I'm so grateful for archives like Wayback Machine, who for 15 years have been creating snapshots of almost the entire web.
I was still on track to go UNC at Chapel Hill, I had no plans to be a musician. It wasn't even a goal of mine. Then I had this song that blew up and went viral and suddenly I found myself playing shows and having this music career.
The warmest place I've ever been is my home here in Chapel Hill. It's an oasis of comfort and joy for me.
If I could turn it on like a faucet then I think it would be kind of unearned. I feel like you need to struggle a little bit to make anything good.
Virtual Self' was me trying to paint a picture of a very foggy, distorted memory that I had of electronic music on the internet.
I wanted to have a grander vision, something that I felt like I was really fighting for and I wanted to have a real idea and be authentic.
Star Wars Galaxies' didn't ever explain itself to you. It was horribly broken; it was glitchy in several significant ways. It was just this vast, expansive, beautiful universe with all these crazy idiosyncrasies.
As much as early 2000s aesthetics are something I was pining for and very much love, I would occasionally struggle to find one singular image or one singular site that summed up all of my memories really well.
And I'm interested in writing music that takes risks. My point is that maybe the term EDM is pinned on me and my buddies, but maybe it'll be less so if I experiment.
My original goal was to get into the Top 100. I listened to every song in the Top 100 every day. I knew them all - this is where the gods reside.
I wanted there to be something to fill the space and to catch the listener's ear, but I didn't want there to be any 'Virtual Self' songs that had a clearly defined vocal with lyrics and top line. If you do hear any lyrics, it's just your brain filling in the gap, because those moments are just various syllables combined.
I wanted what I was doing to be really true to me and my tastes. That's what 'Worlds' was, me taking a break from what I was doing and doing something that was honest, authentic and real.
Virtual Self' combines a lot of unlike elements - trance, jungle, slowed-down breakbeats.
Being like 14 and 15 years old, listening to trance music in my home, I just had this fantasy of going to these big clubs and going to these massives, and just hearing this gorgeous, delicate music.
I had a lot of self-doubt when I started. And I still do. But I had a lot of the wrong kind of self-doubt when I first started making music and first started to tour. I think I was a little bit deferential.
