Discovering electronic roots
“For me, it started probably as a kid,” Raye recalls, “just hearing all kinds of electronica… developing a taste for that 303 sound.” A lifelong metal fan, she found early inspiration in acts like The Prodigy and Jeff Mills. Learning to DJ during the shift from vinyl to CD, she remembers feeling “isolated for a while” until she finally “had a chance to meet [her] tribe,” other artists rooted in techno, acid house, and the underground.
Finding freedom in gear and sound
Raye’s creative journey is grounded in tactile experimentation. She laughs about her first synth: “I bought an UltraNova off eBay when I was about 20... I loved it, but it wasn’t for what I was going to be using.” Today her setup mixes analog and digital machines like the TD-3, MS-20, and an experimental Soma Pipe vocal instrument. “You can play it like an instrument, sing vowel chants into it... I don’t even think there’s many things out there quite like this,” she says with excitement.
Working alone, collaborating afar
When asked about collaboration, Raye is candid: “I’m autistic, so I’m very awkward when I speak to people in person.” She prefers exchanging stems remotely, saying that it allows ideas to flow more naturally. Her side project Funeral Pyre thrives that way: “We’ll trade stems, we’ll trade recordings... we’re getting the work done.” Yet whether solo or collaborative, she admits, “I try to always keep working on something, even if it’s just the framework that I can go back to later.”
From DIY pedals to Beatport charts
Raye describes herself as “the cheapest, most budget-friendly setup you’ll ever see,” building homemade noise toys and using gritty gear like the DoD Death Metal pedal. Her approach is driven by intuition: “Half the time for me, I’m trial-and-erroring, messing around with patches... sometimes you strike gold and other times you learn a lesson.” Still, this raw method has led to success, her track “Where Is the Rave?” on Carbon Recordings reached the Beatport Top 100. “That was crazy for me,” she says, “because that was never the type of artist I ever thought I would be.”
Pushing back against the fast-music culture
As the discussion turns philosophical, Raye reflects on the pace of modern music. “I think when you stop learning, you stop creating,” she says, lamenting a culture where “it’s almost like the music is this tiny speck and 97% of everything else is marketing.” She hopes listeners “sit with a release and digest it,” urging artists to “trust the DJs a little bit... it’s okay if you hear things you haven’t heard before.” Her closing wish is simple: “Pick any album... sit and listen. Take it in. Remember that it’s more than just a brief experience, somebody poured their heart into it.”
