Watch Actual Mushrooms DJ at Sunset on Earth Day

by Michael Ryan · Published May 7, 2023

DJ Fungi performed their debut festival set in the desert on Earth Day.

Artist and composer Tarun Nayar, who creates experimental music under the Modern Biology alias, hosted an electronic music festival in the desert–DJ'd by his mushrooms.

The mushroom-laden performance took place in California's scenic Joshua Tree. The mushrooms were plugged into Nayar's outboard gear, which allowed him to generate music from their electrical signals. These electrical impulses then triggered the synthesizers to create sound and rhythm.

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In addition to writing music with mushrooms, Modern Biology has wired up a number of edible delicacies like watermelon, cacao, mango, and cactus to his gear for other frenzied tunes. In 2022, he compiled all of nature's beauty and randomness into an album titled Plant Music Vol 2: Fruits and Flowers of Hawai'i. Last month, he released Field Notes, a 13-track album and "love letter to mama nature," he writes in an Instagram caption.

"[It's] the result of 2 years of experimenting and improvising outside. I used plant and mushroom bioelectricity, latent electromagnetic radiation, field recordings, and other nature-based techniques to make all of the songs."