Nicole Moudaber Is In The Mood

Photo of Nicole Moudaber

Nicole Moudaber

Remember that club you visited one drizzly October night in Paris, the one at the bottom of a steep, narrow staircase that smelled like spent spliffs and spilled champagne? It was intimate without being overcrowded and cool without trying to be. Everyone was grooving to deep electronic music that straddled the line between house and techno, and as you lost yourself in the rhythmic waves, time and place melted away along with night.

Photo of Nicole Moudaber

Nicole Moudaber

That’s the atmosphere and sound Lebanese DJ and producer Nicole Moudaber delivers each week to millions of listeners around the world with In The Mood, her hour-long syndicated podcast of hypnotic techno bliss.

Like Gertrude Stein, Moudaber is both tastemaker and creator. She got her start promoting parties in Beirut, working as a techno evangelist in the Middle East, booking famous DJs like Paul van Dyk to visit the region for the first time after peace came to Lebanon in 1996. Her early years as a promoter helped her develop an inclusive vision for her music: “I'm a creative, and I love to express this through all aspects of my environment—sound, vision, everything. In Lebanon, she witnessed music’s unifying power while hosting raves in bombed out buildings straddled between mosques and cathedrals.

All-night parties with the greatest minds in dance music inspired Moudaber to start producing and DJing herself, which she began in 2008 and has since released six EPs and dozens of chart-topping singles like The Whippin' I'm Dishin', a dark techno anthem that dominated dancefloors around the world. But she is also grooming the next generation of talent with MOOD Records, a label she founded back in 2012.

the recipient of two “Best Techno DJ” nominations from Ibiza’s DJ awards, as well as an International Dance Music Award “Best Techno Track” nomination for Roar...

Although it’s hard to pin her down to one particular genre, Moudaber’s mostly known as a techno artist and is the recipient of two “Best Techno DJ” nominations from Ibiza’s DJ awards, as well as an International Dance Music Award “Best Techno Track” nomination for Roar, her pounding 2012 tech anthem that blends a relentless snare drum with soulful R&B vocals. She describes her own sound as “deep, sexy, and driving, the sort of stuff you want to make love to on the dance floor.”

On her weekly podcast, fans can explore Moudaber’s musical vision each week, reliving a mix she played at open-air clubs on Mediterranean islands like Mykonos and Rhodes, or marquee music festivals like Ultra and Electric Daisy Carnival. With her distinctive frizzy mess of black hair (imagine Slash from Guns N’ Roses) and trademark husky voice, Nicole Moudaber’s music will get you in the mood, wherever you are.