Soundtrack to my Life: Boycrush

Boycrush (aka Alistair Deverick)'s album Desperate Late Night Energy is reimagined via modern dance for Auckland Fringe Festival this weekend. Photo / James Lowe

Every week, we invite music lovers to share the songs that have soundtracked their lives. This week, we speak to Auckland music producer Boycrush, aka Alistair Deverick.

Maria Minerva - hagasuxzzavol

I encountered this song on a documentary about the record label 100% Silk, in which a film crew follows a tour around Europe and intersperses collaborative footage from the Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Company. I feel like this planted a seed in me that led me to hear music differently and also invited me to think more about dancing in general. It's about having that feeling of being taken to a place – this kind of music was less about any particular track or song, and more about the atmosphere.

Run-DMC vs Jason Nevins - It's Like That

This was the first CD I ever bought. I bought it when I was living in the UK as a kid. I think I probably would have been a house producer of some kind rather than a drummer if I had remained in the UK; my parents moved back to New Zealand, but in the UK, that was when I feel like I had a musical awakening. I feel like there was a stigma in New Zealand about house music and club music that there wasn't in the UK. Since I stayed in New Zealand, I just played in bands and played drums, because that was the more "appropriate" thing to do.

Perfume Genius - Wreath

That Auckland Arts Festival show with Aldous Harding (in 2018) was one of the greatest shows of all time. Perfume Genius was so much more vibrant and so much more alive than I had imagined he would be. His music is really detailed and really intricate; there are all these little parts, and everything sounds beautiful, and I just fell in love with that song. When I heard it, I was just like, oh my god, I haven't heard something that's made me feel so good for ages.

Caribou - Second Chance ft Jessy Lanza

I should have an 'I Love Dan Snaith' T-shirt. I love how he puts things together, his vocal sound, and how he breathes so much life into repetitive music. If you have ever tried to make electronic music stay interesting and alive, you know what I mean. When I went to London, I went to his Daphni set that he did at Fabric, and he played for like seven hours. I just love that guy so much. He studied for a PhD in mathematics, which I always think about.

Jlin - Erotic Heat

I came across Jlin after developing an interest in Juke and Footwerk music from Chicago after meeting DJs Spinn and Rashad at RBMA 2011. She has such a unique production voice; I have no idea how she does what she does. It's wacky. I think that it's genuinely something that's really not fitting in with a particular trope, and not of the moment. Rhythmically, there's something really unique about [this song]. It's so complex – it's basically like a real nerdy drum solo, and maybe not everybody can access it, but it's really intelligent on a rhythmic level.

Sophie - Bipp

Sophie comes from this tradition of this record label PC music, which is kind of trashy – like Aqua but modern; Eurotrash basically, but smart, hipster, and for young people. It's not macho, but it's got really hard sounds that are really jarring and really strong and weird and aggressive, but without the macho edge. Bipp is another one of those songs that I listened to so many times, and I tried to make [the sound] when I was making my album Desperate Late Night Energy. This is what a pop song can be. It's got this polished front that you can relate to, and then you realise that it's actually really interesting, really smart, really sparse, really weird, but you didn't notice because it was so accessible.

Toro y Moi - Blessa

We were on tour for The Ruby Suns in the United States, and (frontman) Ryan McPhun had discovered this album in 2009, Causers of This, which Toro y Moi blew up because of. Ryan was like, 'do you want to come and open for us?' Nobody had heard of him at that point, but then after the tour had been booked and it had been a couple of months, his album had come out, and everybody was going nuts for Toro y Moi, so we played these shows, and the support artist was just killing us basically. He was a really nice guy – he came in the van with us, and he would just be on his laptop making up this music, and it seemed really easy, and it just seemed like I could do it. It was inspiring to think, 'oh yeah, you don't have to just play your instrument and be really good at it'.

- As told to George Fenwick

• Boycrush and the Dance Plant Collective present a modern dance interpretation of his album Desperate Late Night Energy as part of Auckland Fringe Festival, Basement Theatre, March 1-3