Aku
Gabriel Justin Spiel was raised in a musical West Seattle environment by a father who was a professional piano-tuner and a mother who was a dancer. By age 10, he was an accomplished trumpet player and eventually moved on to French horn, where he spent many years studying with the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Seattle Conservatory of Music at Garfield High School. What better route to go from there than the path of the superstar DJ?
He has been DJing the the Seattle area for eight years now, playing at places as varied as Pike Pub & Brewery (where he ran the night and had a weekly residency for three years), Henry Art Gallery, Sonya’s, Mr. Lucky, Contour (currently a monthly resident), the ReBar (currently working on a monthly residency), and Last Supper Club.
His major influences over the years have been Sasha & Digweed, Pink Floyd, Dan Deck, his viciously critical roommates, Digweed, Digweed, and Digweed (he sports his “John Digs Weed” shirt when he’s in a bad mood.)
The rest of it — eight more paragraphs
His goal is to bring back the DJs who are willing to play eight-hour sets without complaining, who play great tracks (that they truly enjoy), mixing so that no one has to notice where they’re going or where they’ve been; just get lost in the music. Gabe lives by the quote - “As a musician, if you ain’t feelin’ it, chances are no one else is either.”
He recently picked up the moniker “DJ Aku” for various sneaky, translateable reasons. What does ‘aku’ mean? That’s up to interested parties to find out.
Gabe is currently working piecewise on production efforts with his Confined Media cohorts, approaching the electronic music angle not just from a DJ perspective, but from the mind of a producer, too. He has helped with five ongoing production efforts (yet to be oficially released) and his most consistent and admirable addition to the efforts (drawing, I assume, on his classical training) is “there should be an arpeggio in there somewhere.” (Thanks, man, now get the hell out of here).
Gabe is just as comfortable playing for a crowd of two as he is for a crowd of dozens, hundreds or thousands when the time appropriately comes. Over the years, people have told him that he needs to put a more relaxed track in his sets every once in a while, to give people a break and a chance to breathe and go get a drink. His consistent response - “Sure, whatever.”
His style is elastic between quick and slow mixes, and he’ll be the first to tell you that he thinks it’s a matters of seconds that make the difference between approaching a mix one type of way or another.
He’ll mention that epic is overkill, tracks that don’t move anywhere do just exactly that, weird minimal will clear the dancefloor faster than the ladies can sneer you down, and he has an affinity for tracks that are ‘pretty’.
Add to this, he’s entirely willing to eventually have a staff surrounding him taking care of business, so that all he has to do is step behind the decks with his music and do what he loves. Not yet Aku, but your time will come.
contact: gabriel@confinedmedia.com set available @ http://www.confinedmedia.com/gabe_sets/invasion.mp3
Their Resident Advisor profile, in full and unedited.
Records out on Confined Media. — their own list on Resident Advisor
The nights
2026
- Sat 8 AugJawani 4eva: Aku, Arjxn, Eshie, jakari wing, RajujuElsewhere · their 2nd night
- Thu 16 AprAzadi: ZAINAB, Aku, DJ Guaripublic records · first time
2023 — 1 night
Their rooms
One tick a night, on the one axis this page has — Aug 2023, where the listings start, to Jan 2027, the last night anybody has announced. The shaded end has not happened yet.
- ElsewhereAug 2023 – Aug 20262 nights
Once each: public records.
Who they play with
Three nights on the books, and no name on more than one of them.
- Sun 27 Aug 2023DJ SUDI · MTooray · No Nazar & Friends Day Party w · Bianca Maieli · Omar ؏
- Thu 16 Apr 2026ZEEMUFFIN · DJ Guari
- Sat 8 Aug 2026Arjxn · Eshie · jakari wing · Rajuju · Jawani 4eva
Twelve people have stood on one of these bills; none has stood on two.
The nights, the rooms and the bills are the listings themselves. The biography and the labels are Resident Advisor's. Nothing on this page was written for it.