It was a sunny weekday afternoon when I sat down with Daisy-Mae (Ohmydais) for a coffee in North London. Having moved there very recently, she already had a favourite coffeeshop to get the morning started. We talked about her past and even more alluring future, her daily life and thrilling DJing career that she’s grown into since her first set in her university years.

Her passion for mixing music is a bit older than her professional DJing interest, as she recalls the times when she would burn CDs for fun: good old days before online streaming platforms. Curating playlists, collecting music of her own taste and her own order stuck with her as she grew up. When she started university, with some savings and grants she managed to buy her first controller (and still uses the same speakers that she bought with it). She has started to form an emotional bond with those speakers, as they have seen her learning and discovering more things about music and production. Getting the basics from her wedding-DJ friend back home, she simply became a self-taught DJ afterwards by going on YouTube in between uni classes.

Ohmydais envies how the mediation of information has transformed to become more accessible than ever before, as TikToks become educational music tools. As she was a university student at Nottingham, she slowly started to upload on Soundcloud while networking around the city’s music scenes. It was definitely not shocking to hear that the Nottingham music scene was also highly male dominated several years ago, as she was quite intimidated by being one of the few women going into this community. Going into an already established music community, mostly focusing on house and disco, Ohmydais was more of an indie rock person, interested in darker sounds. After starting her music journey at Nottingham, Ohmydais shifted into London’s music scene and became more interested in Dubstep and other sounds. In the early years where she wasn’t able to perform for financial reasons, she didn’t give up partying and learning from the events that she and her friend used to go mostly in Oval Space, seeing some of the best DJs performing.

Anything high energy and melodic but not tied to any sort of style or BPM could be in Ohmydais’ style book. It really depends on what mix she is doing or the party she is playing, channelling the crowds and the vibes of the line up with a pinch of her salt and pepper. Apparently, sensing the room is a big part of the job, learning how to sink in with the crowd and the music before and after holds an important role.

Ohmydais has really exciting stuff coming up this summer and even some plans for the homecoming season, September, as she talks about the mixes coming up, collaborations, festivals and nights. Stay tuned for a mix coming out fresh from Berlin as a collaboration with Warning – she hopes to meet them the next time she is there, and this one will be a bit faster and electronic, showing the UK influence on techno that she believes Europe is experiencing at the moment. She adds that many Europeans DJs have started to play UK pieces in their work creating a harmonious new environment. She reminisces over a post-lockdown Berlin trip in late 2021, as people were finally starting to go clubbing again. At the opening party of OXI, seeing a range of 160, jungle breaks, and techno by LCY, Sherelle and Kikelomo, Daisy became mesmerised hearing these sounds for the first time. Non-binary and female DJs blasting 160bpm, in a highly hard-techno influenced Berlin was deeply alluring for her.

We delved into London’s melting pot soul bringing different flavours of music together, creating unique sounds that influence different music communities all over the world. Ohmydais finds herself here for this reason: there is always something more to explore in this spirited city. Ohmydais has already performed in Berlin in different events including her latest HÖR performance that took place in May – her third time being in the iconic green, yellow tiled room. With no physical audience, knowing the performance is going to be a bit more fun and playful gave her the comfort

and freedom to reflect herself more in her performance. Even though streaming feels a bit nerve-racking to her, she enjoys looking back at it to see that it was fun to create those sets! On the other hand, four magnificent DJs, Ohmydais, Fae, Mixtress and Ell Murphy teamed up after meeting at a Late Night Shopper event that Daisy and Fae were playing at. Ohmydais had already known Fae for two years and met the others along the way. Becoming the perfect quad after seeing each other grow and learn, Daisy remembers how they all got together at a Late Night Shopper event for the last time before the lockdown started, saying “This is it” right after the streaming session, where they’d played amicable sounds back-to-back. That was probably a sign for them to create a WhatsApp group chat together. She describes that harmony’s openness and ability to bring oneself out – no one would find any hardship mixing something is that outside their usual range, while also listening to the crowd as they play. As Mixtress and Ell Murphy also have their own productions out, they have managed to create a freer environment to experiment in comfort, presenting their own eclectic sounds. Alongside that, Ohmydais has recently become a new resident at Rinse FM, something that she has been very excited about. With her weekly residency with Team Woibey, each of them have a monthly show, an opportunity she has been grateful that they’ve got. She was also called by Threads Radio and performed her new kind of sound with of guests across the world, including James Bangura, Amadeezy, and the Team Woibey Girls teamed up for a mix for International Women’s Day. Handling many aspects of the program, from the cover pages with some help from friends, to recording at home, everything felt very D.I.Y., with the effect of a lockdown.

As the sun gets warmer each day, we dive into the summer and it will surely be a great one full of interesting festivals for music lovers and Ohmydais too. August will be busy for Ohmydais, supporting legendary DJ Warlock over the bank holiday, with multiple upcoming events which will be announced soon. She’s also been confirmed to play at Boomtown on the Private Studio Stage which will take place between 9th-13th August. Boomtown is only one of the festivals that you will be seeing Ohmydais since you can also come across her at Westival, Twisted Festival, The Old Red Bus Station and Waterworks with her dark, vibrant sounds. One of the things to look forward to in September is the party where Ohmydais, Strange Signals and Highrise will be debuting their new trio group Strange High Dais and welcoming everyone back to London. As all three stand in the heavier side of the techno, Highrise and Strange Signals are both mostly interested in garage sounds, and when they are all together, they all go a bit more intense than usual and have more space to enter 160 bpm territories with techno melodies.