labeling that is a by-product of cataloguing and promoting music:
“We don’t really classify our selves as like, trap artists. We’re trap-esque, where we take elements from trap but then we take elements from grime and we take elements from here and there and there. We’re not sure what to call it, really […] nobody knows what it is.”
On the topic of how they continue developing a sound that is already unique, Jelacee continues:
“We’re still developing our sound and still progressing, so this year the sound’s gonna be different, but you’re still gonna know like, oh yeah – Stööki Sound made that. We’re always staying in that same realm but expanding that realm, and trying to introduce people to different sounds and introduce ourselves to different sounds as well.”
The Stööki movement began when DJ Lukey created custom screenprinted t-shirt-and-jewelry combos the summer he graduated from graphic design school. Early showcases introduced Stööki to the public through workshop-like-pop-ups that urged people to call upon their eyes, ears, and hands to interact with multimedia art. The idea was to produce art that extended itself as an experience, inviting the viewer in to add their point of view.
And what’s more participatory than a dance floor?
Raging face at CODA
Last Thursday night, under the synchronized ceiling lights of CODA in Toronto, the lads of Stööki Sound delivered on their vision.
Local genre-agnostic favorite HRMXNY warmed the crowd up to a low-medium frenzy. His opening set dipped into the realms of bass-y house and techno rhythms that spiced up an otherwise (appropriately) trapped-out vibe. Drake cuts abounded.
HRMXNY @CODA
When Stööki Sound took over the decks, a brief lull occurred due to issues porting the duo’s Macbook Air into the Pioneer deck system. This resolved when Jelacee made use of the two gold-plated USB keys he keeps on a chain around his neck – backups of his music library (“These are my saving grace; nobody can ever tell me I can’t play”). The duo then proceeded to play an off-the-cuff DJ set, which, though unplanned, was a damn good harbinger of sweat, screwface, and trap arms.
Stööki Sound @ CODA
Over the course of the hour-and-change set, there were very few tracks whose creators were easily identified; everything was a remix, an edit, or a mashup that spanned genres and tempos while maintaining an impressively consistent vibe. Dark, raw, grimy; however you name it, there were reworks of everything from Drizzy’s ‘Know Yourself’ to the duo’s take on Missy’s ‘Work It’. Rhythmic treats included banging four-to-the-floor instrumentals followed by a melodic and anticlimactic mix of ‘Mosh Pit’. The show peaked twice during raging mosh pits, both incited by Jelacee himself.
Stööki Sound strives to cross borders and is spearheading a movement for which a word does not yet exist –drawing on multiple aesthetics (light and sound, energy and feeling) to inform its meaning.
For the niche of trap-and-UK bass lovers congregated under the flashing ceiling lights of CODA last Thursday, Stööki Sound delivered – and participated in – an authentic sensory experience that will only serve to further build out their movement in the underbelly of Toronto’s rave and rap scenes.
By: Sally L and Kevin G
