Fresh Kicks 203: ohmydais

It’s noon at Waterworks 2023 and Team Woibey (‘vibey’ with a ‘w’, before you ask) are shelling percussive club bangers on the Pressure stage. Aided by the weather – an unseasonably warm 26 degrees – the London-based, all-female collective are putting on a sweltering display, taking it in turns to serve up slabs of rugged techno, UKG, breaks, jungle, and more against the leafy curtain of Gunnersbury Park. Amongst them is East London selector ohmydais, who throws down a hefty X CLUB. edit just as the sun peeks through the clouds. It goes off. 

These communal moments have helped shape the self-taught DJ – real name Daisy-Mae – who has developed her own sonic identity by uplifting, and being uplifted by, her peers. “Now that I think about it, I might actually be the founder,” she laughs when queried on Team Woibey’s origins, a giddy smile of realisation creeping across her face. “I always had in the back of my head that when I moved to London, it would be so good if I could form some kind of crew. Well, one that wasn’t just like me fitting in with a couple of guys.”

It’s a few weeks pre-Waterworks when DJ Mag catch up with Daisy over Zoom; her free-flowing knowledge of rave culture and humble demeanour make it clear why she’s a stellar addition to any crew. “I feel like being part of different collectives and going b2b a lot helps keep you on your toes,” she explains. “It also forces you to listen out for certain elements of tracks and ask yourself constant questions like: ‘How’s that sounding?’, ‘How’s this song gonna progress?’, ‘How can I fit that in?’ So the cogs are always turning, and I do feel totally inspired by that.”

Reflecting on her DJ career to date, Daisy chronicles a tale of two distinct halves. Prior to joining Team Woibey and other collectives championing women and minority genders in dance music, including Saffron, Daisy was a student in Nottingham, where she first learned to mix in 2013. At the time, the city was fast cementing itself as an underground rave haven, spearheaded by the likes of local hero Lukas Wigflex, who Daisy calls “a legend.”

“DJing had always been on my radar, I think it was just a matter of being in a financial position to get started,” she explains. And so, armed with her student loan and a pot of savings, Daisy bought her first controller and speaker. Picking up the basics from a wedding DJ friend back home, she learned the rest by watching YouTube videos in between lectures, and tinkering away in her bedroom deep into the night. Soon after, Daisy adopted the ohmydais moniker and dropped her first mix on Soundcloud, and began to whittle out her own lane in the city’s bubbling underground.

“These days you’ve got so many female, non-binary collectives coming together and putting on nights, but ten years ago, that scene was very much male-dominated,” she recalls. “I remember feeling a little daunted at first, but luckily the (Nottingham) Trent community was so supportive, and after putting out a few mixes I was invited down to DJ different SU events and the student bar.” 

Her post-graduation move to London was “very humbling”, Daisy laughs. “I definitely retreated for a bit and just consumed everything I could, and that was when my sound really started to change. In Nottingham, the music was very house and disco-focused, and then after moving to London in 2016, I was blown away by the huge dubstep influence. I felt like it was my opportunity to really embrace a new style, which is more of a breaks, UK leftfield bass angle, with a bit of techno in there as well.”

From there, Daisy pushed the parameters of her sound into increasingly gnarled terrain, upping the BPMs to around 140, 160 and beyond, dropping percussive cuts alongside moody brews of electro, bass and breaks. “Naturally with a bigger city, you’re exposed to more diverse groups, as well as lots of different genres. I remember meeting NKC and Drumtrax, and going to a lot of nights that played hard drum stuff, and just being hooked.” 

It was in these circles that Daisy met the Team Woibey players  – Ell Murphy, FAE and former DJ Mag One To Watch Mixtress – and they quickly formed a tight alliance. “I met FAE through a mutual friend when she just turned up in my flat without the friend,” Daisy laughs. The pair bonded over breaks and bass-driven sounds, which they were both spinning at the time, before going to see Polish techno star VTSS play. “A great icebreaker,” she attests. “Maybe the best.”

A grin remains fixed to Daisy’s face as she narrates these first encounters, and it’s warming to hear stories of burgeoning DJs lifting each other up. It’s a stark contrast to the self-serving persuasions so often deemed essential to finding success in the underground club scene today. “I first met Ell in 2020 when she was DJing a night at Five Miles, I think it was the Earful of Wax takeover with Bluetoof, and then I connected with Rini (Mixtress) online on a Facebook group called Hard and Nasty,” she recollects, giggling. “It was such a good group! I was in quite a few and they were just such a good way to meet people in music from around the UK and sometimes in Europe.”

The foursome played in tandem for the first time just weeks later for an impromptu Late Night Shopper livestream, only days before the third lockdown came into effect. “We all hung out after the set, and things just clicked,” Daisy effuses, “So we made a Whatsapp group chat, put our heads together and made plans to get together at Pirate (studios) as soon as we could, and also start putting together a guest mix. I think in the beginning it was a lot more disjointed than it is now because, naturally, if you come in with so many different styles, it might not always sound totally cohesive. But now we’ve really nailed that.”

Two years down the line, and you can hear the crew nailing it every month on Rinse FM, with exhilarating, genre-jumping mixes that illuminate their individual palettes. Besides Waterworks, this past summer Team Woibey have also shredded stages at Love Saves The Day, as part of Eats Everything’s History of Rave, and South Wales shindig Westival, which Daisy describes as “all a bit mad”.

“I’ve realised that if you have a real passion for dance music, and you go out and consume it, and the drive is there, there’s no reason you can’t achieve a lot in such a short time,” she effuses, in what feels like the first time she’s paused to reflect this summer. With no sign of slowing down, Daisy also recently launched her newest collective and “no-frills” club night, Strange High Dais – a brainchild with fellow Rinse FM residents Strange Signals and Highrise. The inaugural party kicked off last week at Dalsten Den, with the trio serving up leftfield UK club sounds from breaks, electro, and garage to fast-paced 160 all night long.

For those who couldn’t make it down, Daisy’s Fresh Kicks mix promises plenty of “cool, fast, sexy breaks and high energy bangers” to “carry on the magic of summer and get you moving.”

Listen to ohmydais’s Fresh Kicks mix, and check the tracklist, below.

Tracklist: 

Ebende ‘The Source (Arkajo Remix)’
Tammo Hesselink ‘Sorry About That’ 
Unreleased Sub Basics
Evelyn ‘Consist’ 
DJ JM ‘Erazer’
Tammo Hesselink ‘Don't Forget’
Tomás Urquieta ‘S​í​ntesis de Fricci​ó​n’
ERR0 ‘Schizo’
Gamma Intel ‘Trust’
Bluetoof ‘Cavernous’
Sam Goku ‘Spirit Beat’
Arcane Prospect ‘Plaga’
Jurango ‘PSI’
Neida x Le Motel ‘Sweatin’’
Swooh ‘Work That’
Amor Satyr ‘Transfer’
Unreleased Jdotbalance
Andrew Juke ‘Block Tech’
Pugilist x Tamen ‘Mirrors’