DJ ENSOUL
Interview: Strachan Gould
Photography: Aleksandra Blaževski
TORONTO, November 2024
Toronto-based vinyl DJ Kourosh Dehghani is a staple in the city's underground music scene. At his Pillow Talk parties, he runs an open-format dance night that showcases the collaborative and open spirit of the underground scene in Toronto, revealing an often-overlooked freshness to Canada's cultural capital. He and Strachan Gould talk about the Toronto music scene, Kourosh's family parties in Tehran, and club nights filling our missing 'third space.'
STRACHAN GOULD — How did you get into DJing?
KOUROSH DEHGHANI — I had a friend in high school who transferred from Switzerland who got me into electro-house, which was big in Europe at the time. It was what his friends back home were into. At the time I was listening to hip-hop and rap, and he was making these DJ mixes—bouncy, bouncy trance, bouncy early EDM, some house. His name was DJ Raspberry [laughs]. We threw a party together and that was the start: DJing for the party with VirtualDJ on the laptop with a mouse and mouse pad.
How did that evolve into vinyl?
— The first time I saw an underground expression of music and club DJs was when I was at university in London, Ontario. I was having a lot of fun exploring both dancing in the club, then going home and downloading tracks and learning about what and how they were mixing and more about the music. After the summer of second year I came back to London with two turntables and my first records. The reason why I was teaching myself how to DJ vinyl was I felt there was this barrier of entry that almost felt a bit too low, you know—just buying a laptop and a controller and then hitting sync, which is what I was doing at my first gigs. I was like, okay, there's no real skill involved in what I'm doing that I feel like is challenging enough as a craft. So vinyl challenged me to actually want to practice and learn.
Yeah, fair, so it was both the technicality of the craft and the history of the technique that you wanted to explore?
— Unpacking it, understanding the complexity, but then also learning it in a more methodical way. That was all attractive to me. And also collecting records was attractive to me, I would say, in the opposite way in that it's not so systematic. It's not so programmed. It's not so controlled like browsing for music online is. It's very ambiguous. It's a vague expedition and journey when you're looking for records. You don't really know what's going to come up or what you're even looking for. So at times that might feel like a waste of time or not even systematic or useful, but it’s fun.
Yeah, that's nice, exploring for fun rather than with a specific goal in mind.You wanted to learn how the original DJs used to do it.
— Yeah. And I started wanting to learn more about the history of the evolution of DJ culture moving through disc jockeys being on the radio. I was really just interested to know, how did it even occur as a phenomenon moving from live music and bands, to one person playing other people's music as a celebrated dance phenomenon? What was also interesting to me was to get to the root of like, what about it is it that people actually resonate with and want to spend their money and time supporting?
I remember the summer you came back to school after you bought turntables and started getting really into music and DJ culture because you looked completely different. When we first met, you were jacked, always in the gym. Then you came back after that summer and you were a completely different person. You just smoked weed and listened to music all the time. How did that transition come about? — Yeah, literally. It was a full change in how I was spending my time. That came from really connecting with music and starting to build a different relationship with it. I found that music was something that was grounding me, not only in this ability to experience emotions and thoughts in a place that felt safe and comforting, but also on the level of it motivating me and teaching me a new craft and thing that I was interested in. Compared to working out, it’s a totally different feeling on the visceral level and I’d say, way more emotional and more in tune with parts of my personality that I was starting to get closer to at that time.
Yeah. And the pursuit of those strict fitness goals requires a very precise and measured lifestyle. And the way you described your initial introduction to finding records is kind of the opposite. It was playful and exploratory, and I think perhaps much more childlike in the way that you went through it.
— Totally. And the discovery of a new world—which was what I also found when I first got into health and fitness—was also a part of it. It was enticing to me. It was about discovering this new world where there's a group of people who are super interested in it, write books and make videos and dedicate their lives to that way of living, with working out. Similarly, I was enamored by how that worked in the music world and with DJing records. It was a newfound community, which I thought was way closer to who I was as a person compared to the other community. It was nice to find that.
How about when you were growing up? What role did music play in your life as a kid and in your family?
— One of my earliest memories of music goes back to before my mom and my dad moved to Canada. I was maybe two or three years old and we were at my great aunt’s villa in the north of Tehran. It was a huge property with a big pool in the backyard. There was a big barbecue, people were preparing food, the guys were playing a mini soccer game. In the evening after dinner, the whole family came together to sit around the pool and there was, not really a stage, but just a section of a lawn cleared off with two microphones, two chairs, and two people that were family friends with Spanish-style guitars—the ones with the plastic string that have the more Spanish, Latin tune. And these two guys started off with a little, you know, thanks, thanks everyone for coming. And then they just kicked into like three or four hours of them playing guitar with small breaks in between.
At first, everyone was just sitting on the lawn and watching them play covers of old Iranian songs that were more down-tempo to start. Slowly everything started ramping up and they started hand drumming and playing the guitar at the same time. So it became more rhythmic and then people slowly got up and were dancing. And then they started singing songs that everyone knew and everyone was singing along with them. And I was like two and a half or three and just in a whirlwind of like, holy shit, this is amazing. The reason why it's all so well in my memories is because someone was recording the whole thing in that experience. And my parents had that as a VHS. So that was like a VHS. As I was growing up, I would always pop in and watch that almost every year. Sometimes with my family. And then eventually after we had moved to Canada and I had that VHS in my room with my TV, I would pop it in just cause it made me feel good.
Can you say some words on the political context for community gatherings in Tehran at the time?
— My parents left Iran 20 years after the Islamic revolution of 1979. So my parents’ marriage was one where music and dancing was banned under the Islamic regime, which they didn't support and didn't want to appease but had to based on the brutal force of the regime. There was a ban on dancing, on formal and informal parties, and also on the celebration of anything where men and women were celebrating together. The overall climate at the time was one of oppression, making people feel scared to have experiences like the one I described about the family getting around and everyone being together. My family was fortunate enough to have places to go that were private enough for them to be able to push those boundaries and rebel against that Islamic regime and what they were trying to crack down on.
At the time, I had no idea that this was an act of rebellion. And it really wasn't. The reason they were doing it was because that's what they were doing before the Islamic revolution, when it was a more free society. It was their lifestyle, and they didn't see it necessary to change. Now, living here in Canada, being fortunate enough to see all the freedoms we have here, I always think back to what some of the things my family was doing before they left that put them in danger. But all they were doing was, in this case, just trying to have a party where some people were playing live music and dancing.
When you reflect back on it now, maybe on a more intellectual level, do you think of it more as an act of rebellion, and is that at all linked with the music that you play?
— Probably, yeah. Cause there's something central there about it. There's the challenge to authority and the norm. And, not to stretch the analogy too far, but I think along with my personality, I've always liked to challenge ideas and concepts. For example, when I got into DJing, I was thinking more about who the DJs are and where the parties are where pushing the norm is taken to the furthest. Or, putting on parties that are breaking the boundaries of what's the most popular or expected.
Yeah, let’s talk about your parties, the Pillow Talk series you put on with Akash Bansal. How did that partnership come about, and what works so well in it that you continue to invest time in it?
— I met Akash because I was invited to play at this bar with him and another DJ, Raf. And that night, during the show, Akash and I had brought somewhere around six of the exact same records. And this is when I was digging more obscure stuff—different reggae records, hip-hop, new wave, synth pop—and he had them too. It was kind of a mind-numbing experience since it turned out we bought them in the same shop around the same time—it was like, whoa, dude, what the hell? After that night we decided to throw another party together. We had some friends with a space in Kensington Market, and could get turntables from the record store I worked at, also CDJs and a mixer. So, really organically, from that first time DJing together to having a party, we conceptualized the idea of what Pillow Talk would be, without too much thought really. It was just a DIY venue/artist’s space, which was Double Double Land. It was the home of artists who rented it out to pay for their lives as artists.
How was that first party?
— It was a lot to go through for the first time, cause we had to rent speakers, carry them up the stairs, sell tickets, not knowing who would come, if anyone would show up. But we were so lucky that we both had a group of friends who were at the time going out in Toronto every weekend. You guys came to all of those first parties. But it felt amazing to go from just buying music and DJing in our bedrooms to having an idea for a party, actualizing it in a matter of weeks then seeing all our friends dancing in one room having fun. And we had some nice original touches: hanging roses from the ceiling, handing out fruit. We wanted to elevate the experience in our own way, in a more sensual way. It was a smaller, more intimate venue, and we felt we could do that. So the spark was strong in the beginning and we kept going.
Can you say some words on the format of Pillow Talk?
— The format of the party was us and a third DJ we’d bring in would all go back to back to back, all night, so it was about really maximizing open format, not only in terms of playing whatever music, but with no set times. That was something that we were trying to challenge. Obviously there's more successful DJs, there's less successful ones, there's better DJs, but what if we kind of challenge that a little bit, where there's no set time, it's just three people that have a cross section of music that there's some overlap with but who all find a way to make those three hours fun, exciting, and work for the crowd. Some people were pissed off that there were no set times. But the feeling of the party was it being about the music, and not necessarily who's playing, or who the DJ is, which felt cool. I love that format.
It seems to represent the ideals that you all place in music, which is that it's about community. What's next for Pillow Talk?
— Honestly, a lot of credit to Akash who programs and curates events full time. So, thanks to his experiences we have the privilege of scaling up our parties into bigger venues and being able to bring in talent that we weren't able to before. We started out just with local Toronto artists, but in the last year, we’ve started expanding. We recently brought Flo Dill from NTS in London. That's an example of us breaking out into different scenes that don't have exposure to the style that we're promoting. We're really excited about using Pillow Talk as a way to elevate the artists that we really appreciate and admire in different cities, and then also bring them into Toronto, and show them a good time, and show them the scene that's here, and hope to cultivate more love for Toronto's scene as well.
Often in interviews with Toronto DJs, they’re asked about the Toronto scene, and there’s mixed reviews. You talk about wanting to use Pillow Talk as a format to bring in more international DJs, to expand the Toronto scene in a different way, and to get more people involved. So, how do you think about Toronto as a music scene, and what are you hopeful of for it?
— I definitely get a little bit sick when I hear people say there’s not enough going on in Toronto, or the music scene in Toronto is shit, or Montreal is way better than Toronto. I think Toronto, although different, has an extremely rewarding experience when it comes to music, nightlife, talent, and artistry within the scene. I think it's underappreciated. I think it's too condensed in certain ways where there are too many people doing the same thing. But here, people have the ability to just go for it. It's a small enough city and community—it's not the same as New York or London in terms of competition. The story of the inception of Pillow Talk and what we were able to do is a testament to the beauty of Toronto's music scene, in the sense that if you have an idea, a venue, and you have a few friends who are willing to help out, you can actually get something going pretty quickly. The best you could ask for in a creative setting is the ability to execute. And then, to have people show up because this city doesn't have the level of saturation that other dance music meccas have. For me, that's a huge strong suit, and because of it, there's new stuff happening all the time.
Outside of family, growing up in Toronto, what are some other influences you have?
— Moving to Toronto and starting to work at the record store was what really started to broaden my interests in music. Right away I started meeting other DJs in Toronto who would be coming in to shop for the records for their upcoming gigs. It was formative in the sense that I started seeing different styles of DJs and their selections. Some would start at the front and go through the whole store; others would flip through our new additions. And one DJ, Alastair Johnson in Toronto, and also this other DJ at the time, Poouyan, every time they would come in, they would dig, and I would ask them questions as they were digging: why are you going from the beginning of the store all the way to the end and looking at as much as you can versus narrowing in? They would say, you know, through my time working in record stores, records are misplaced, accidents happen, sometimes people hide records in different sections because they want to come back and buy it the next day, so they put it somewhere that is unexpected for this record to be. They said this is the way that we do it because you never know what you'll find with any record that you flip.
That alone was groundbreaking in the way that I saw the shop because I had an idea of how it was organized internally. What they were saying was, yes, but as you organize it, people are coming through and reorganizing, placing things in different places. And no one can see all of those micro-interactions that happen in different sections of the shop. That was super inspiring to me in the sense of opening up my mind of how it looked at browsing for music. I would avoid going into sections like the 60’s country section, for example. But based on what they were explaining, in the 60’s country section, there could be this full collection of records. There's a whole group record that's crossed with some weird psychedelic band that made something that would be killer at a certain point in the DJ setup they're putting together.
Play De Record is an iconic Toronto record store that started in the 90s that helped break out a lot of new Canadian artists. Tell me more about your experience there, and how that shaped your identity and interest as a DJ.
— It was honestly one of the best experiences of my life because that was at the time that I really didn't know what I was going to do in terms of career. Although telling my family and my mom at the time that I was going to spend the year off to work at a vinyl record shop for minimum wage after graduating from a four-year degree that she helped pay for wasn't easy to do, it was immediately rewarding. Even in my early days, the experience of going through restock crates, flipping through different music and then asking the three other people working at the shop at the time, one of them being the owner, Eugene, like, what's this? And seeing them immediately dive into separate stories of the significance of that record.
Sometimes there would be markings or initials or signatures on the front plate of the record. And one example I remember is this DJ, Chris Shepherd, would always have his initials on these house records that he had used but then sold back to Play De Record. I would ask Eugene, like, what is it with this Chris guy? He'd be like, ‘oh, you don't know Chris Shepherd? What the hell, man?’ And then he would go in a hole, he’d go, ‘in the 90s, Chris Shepherd did the biggest house radio show,’ then I’d be hearing all about Chris Shepherd. So, through my experience of finding records from 20 years ago, I was learning about what the DJs had done in Toronto not only on radio but in the clubs with the records they were playing, all in real time just through picking out one record that someone else had listened to. So that was a daily thing. It's like hearing something or seeing something, asking a question, and then having it transpire into this understanding in real time. I was also learning the history of Toronto, how music grew in Toronto, and the artists and DJs who shaped that growth. So every day was a tremendous learning experience.
Eugene tells a story in the documentary about Play De Record, about seeing some kids come in. They were in the shop every day digging, and he could tell that they had no money to buy these records. And some days they would go home and they would buy so many records that they wouldn't have any money to pay bus fare. And he'd be like, hey, do you have enough money to pay for this? No? Okay, just take it for free. Go home. And I think a record store is an interesting place in that context, where you see people in their early teens coming in. But you also see proper DJs, older people who are into music singing. It's its own community.
— You nailed it. You hit the nail on the head there with all those points. I think that all of those things are why it felt so lucky and special to be there. Eugene was such a personable guy. And it has been such a mom-and-pop shop since its inception. So I don't know if you know, but his parents owned a convenience store on Yonge Street. So naturally, Eugene over time asked, oh, can I have a little record section by the magazines? It became so popular that as his parents went into retirement, they said, just make the whole thing whatever you want. And he saw the opportunity the records had. So he got rid of the whole convenience store, started the records. But it's always been him and his family as the central part of that shop. And as a result of that, there's two generations now of families that are going back to that shop. And now their children or friends of their children who are also sharing that experience and know his wife sometimes works in the shop. He has a daughter and son who are sometimes in the shop. And it was always this vibe of people coming in and out; it was a place that felt like home. It was almost a community center of music. And all these people continue to keep the shop going.
These days theres a general sentiment that people have lost their sense of spirituality and religion. Spirituality and music have always been linked by the sense of ecstasy they provide in a communal context, on the dance floor, in a church. And, you were saying earlier how Play De Record was almost a community center. Do you feel music fills this modern-day void?
— I've thought a lot about the psychology of that, and it's easy for me to say yes, because for me it has absolutely filled that void. Even though I'm not a religious person, I'm open to and believe in a lot of spiritual concepts. I myself have a spiritual experience when I listen to music and dance and am with people in that context. I've had conversations with people who might love music, but don't feel that same thing that I feel. So, that's always been a kind of psychological anomaly or mystery to me. I’m interested in trying to get to the root of what it is about music that for some people takes them to a mystical place. I do wonder, like, what is it that they can't grasp? On the contrary, the question could be, what is it about myself that makes me so drawn to that experience, or is it that I have a big enough void or gap that is filling it? So it's complex, you know what I mean?
It's not prescriptive.
— Yeah, not everyone has the same experience with music. And to me, that's a part of the luring mystery of it all. It's like, what is it? What the fuck's going on?
And music is a part of almost every religion in the world, but it seems to fill a different role in Christianity than it does in Islam, for example.
— What I love about the Christian example and their interpretation of it, specifically with gospel music—which was one of the types of music that I got introduced to after learning about funk, soul, and disco—is that gospel specifically is all about elevation, joy, uplifting, getting the energy so high, and maximizing happiness and joy in frequency. It's like, how much can we lift ourselves up? It's an incredible idea. It's powerful.
In my youth, music played a role in Anglicanism, but it was so sterile. I never felt connected to the music that we listened to at church. My mom was very religious, and she loved singing. She loved being part of it; she got a sense of community out of that. But to me, it never felt like the music was uplifting in the way that it is in Southern Baptist gospel, for example.
— I wish I knew more about the history of gospel and what it is that made them choose that creative direction. There's a through line here, which goes back to some of the things that I would be reading about. There's a white paper out there somewhere that’s a study of ancient tribes doing psychoactive substances. I don't remember if it was peyote or old school mushrooms. But I’m thinking of the idea of primitive instruments, for example, a drum circle, and a mind-altering substance that was indigenous to that community as an experience. The paper was comparing it to a modern rave, and how it is that through millennia, the core characteristics of that experience are the same. The technology and who we are and what we do has changed in a lot of ways, but some sense has also evolved into this spectacle.
I found that really interesting, and I think that goes to the heart of the spirituality question: what is it about music that has that quality to have humans do what they do? People were doing this before our time, and we’re still doing it, just with speakers and different drums. Humans have always made music together. I always go back to this question—why is it that I'm so drawn to music? I think the feeling I felt in that moment was just that music brings people together and you share a certain feeling that doesn't have to do with words or expressing personal emotions, but it's more of a collective experience, one that's usually centered around a positive experience. That for me always has felt really comforting and brings me a sense of peace and harmony. I think it comes from that early spark of the guitar duo at my family gatherings in Tehran. After that, whenever I heard music I enjoyed, I thought about it. Music wasn't ancillary to the experience; it was always more central. I was always listening.
I know you've got music from around the world, some of which reflects your background, some of which reflects your interests. Do you envision going to a particular part of the world to find a new type of music? Where would that be?
— In 2016, I visited my grandparents in Tehran. It was right after I started working at the record store and was in the midst of being enamored with the process of discovery, finding new records, working at the shop. Going there, I had this goal of finding pre-revolution music made in Iran. It was very hard to find them, and I didn't have enough time, or contacts, or resources to fully meet my goals, but I did find a few shops and dealers. Some were doing it out of storage units, in their homes; some of them had a little shop where they were selling electronic equipment, and they’d have a back room with these old records that they had bought or collected from family members. I bought close to fifty or so singles, packaged them up, and brought them back.
I didn't have a turntable to listen to them there, but I knew aesthetically they were extremely beat up and were probably gonna be borderline inaudible. I think 10% of them were playable. I used those in the mix that I told you about earlier, which was all Iranian pre-revolution music. I knew I was just scratching the surface of this untapped world because after the Islamic Revolution happened, there was a censorship initiative that had to do with books and media in general, so there was burning of libraries, burning of content and media, and a lot of that was records. So, the amount that's been preserved is limited.
So, that would be my journey—going back to my home country, diving deep into the music that people were making before creativity was repressed and building a story out of it. And maybe that transpires into some kind of reissue compilation. If I'm able to unearth music that people haven't re-released, that would be really special to me. After all the repression, for people to be able to hear something new for the first time might give that music a second life, whether they're alive or not. I think, for them and their families, that would be something positive.
That feels like what we were discussing earlier—building something a little bit less ephemeral, a little bit more permanent than you could do with music or parties, as a record compilation from your home country. That was beautiful, thanks dude. This feels like a good place to end it, because it's kind of come full circle.
