By Katie Li

October 17th 2025

Yes, there are doe eyes. Yes, there’s hooved swagger from crucifix-laden tights to the obnoxiously oversized Impact-font uniform of the internet. But behind the deer mask, NYC-based DJ and aspiring producer Doecaine is also someone foraging through vocal samples from Mitski and the Teenagers; charging head-down through legal texts; trying to nail the perfect screamo scream (what does the deer say?); and evangelizing the Hellp with devout zeal, one ultra-rare merch tee at a time. Her comment sections suggest she’s putting people on to the realistic furry community and making people question the entirety of their existence—their memories, taste, and identity—all in the blink of an eye. Give her a Rio de Janeiro filter and 15 seconds to dance to whatever 2010s bloghouse banger she’s feeling, and people flock down the pipeline; first, it’s “this is so tumblr [or Life is Strange. Or 2013. Or Bojack Horseman. The list goes on.],” then, “THIS is the kind of furry I fw” and, finally, “link to where you bought the deer head? :3”. And, while she identifies with the feminine morbidity of the doe—the Biblical symbol for thankless innocence—Doecaine sets the record straight with us in her first-ever video interview: “to describe the Doecaine project is more to be like, it's just me as a deer. I am a girl. I'm just full on a girl who just happens to be a deer.”

There’s no formal musical pedigree here—unless you count impeccable taste and years in the pit as field research. A self-described moshpit warrior-turned-accidental DJ prodigy, during her first time live behind decks, Doecaine jumped into DJing with nothing but chaotic instinct and a DDJ-200, walking away with second place at a DJ competition that was also impressively her very first time live behind decks. Her sets run hot and fast, 140 BPM at the least, jumping from noisy electro remixes of 2010s pop staples like Katy Perry’s “Hot N Cold” and Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” to their equally-addicting contemporary protégés like Bassvictim and Joey Cash; she’s got headphones over her mask’s ears and is, assuredly, burning hot under the getup so you know that it’s the purest labor of love. And paired with her endearing, fawnlike good looks, it’s unsurprising that—since her May live debut alongside Suzy Sheer—things have moved fast with that same serendipitous, headfirst momentum: Elsewhere nights, a Halloween slot with Haunted Mound, and a 5 AM festival set, too fittingly, in the middle of the woods of New York’s upstate deer country. 

As you may expect from someone whose “part girl, part DJ” identity challenges an entire species’ norms, her tastes have always been alternative: growing up with Modest Mouse and, with that thanks to Pandora (IYKYK), also Two Door Cinema Club, Dance Gavin Dance, Panic at the Disco, and—most controversially—a firm, almost comical stance against My Chemical Romance (she swears she’s changing, though… someone queue “Helena” right now). Even within the furry’s musical community who she promises are “among some of the most talented people [she’s] ever met,” her musical palette still remains a niche; and you know she’s truly doing something new from how she’s already drawing unfortunate, unfounded allegations of performativity by certain purists in the community. Although the furryverse is admittedly still EDM-focused, from her experience, the trend has been mostly dubstep and the occasional hyperpop:

“When hyperpop was coming up, I was huge fan… a lot of it is just so internet-based and a lot of the furry community’s already super internet based. So, it felt kind of like a natural progression to use these glitchy samples and vocal distortion to obscure who you are, so you have that kind of alter identity. That's a furry thing too, to dress up as something else. To change your identity and just go full send in the other direction of whatever is natural. If you want to be like a neon green dog or something… it's so crazy and out there. And I feel like hyper pop kind of reflects that.”

And, despite her natural gravitation to hyperpop and appreciation for dubstep’s full-body possessing energy, Doecaine’s ready to upend that script entirely. Her DJ sets prove she can represent the scene while appealing to a wider, human audience; but her true focus is production, and she’s already building an eclectic catalogue that sounds divergent from what she’s currently spinning. She’s remained mostly tightlipped, aside from namedropping a the Teenagers remix (my ears perked up too, I was looking for remixes of “Homecoming” just hours before we met) and someway, somehow, Mitski and FKA Twigs vocal chops, not yet assigning a single genre to the projects: “I'm working on a demo. I want to say it's kind of eclectic though. It's a pretty big mix of styles that I'm inspired by… as I said, I have no music production background. I'm really just getting these ideas out super rough and raw, but it's fun.” There’s the fry scream that will, no doubt, get its moment—that overcooked, emotionally-drenched shriek she grew up idolizing in Dance Gavin Dance and, now, spurred on by a random NYC night at Trans-Pecos encountering Japanese psychedelic hardcore band BBBBBB. We’re beyond excited to see where she takes it all — and how she’ll carry the animal-DJ mantle, once an underground realm pioneered by German equine DJ-producer-singer HorsegiirL, into a wider, wilder world.

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Watch my full conversation with Doecaine below.