Max HeyraudChloe Moore spoke to Lúnasa ahead of her curated Pride show at Tengu this Saturday. In advance of the event, she doesn’t hold back on her disdain for rigid genre labels, the growing commercialisation of club culture, and the current state of Dublin’s queer scene, among much more.
Lúnasa moves through dance music with an instinctive sense of curiosity. Her sets rarely stay in one place for too long, weaving together bass music, techno, jungle, juke and moments of unexpected tenderness, always guided by an attentiveness to the emotional currents of a room. Equally committed to production, community projects and nurturing Dublin’s grassroots culture, she’s currently in a period of creative expansion, with two forthcoming EPs and work underway on a debut album.
Ahead of her Pride performance at Tengu, we spoke with Lúnasa about the dancefloor as a site of self-discovery, the political histories embedded within club culture, navigating nightlife through sobriety, and why dancing together remains one of the most meaningful forms of connection available to us.
Before we get into the music, how would you describe Lúnasa as an artist in 2026, and what feels most important to you creatively right now?
Drum-centric and daring! I really feel like I’m in a state of flux right now, in the best way possible. There’s been a lot of change in my life this year, but I’ve been able to pull inspiration from it, exploring new ideas and repurposing old ones both in DJing and Production. With DJing, I think I have a flair for finding subtle sound links that spur genre blends that really play with a dancefloor’s emotions. My productions have a percussive focus too, but so far have been more technically driven rather than conceptually driven, but I’ve been exploring the latter more, trying to push myself to make more dynamic music that can evoke a meaningful emotional response in people.
Making music feels most important to me creatively right now. I’ve 2 EPs coming out this year and have started working on my debut album. Once the EPs are out, the album will be my main focus. In saying that, I don’t see DJing, Stretch or Meitheal taking a back seat because of that. I had a lovely taxi driver tell me the other day ‘’You have a lot of energy! I wouldn’t mess with you!’’ Which really made me laugh, but also, I think it’s true right now.
Your sets move fluidly between genres and tempos while maintaining a strong sense of momentum. When you’re building a set, what are you listening for that tells you it’s time to shift direction?
I’m listening to the fizz in the crowd, my body, the collective emotion, and following my intuition around where to go next. I’m very drawn to contrasts and extremes in life, and this really comes through in my sets, I think. If a crowd has been on a really euphoric high, it can be fun to pull them somewhere a little more contemplative afterwards, and then maybe into something more silly after that. It’s a fun challenge for me to hold the flow through all this and make it all work sonically.
There can be a lot of pressure on DJs to fit neatly into a particular sound or scene. Have you ever felt restricted by genre labels, or do you find them useful?
For me, genre labels are really useful in a historical sense to understand where the music we make or play comes from and who created it. I don’t feel restricted by genre labels, but I do think I feel a little insecure, maybe hahahaha. I find it hard to speak about the music I make in terms of genre, it doesn’t feel like it belongs in just one, and my DJing certainly doesn’t! In an hour closing set, I can get through bass, techno, juke, jungle and punk, and sometimes I’m like ‘’Why did I do that!?’’ But it’s what I gravitate to, I’m good at it, and it resonates with people.
Is there a particular track, artist or sound that feels foundational to your musical identity, even if it doesn’t necessarily show up in your sets today?
The tracks that mean the most to me are the ones that stir up a lot of emotion. Verraco – Sí Idealízame. There’s so much joy, introspection, tension and release in that track. Octo Octa – Can You See Me always gives me goosebumps. Ramilson Maia – A Busca da Vida is a masterclass in a powerful build. Todd Terje’s remix of Langt Fra Afrika is such a wonderfully silly but truly amazing track. I’ve been returning to nostalgic tracks from when I first started clubbing too, Denis Sulta – It’s Only Real, huge banger. They’re all tracks that would definitely show up in a set of mine. One of my favourite Albums is by a post-punk band from Glasgow, Life Without Buildings – Any Other City. It’s the only one they have, and it’s perfect. There hasn’t been a moment to play any of it so far, but I would love to.
How has your identity shaped the way you experience dance music culture, both on and off the dancefloor?
I think it’s mostly the other way around for me. Music and dance floors have really helped me understand myself throughout my life. I was flat out burning CDs as a child before I got my hands on an iPod, making endless amounts of playlists. LimeWire and FrostWire logos were burned into my brain before I was 10 for sure. I was always really drawn to the emotional quality of a song and built playlists around how songs made me feel, which really helped me make sense of the world and myself in it. When I was old enough to go out clubbing, I began to understand myself in a much more embodied way through dance and connecting with people. I always feel really connected to myself after a particularly good dance with friends.
I experience dance music culture in quite a liberated way, I think. Dancing at queer events always feels like home, but also a chance to express myself in a new way, so it is both a cosy and exciting feeling. Regardless if it’s a queer night or not, if the event and nightclub have their ethos in the right place, the crowd is usually diverse, open, and looks out for one another. I love these dancefloors too. I’m also sober for a couple of years now, which has been really freeing for me, to opt out of the alcohol and drugs culture that’s a part of dance music. It’s definitely a really fun part of it, but it just stopped being fun for me! It took a couple of tries, but for a while now, the only focus of a night out for me is on the music and the people I’m with, which suits me much better. I love it.
Queer communities have always played a huge role in the evolution of club culture. What does that history mean to you as an artist working today?
It’s become more and more important to me to remember where club culture came from and the elements of resistance and social cohesion that surround it, especially because the global DJing scene is becoming increasingly commercialised and sometimes tied up in some pretty evil things! Many brands and festivals like Boiler Room and Awakenings are owned by Superstruct, whose parent company, KKR have direct ties to Israeli apartheid via Israeli data centres, property management systems, and gas pipelines. Club culture has no business being tied to genocide; it’s betraying ourselves and insulting those who came before us.
Disco houses in New York in the 70s were places for marginalised groups to come together and dance. In Dublin, 1979, the queer club night Flikkers started in the Hirschfeld community centre – a place for queer people to dance and express themselves at a time when homosexuality was still criminalised. It pushed the culture forward in more ways than that too, with a quality soundsystem and some of the best DJs of the time like Toni Walshe, Joni Crone, and Izzy Kamikaze playing there. It’s so important to remember these roots and to put our energy into grassroots music ecosystems, which takes the power away from the bigger companies. I do think Dublin does an amazing job of that. We have a beautiful scene that has a strong moral compass and a gritty fight in us that transcends our individual goals. There are always people helping each other out.
Do you see a difference between playing a Pride event and playing a regular club night, or does your approach remain the same?
The context of Pride is special; it’s once a year, and it carries a certain weight that’s hard to pinpoint. It’s a deep celebration but also a protest. So yes, it does feel different. My approach is mostly the same for every event, but the product is always different. Whenever I’m building a set, I’m asking myself what the energy, emotion and context of a night is and how I want to portray that. The answers differ a lot for each event.
What excites you most about the current generation of queer artists and DJs emerging from Ireland?
I think we are pretty fearless in expressing ourselves and dedicated to supporting one another. That feels really exciting.
You’re playing at Tengu for Pride, a night that carries both celebration and cultural weight in Dublin’s club scene. What does that context add for you, if anything, when you’re approaching your set?
It’s a really great question and one I’ve been mulling over. As I mentioned before, and as you just mentioned, there is a certain weight to a Pride event that’s really nuanced; there’s a joy and lightness, a silliness and playfulness, but also a grittiness and poignance to the day. It definitely adds a challenge. I’ve put a lot of work into the set to try and capture all this in an hour, but I’m confident it’s going to come through.
When somebody comes to your set at Tengu during Pride Month, what do you hope they take away from the experience beyond the music itself?
I hope people come away with a belief in the power of dancing with people, moving with people, even just physically being beside one another and sharing an experience. When you’re a part of that fizz in the room, I think it can really bleed into other areas of your life; it wakes you up. Right now, it’s so easy to feel like avenues to meaningful human connection are depleting or that our efforts are futile, but they’re not. I really believe dancing together is a really helpful way to combat those feelings.
Club culture has always offered people a space to become versions of themselves they might not be able to be elsewhere. What has the dancefloor allowed you to discover about yourself?
It’s really helped me express myself more freely and in an embodied way. I’ve definitely discovered a more confident and theatrical side of myself that I wasn’t aware of until the last couple of years. Growing up, I was embarrassed to dance, and now I can’t stop! I find myself throwing on a wig and dressing up on dancefloors without much of an excuse.
