Impact: Peggy Gou

Peggy Gou only released her first EP at the start of this year but already she’s emerging as one of the most exciting young artists in the scene. Her rising profile is apparent as she answers our call from a nail salon in her childhood home-city of Seoul. “Are all your questions the questions that I get all the time?” she asks before we’ve barely begun in an immediate role-reversal. There’s a lot of attention of Peggy Gou right now.

This unabashed approach to life is a driving force behind Peggy’s success, as she pushes herself head first into new experiences and builds relationships with influential figures. Peggy’s parents sent her to live in London at the age of 14 following concerns about her school performance, and there she had to adapt to an alien culture and make her way through a vastly different education system.

She’d always been interested in dancing and dance music and began DJing while studying fashion at university, but it was the gift of Roman Flügel’s ‘Fatty Folders’ from a friend that introduced more underground sounds into her world. “I was like ‘What the fuck is this!’” she tells me, “I didn’t know what it was but it sounded so amazing.” An intense passion was born, and she began to regularly shop at Phonica Records and branched out her clubbing visits beyond the more commercial side of things, never missing a single Flügel date while living in the city.

Under the tutelage of Highlife artist Esa, a connection made in Corsica Studios, and with the backing of her classical piano training, she began to produce. After completing her degree she decided that fashion was not something that could be effectively taught and applied to a music school, but had her visa rejected because the course level was a step down in terms defined by the UK government.

A move to Berlin followed, and seeking a new mentor Peggy found two in Italian duo Nu Guinea. Lucio Aquilina trained her to achieve a more analogue sound, and at the same time landing a job in a record shop expanded her musical horizons and she began to include more genres and labels in her increasingly diverse sets.

Now Peggy stands as the first female Korean DJ to play outside the country and release on internationally-based labels. Across the three EPs under her belt so far (‘Art Of War’ Parts 1 & 2 on Rekids and ‘Day Without Yesterday’ on Phonica White) she’s expertly weaved together influence from old-skool Chicago house, Detroit techno, acid and sounds from across the continent of Africa into weighty grooves that are filled with soul. As her for her skills behind a pair of decks, her excellent Impact mix should make those clear.

Check it out alongside a Q+A below.

How has each city Seoul / London / Berlin influenced you musically?

Very differently. Seoul is not the city that influenced me to get into music, definitely not, because my music taste completely changed in London. I think it then got an upgrade after being in Berlin for sure. Before I was into deep house and house music, techno was something that I didn't really understand. It just sounded like the same music for, like, four hours. But since I was in Berlin I started to be interested in this genre and I started to hear what's good and bad after learning production. Of course maybe I'm wrong; I'm not going to be right all the time. London changed me, but Berlin upgraded me.

How do the 'Art Of War' part 1 and 2 EPs link? Is there a continuing theme between them?

I gave Rekids five tracks after Simon from Phonica told Matt [Edwards aka Radio Slave] about my music. He said he really likes it and asks would I be interested in releasing on his label. So it was five tracks in the beginning. Then we decided an LP with two vinyl inside is too expensive so we should just do part 1 and part 2 with different remixes. That's how it happened.

Galcher Lustwerk and Terekke turned in the remixes.

The first one was Rekids' choice and I was happy with that because Galcher put effort into the remix. He only used one stem from my music and he created something different so I was happy and I like Galcher's profile.

For the second I gave them a whole other list of people that I would love to get and said I'd be super happy if they could choose one from there. Then in the end they chose Terekke who was on my list which I really appreciated.

You recently put out a track titled 'Hungboo (ㅎㅎㅎ)' as part of the Style Icon Asia awards featuring Korean celebrity Yoo Ah-in. Can you explain how this project came about?

It's so funny I'd love to tell you about this story because the Hungboo is actually the very first track I ever made. Esa knows it, I remember I came to one of the lessons saying "Esa, check this out, I sampled something from YouTube and I made this track.” And Esa was like "This is dope! I think you should keep this as your style.” I was very proud this was my first demo, but it was a little different to the one I later posted because I changed some things.

One of my best friends is the biggest celebrity in Korea, he’s an actor here. We were just chilling at his house with a bunch of people and I asked if he wanted to hear my very first demo which I never released or anything but it has Korean words in there. He said, "You know what, I love this! Let's do a music video." I was like "what?!". You know how much he would cost if somebody was to cast him for the music video? You would probably have to pay more than £50,000 per day. But I was lucky. I wasn't thinking about releasing this music anyway so this became a huge thing because of him.

It was very difficult working with a superstar because even when you're a friend, when you work you're not really a friend you know? So this was how it happened and because of him the guys in Korea were interested in releasing the music video for the Style Icon Asia award which is a huge thing in Korea.

What is the Style Icon Asia exactly?

It's a big award ceremony they do once a year. They give the best dressed celebrity and I did a performance basically as an intro. He was one of the people who was supposed to get the award but he didn't come because he was busy!

You’ve said before that Korean people are not as open-minded as Europeans when it comes to dance music. Are you hoping to raise the profile of underground dance music in Korea?

Of course, I'm already doing it. I'm the youngest and first Korean female DJ who actually started making their own music and who plays not just in Korea. The EDM genre is really famous here so I’m hoping I can influence more Korean people to like the music that I like.

You live next door to Daniel Wang, has he influenced you?

It's funny because when I met him the first time he came to my place and we talked about music for almost four or five hours. I didn't expect that. I had just moved to Berlin and was looking for someone who could teach me or give lessons. I said as a joke, "You could be my mentor!" And Daniel was like, "Yeah, for sure I think I could be a very good mentor."

So I was going to do a lesson with him, but then the next day I get a message on Facebook saying he can't do it so I was very disappointed because I thought he could be amazing. He's so passionate about music.

Of course I gave him my first record when it came out. He said, "If this is your first record then I think you'll do great, but you are still missing something, you should be more ambitious." He showed me an African carpet with a regular pattern and said "I feel like you are making music like this, but you should make music like this" and then he shows me another African carpet with a crazy pattern. Advice he gives definitely helps, I think he's always right.

What are your main future plans and goals now?

I have tons of lists I've planned. Asian people work like this! Regarding releases I'm already working on new music for my next EP which I'm hoping to release at the end of this year. Perhaps an album after 2 to 3 years. There are too many other plans I wish to complete; I'm already planning my stuff for 2017. I can't tell you everything but I try my best to stick with my plans!

Patrick Hinton is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow him on Twitter

Tracklist
African Man (Ricardo Villalobos & Max Loderbauer Mix) - Tony Allen
Alliance - Nu Guinea
Wonder Woman - The Maghreban
Confusion - Point G
No Big Thang - Paul Johnson
Humbug - Schatrax
Show Me What You Got (Acid Mix) - S.L.F
Sumba-Lumba (S-Man's Got You In A Trance Mix) - Tribal Infusion
Thaw Cycle - Pearson Sound
As Is Above So Is Below - Ron Trent
Day Without Yesterday - Peggy Gou