(SOUNDBITE OF DJ_DAVE SONG, "HARD REFRESH")
SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Sarah Davis first learned what an algorave is when she was in art school and saw a flyer for an unconventional music class.
DJ DAVE: And it was just like, music plus coding equals algorave. And I was like, music and coding? I love that. Like, I'm going to take the class.
PFEIFFER: That introduced her to something called live coding. It's where performers write code live on stage to create art.
DJ DAVE: It just, like, combined these, like, niche interests of mine that I almost didn't even know I had that much of a passion for. And I was just like, this is so perfect. Like, I need to make this my whole life.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HARD REFRESH")
DJ DAVE: (Vocalizing).
PFEIFFER: Now, Davis writes and codes dance music under the name DJ_Dave. Her debut album, "Hardcore Software," is out now. NPR's Kai McNamee reports.
KAI MCNAMEE, BYLINE: It starts with just a few lines of text.
DJ DAVE: So I have kick, colon, space, S, open parentheses.
MCNAMEE: DJ_Dave taps out some code, and you get a drum pattern.
DJ DAVE: I'll write, like, X...
(SOUNDBITE OF TAPPING KEYS)
DJ DAVE: (Imitating musical beat).
(SOUNDBITE OF DJ_DAVE SONG, "GIVE IT 2 ME")
MCNAMEE: She adds a vocal sample and, with a few more keystrokes, tells the computer what bass notes to play.
DJ DAVE: E1, exclamation point, three. B1...
MCNAMEE: Those lines of code make up the track "Give It 2 Me."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIVE IT 2 ME")
DJ DAVE: (Singing) What I want, I told you that I need your love, so give it to me. Running up my currents, I can't get enough of this feeling, baby.
MCNAMEE: DJ_Dave uses an open-source program called Strudel to make music. About a year ago, she started sharing her process online, livestreaming her coding sessions and posting video clips.
DJ DAVE: I would just, like, start a song and stream the process of making it and, like, ask people questions, let people give me suggestions. Like, I would, like, make, like, a chorus of a song and then be like, OK, I'm done and, like, move on. So with this album, I was like, I kind of want to finish these projects out.
MCNAMEE: The album is the result of a lot of collaboration. She'd get input from her social media followers, gauge the audience when she'd perform a new track.
(SOUNDBITE OF DJ_DAVE AND SWITCH ANGEL SONG, "ALWAYS LEARNING")
SWITCH ANGEL: Every time we sit down to work together, we just have, like, a million ideas.
MCNAMEE: Live coder Switch Angel worked with DJ_Dave on the track "Always Learning." After playing a show together in Los Angeles, the two of them hopped on a computer to jam.
SWITCH ANGEL: It's like, oh, I have this idea. Let me take over the keyboard. And it's just, like, leaning over and just, like, typing, you know, in the Terminal. And then she's like, oh my gosh, but what if we did this?
(SOUNDBITE OF DJ_DAVE AND SWITCH ANGEL SONG, "ALWAYS LEARNING")
MCNAMEE: Switch Angel is also one of the creators of Strudel, l the program DJ_Dave uses to make music. She says Dave finds new and creative ways to visually present the code.
SWITCH ANGEL: You know, she's got that mind for, like, fashion and design. We're always, like, learning from each other.
MCNAMEE: In a way, that idea of always learning from each other is core to the album.
DJ DAVE: It feels like it goes along with, like, the open-source nature of live coding in general. Like, I'm like, I don't gatekeep any part of my process. I tell people, you can go on my TikTok and, like, steal my song. Like, (laughter) it's right there. Like, the code is right there.
ALEX MCLEAN: It's like a real kind of ecosystem. It's just, like, a free flow of ideas.
MCNAMEE: Alex McLean has been live coding since the early 2000s. He's one of the artists who helped to build the live-coding community by writing and sharing software, hosting events.
MCLEAN: Events which were just based on making parties for people to dance to code. And that's when I coined this word with my friend - algorave - like a portmanteau of algorithm and rave.
MCNAMEE: And algorave usually features coders writing dance music live. And there's a visual element, which can be a projection of the coder's screen, graphics generated by another live coder.
MCLEAN: I'm working in this world of abstract symbols, but there might be people dancing in front of me. I might feel the subwoofers, like, shaking me while I'm writing the code. It's a really kind of strange full-body experience, really.
(SOUNDBITE OF DJ_DAVE SONG, "AIRGLOW")
MCNAMEE: The first time DJ_Dave went to an algorave in New York, she was blown away. She doesn't remember who the artists were, but there were three coders...
DJ DAVE: Wearing full-blown suits, button-down, tie, jacket and a headset, and they were just cooking. It was, like, so cool, and the music was really high energy, really cool the whole time. And it was so exciting.
MCNAMEE: You can still feel that excitement in her music today. DJ_Dave describes "Hardcore Software" as a hopeful album.
DJ DAVE: I feel like I have, like, obviously a lot of, like, tech pessimism in the modern landscape of things, but I also consider myself just, like, generally an optimist. And there's, like, a lot of things about tech that really excite me. And that was kind of, like, just how I felt making this album. I wanted to make songs that, like, make you feel like the future can be good.
MCNAMEE: DJ_Dave's "Hardcore Software" is out now. Kai McNamee, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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