#dnb would give me every idea in the world and then some more but it really said you won't get ideas about anything else ever again

[tsui-no-sora]

Genuinely what was in my water back when I was writing dnb every week

[samplingmoonsters]

Hi any updates on your break? I'm so sorry i don't want to nag you take all the time in the world. It's just checking ao3 everyday for over three months started giving me mental damage.

Your writting style is so immersive and your plots are divine i have reread punch him it's how man say hello twice the day i discovered it. Every update from you makes my day. You are an excellent writer.

You write the exact kind of debauchery I'm after. Finding somone who produces content that feels like it caters specifically to me is a treasure.

I want to sing your praises but also don't want anybody finding out i read anything of yours cus i think i would never be able to be seen in public ever again.

I don't know if sending this to you is a good idea but i just inhaled a shit ton of dust so my thinking may be impaired but anyway

I love everything you do. Your work drives me mad. I am insane. I am deranged. Please never stop. I hope you are enjoying your break!

Hello~ thank you for your kind words, really! When I first read your message I honestly didn't know what to write because your words really touched me deeply and I didn't want to answer with a half-assed reply.. I have been looking at it for the past two days and I think I have found all my words (hopefully).

First of all, to answer your question: the next chapter of "how men say hello" hasn't been written yet (I'm sorry), and the same goes for the final chapter of "All good things come in 3s". While I love both fanfictions dearly and I haven't lost motivation for them, I have been busy with work, studying and working on another big dnb project.

Also some things happened in the fandom regarding me which took the wind out of my wings and I have been in a downward spiral for the past 3 days but I finally caught myself again and I'm back to full energy ∑d(°∀°d) talking to my online friends and seeing such nice message really helps me to tune off all the negative hate thrown at me every few weeks! All of my readers are awesome and I love everyone one of you dearly! Some of u are very loyal and listen to my explanations regarding some topics of the past and accept and welcome the changes I introduce and I'm truly thankful for that. <3

Anon, thank you for praising my writing this extensively! It's a somewhat well-known fact that my first language isn't English so it brings me to tears to hear that people like my writing so much 😖💚 it's truly heartwarming!!

I will try to make some time to write on my fanfictions! I'm really looking forward to write the next chapter of "How man say hello" since Techno will send Dream some very explicit stuff and I can't wait to give my readers some more second-hand embarrassment (I know u all missed the feeling 💀✋)

See u around, anon! And I hope u didn't collapse of extensive dust Inhalation!! <3

[abadzone]

A Weekly Song: Episode 11 – Goldie Presents Metalheads (or is that Metalheadz?)

Goldie Presents Metalheads - Inner City Life

There were a lot of anthems in the air in the mid-90s. By anthem, I mean popular tracks that stuck around; that seemed to exemplify a movement, a state of mind… for want of a better term, an attitude. Examples: Soul II Soul’s Keep On Moving and Back II Life (However Do You Want Me), The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony, Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy, Pulp’s Common People.

Each heralded an aspect of British youth poking its head above the parapet of the relative safety of its own dedicated teenage bedroom audience and making serious inroads into mainstream culture. Pop was already embedded in TV shows, movie soundtracks, documentaries, but now more “marginal” sounds were becoming a part of mainstream culture, making their voices heard in clubs and on pirate stations but also represented on TV and public radio. The old hierarchies were breaking down, just a little.

Some context: at the end of the eighties, everything changed in British yoof culture. First you had acid house and the dance/rock crossover, a sort of cross-pollination of club culture and the indie scene that itself grew out of post-punk, electronica and a broader early eighties multiculturalism (remember that? It’s become a dirty word now, as if human beings haven’t always been multicultural, as if people mixing socially is somehow now unfashionable. If you visit the town in the next valley over, that’s being multicultural. So is visiting your next door neighbour. Your identity and traditions won’t be erased by doing so). 

In the early nineties there was Madchester, then came shoegazing which begat a great many bands that later became household names via Britpop, a media-invented idea AKA Cool Britannia that grouped all manner of different bands and outfits under one cultural umbrella for easier export to the rest of the world. There was also British hip-hop (and trip-hop); you had techno and rave and its various sub-genres, there was bhangra, ragga, dark ‘ardkore which evolved into jungle and later, drum ‘n ‘bass. I remember first becoming really properly aware of it at the Notting Hill Festival in either 1993 or 1994 where I registered a sound system playing something that sounded like breakbeats and techno with dub or ragga inflections, something fast and new. It caught my ear and it got into my brain and burrowed right down into my digestive tract. I loved it. British youth culture was rapidly morphing into bountiful new shapes, a creative Hydra with many and ever more collaborative heads, each one abundant with new ideas and potentials.

Every year is the best year ever for music** because there’s always something new happening somewhere, but in retrospect (especially the middle-aged kind of hindsight) perhaps not every period is as fertile as others. There was a lot going on in the mid-nineties, and I, a music loving “underground cartoonist,” was in the middle of it.

That is, in early 1994, I had no idea what I was doing. I was recovering from an ill-advised and short-lived marriage plus a resultant nervous breakdown; I was skint, I was lonely and I was ambitious; I had big ideas of how I could so something different with comics and help make them into a communications and storytelling art form that would be as fluid and abstract as music. Little did I know, it was already doing that with or without me, but anyway, ah! …the hubris of youth. I was a ball of confusion, a knot of creativity with a burning need to put it somewhere. (I did, but that’s another story.) I wanted something to change, I wanted to be changed, but I didn’t know what or how.

It was around this time that I became aware of this. I forget when exactly I heard Inner City Life for the first time, but of all the anthems around, this one captivated me the most, made its way onto the internal tape loop in my mind. It sounded like it was from the future, but it seemed to coalesce from everything surrounding me.

Certainly I heard it in the DnB clubs that emerged around that time – maybe at the Mars Bar, to which me and my mate Caspar would trek from the western suburbs so we could experience the dizzy heights of happening central London nightlife. There were many drum ‘n’ bass anthems, for sure, but this one made it onto TV. Seeing the video on some late-night yoof show was cathartic somehow – it opened with a shot of a shopping trolley going over the balcony of a tower block not unlike the one my gran lived on.

“Come to me…”

Diane Charlemagne was familiar to audiences for her appearances with Urban Cookie Collective, who’d had a couple of chart hits, but this was something else. Suddenly she was a sepia-toned diva calling across the rooftops and the airwaves, acknowledging the loneliness and burden of pressures that living in the big city brings. She was joining dots as if all the different anthems were pins on the urban map of modern British music. The tower blocks and council estates were marked just as surely as the pennants atop the Houses of Parliament were.

“I need to be, I need to be…

Living free”

The track was credited to Goldie presents Metalheads (later Metalheadz), known to me for a track called Terminator, but Inner City Life was an entirely different beast, a kind of yearning mutant soul music fuelled by both paranoia and tenderness.

In mainstream terms, it wasn’t the huge hit that some of the other anthems mentioned at the top of this piece were, but for me it remains one of the definitive statements of 90s British music. It transcends all barriers, classes, backgrounds and yes, to my ears, it was a statement of the kind of hopeful (and multicultural) Cool Britannia a lot of other acts were being marketed as, but Inner City Life was the true dark horse, the outsider who found its way up from the streets.

Before finding its way onto Goldie’s sprawling debut album Timeless (as one movement in the opening title track), Inner City Life was remixed and re-released so many times, I lost count. I had the original 12” single and another pressing that featured mixes by other DnB luminaries, my favourite being Doc Scott’s version that showcased Charlemagne’s vocals.

I loved the way the music itself was so mutable and yet remained recognisable, no matter whose hands touched it. There was an egalitarianism to the way Goldie (and his partner-in-production Rob Playford) shared the track, allowing numerous interpretations. In fact, he’s still playing around with it – a new mix was made available last year for Record Store Day.

Over the years, all sorts of superlatives have been heaped upon Timeless, which is certainly a great album and a defining document of that mid-to-late nineties era of extreme creativity in British music, but I’m not sure anything could ever match the feeling the initial release and the remixes generated in me.

And just to give you a sense of what a beautiful song it is, one that stands the test of being stripped to its basics, here’s a version featuring Jhelisa Anderson – yes, she of The Shamen fame and a formidable solo artist in her own right. Listen and enjoy.

Notes

Diane Charlemagne died in 2015 of kidney cancer at the terribly young age of 51. She was rightly celebrated by the DnB scene and beyond. 

The cover version of Inner City Life featuring Jhelisa is by German Jazz outfit [Re:jazz] from their album Point of View and it also features on Goldie’s “Masterpiece” Ministry of Sound mix collection.

At the end of 2009 when I moved from the UK to the USA, the wrong box of vinyl was sent to a charity shop and I accidentally gave away both the original 12” single version of Inner City Life, several remixes, plus a whole load of other DnB vinyl I hadn’t intended to part with. Still kicking myself about that. Oh, well… someone found ‘em and enjoyed them and the money went to a good cause, so, good karma, eh? I still have the CD collection…

*Consider the similarity between the two videos of Bittersweet Symphony and Unfinished Sympathy. One has Richard Ashcroft walking down a British street in one single, unbroken shot, the other had fellow Brit Shara Nelson doing the same in east LA. Two people from two musical collectives walking towards each other, at opposite sides of the planet at different ends of western culture.

**To paraphrase David Stubbs. I think.

Not everybody loved Britpop.

Metalheadz - still going, listen more.

[royal-nation-empire]

LANCE CHRISTOPHER KIRSTEN

Interviewed by, Monica P Brice

Lance is the CEO/founder of Scapegot Management, artist manager of WB x MB, owner of Deep Rooted Wraps, and marketer at Goldplate. In this interview, Lance and I discuss how he gets inspired by the music industry, previous experience working in the music industry, his personal favorite festival events and more!

                                                                              -Monica P Brice

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Q&A:

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Q. What made you decide to start managing? 

A. Management requires one to be selfless, which is a quality I've always possessed.  Helping people achieve their goals is something I've always found fulfilling.  After years of curating events and DJing, I knew I wanted something more.  So after looking at my life and what I did best, management was the clear path.

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Q. How did you come up with the concept for your company (Scapegot Management) and what are some of your goals? How do you plan to accomplish them? 

A. The Idea behind Scāpegōt is "No More Excuses".  Too many people place blame on others for their mishaps and failures.  Shit, I've done it myself, but a time comes in your life when you have to take charge of your surroundings and make something better of yourself.  I wanted to create a company run by people with that same mentality.  Accepting your failures and learning from every mistake builds a stronger understanding of life.  You are your own Scapegoat! My main goal with the Scāpegōt brand is to create a community of people that evolve music as we know it.  To expose that community of artists to the world by building a passionate fanbase from their music, not their "Image".  For music to evolve you need new blood pushing boundaries.  So I constantly do what I can to help the "Little Guy".  Music too often goes stagnant because you see the same group of artists getting cycled.  Agencies and Labels not giving new talent a shot because they are not "proven" in the market.  So I set out to create Scāpegōt Media.  A platform created for new talent, from rising starts to bedroom producers.  A media outlet where they can test music to a wide variety of music lovers and get truly unbiased opinions on their music. I want the support and passion for Scāpegōt to grow organically! For people genuinely believe in the cause.  Not because the people I know, but rather what I believe in.  The best movements in this world are built organically.  That is because there is one thing you can't force in this world and that is PASSION.  So I will continue to do what I do best, work hard until I have accomplished these goals.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. You used to work with "White Rabbit Group" what did you do for them and how has it inspired you to be where you are today?

A. I started with White Rabbit as a DJ/Promoter and moved my way up to Vice President.  For the most part, I handled the company's operations, from coordinating the events, all the way to doing our payroll.  My days varied from meeting with the CEO, Brandon Owen, about our growth to working with our staff by overseeing projects and developing new team members.   I look at White Rabbit as my college years.  This is where a learned about the inner workings of the Music industry that most don't get an opportunity to see.  Gave me an opportunity to work with some of the top artists, management companies, talent agencies, and venues.  Helped me shape a wide perspective of the industry and where it is headed.  More importantly, I was able to see the perspective of the consumer through each event we threw.  I was truly blessed to get to work with a large group of influencers with a great ear for music.  Shout out to all my Rabbit Fam!  Love you guys! <3

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. When did you decide to get into the EDM industry and how old were you? 

A. Electronic music has been a staple in my life for over 15 years now.  What started as a love for the EDM scene evolved into my life's passion.  That passion started the first time touched vinyl. Chad, one of my close friends, invited me over to his house to check out his DJ rig after a long conversation about EDM.  He spun some DnB for me that sparked a new passion.  Before that, I didn't know anyone that could spin and learning myself seemed out of reach.  Soon he showed me the fundamentals of DJing.  From that spark, a fire builds up inside of me.  That moment I knew this was my path.  From there I refined my skills and when I was 22 I started spinning small scale events.  Some of which were very poorly planned.  So In 2010, Mikey a good friend of mine came to me about wanting to start his own event company, so we started doing our own events.  Those moments lead me on this journey and I will forever be grateful for that!

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Q. What are your top 3 favorite EDM music genres and why? 

A. First and foremost, Drum and Bass because that is where it all started for me!  DnB has a culture like no other EDM genre and is still going strong today.  Second would have to be classic Trance because it's ability to infect a sea of people with the same euphoria energy.  Last but never least would be the evolution of Trap in the EDM scene because it is the product of 2 of my musical passions, Hip Hop and Bass music.

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Q. Do you have any personal favorite concerts/events/festivals that you go to? 

A. EDC Los Angeles will always have a special place in my heart because I married my best friend and wife, Mary, on the same day as EDC 2008. Shortly after we went to the event with our wedding party in our wedding clothing.  It was an amazing feeling to see people's face light up when we told them we had just got married earlier that day.  It was a night I will never forget!

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Q. Tell me about "Deep Rooted Wraps"

A. Gemstones and Crystals have always fascinated me.  How they naturally form over thousands of years into these pieces of beauty.  That fascination became a hobby when one of my friends bought a wrapped piece of Lapis. Shortly after buying it, the stone fell out which made me think I could do a better job wrapping it.  So I did some research and started doing my own wraps.  After making pendants for my friends, more and more people started asking for one.  Slowly that hobby became a business.  

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Q. What is your current prize possession and why? A. My most prized possession is my Grandfathers money clip.  He was the one that taught me about hard work and respect.  He showed me that if you are going to do anything in life, do it RIGHT.  Don't take short cuts and never give up!  That mentality got him from selling vacuums door to door, to owning a successful home security business.  Every time I hold it I am reminded of those cornerstones.

Always do what you love and the rest will follow. -Monica P Brice

[superstudentuniverse]

Letter to manager

Dear Mr. Peters,

After a period of being part of the team at DNB, I would like to evaluate. There are several things I would like to thank you for, furthermore I got some recommendations to give. 

At the beginning of my internship, I could not have imagined the knowledge I have earned. I am stunning about the fact that there is a tremendous amount of extremely skilled people. While working with them, two things happened in my development. First of all, I learned how to broaden my knowledge in order to understand more of the financial world. Secondly, they taught me how to gain specific knowledge about certain subjects. Furthermore, I would like to give you a compliment about the way you are able to manage the division. There is a limited amount of resources, while there is plenty of work. Every time you and your team are able to reach the targets and perform effectively. 

In my opinion it is good to be critical, there is room for improvement. One does not have to be sick to become better. Therefore, I would like to point out the spirit at the workplace. In order to function fully, it is pleasant to have an open and flexible work environment. I noticed that this is not always the case. Since many colleagues have been in the same job for decades, it is hard to change the way of working and communicating. When new ideas are presented, they often form a bottleneck to implement those ideas’. By letting this group of colleagues in in the process of creating new ideas, the chance of developing a successful idea is bigger. 

Finally, I would like to thank you for the great mentor you have been. I have learned way more than I expected. 

Kind regards,

Ard Jan Smits

[i-think-im-a-writer-lol-me-blog]

Still thinking I can put word’s on paper well.

The energy and beauty from good music cannot be understated. Father John Misty’s im writing a novel really gives me that pretentious hard on. The drops on the dirtiest drum and base, EDM, Techno, dubstep monstrosities my Stroudy cohort’s can dredge up from the depth’s of music streaming services can be easily compared to an ecstasy high. Getting lost in the winding and chaotic avenue’s of psytrance give’s my alpha and beta waves the massage needed for me to understand the depth’s of those who make such works. Electro-swing. Oh, Electro-swing. Deluxe, Cravan Palace, Bart and Baker, and all the other funky French names that create such a stunning synergy of old-timey respectable music and new age disgusting filth. I can enjoy the usual electronic bleeps and bloops of dubstep and DNB, but I have found passion in electro-swing.

Music is that which sooths the soul and eases all movement. A walking track can lift one from depression to the height’s of god’s just as a good poem and book can rip one from a dopamine slumber. For those making it: it is an expression. It is a doorway and a key. It’s as if the most quiet and subsistant part’s of these people’s beings have suddenly exploded with passion and pure brilliance. Every inch of their tortured, eased or radient being expressed with a few chords and notes, and from it oozes, gushes and explodes waves of beauty. The pen is mightier than the sword. We right poetry because we are human. We sing because the mixture of the pen, the sword, the world, history, future and everything else get’s incapsulated everyday in the skinny avenue’s of grey matter, and eventually this all must all be expelled before we die. Music is said expulsion. Music ejaculates.

Musicalicly (Tim Minchin), im at an irritating precipice. As already discussed I drum and piano. I just wish I could PLAY music. Not repeat the same tunes over and over, and not do as I can now which is idly slap together some chord’s and melody’s on the left and right. I want to PLAY. Play music. Play with my music. Play around a theme and a chord and a structure. Play with words and rhythms and themes. I want to hear the tones in my head and translate them into beautiful perfect sound. I want to sculpt my way through the minefield. One of the sweetest gift’s mother nature gave man was his ability to form sheer beauty. Some have art, some have music, some have mathematics. Even if I think that she has given upon me with both hands, I still believe myself to young to be more than a jack of all – master of none. I wish to spend more hour’s idling whittling away music. Sharpening the tonal stick and making myself move and flow with my lizard brain playing on a board of keys. Not me being musical, not me being repetitive, my most base of instincts and my most unintentional of movements intricately forming that of tear’s, scream’s and elation.

I get jealous of many. I will admit this. I will not actively be aware of my jealousy. And even once I have passed the acknowledgement stage, it is rare if ever that I will admit such jealousy. Few of those with breath in their lung’s have received my admitted jealousy, and fewer still will receive my unadmitted jealousy. Even me. Felix has been brought up with a guitar in one hand and a book of poems in the other. Emily was brought up through the lens of a camera. Joe was riddled with autism and any other ism of the brain and on this he boult an impulsive and obsessive complex toward’s the creation, analysation and silent respect of music and cinema. I have academia.

But this academia is not a gift. Nor is it a passion. Anthropology is my love and knowledge is the candle burning with the fire of that love. But not academia. No. Word’s and text’s and scholars and writing are blankets. Cushions. A padded floor for me to land at the end of my fall from grace. Science was once my passion. Im glad it is no longer. With those in search of pure science they lose the rose pettels they should collect before becoming worm food. Pure science is elitist and for every iota of beauty there comes lashings of ugliness and inhumanity. Leave true science to the universe and it’s ever ticking lexicon. And then leave everything else for us. Here I return to academia. Passion for physics brought me a downfall toward’s anthropology. Enlightenment at the hand’s of a Leonard and Jackson showed me what I do love. But this still does not ease the blow. Now engineering brings me stooped on one knee against myself.

All of this is self indulgent anyway. Grasping onto the last straw of sanity. The same straw which will inevitably break the camals back. Quick word to the wise, don’t try and find a needle in a haystack on the back of a camel. That was a bad joke but it’s a work in progress. Perhaps some personality will ooze out of this. I use the term ooze because a word that describes a slower and more disgusting process doesn’t spring to mind immediately.

Shakespear and poetry originally disgusted me none the less. Despite a brief scrape with poetry at a young age when I found my rhyming ability and access to big word’s and little idea meant that I could do fuck all in class. I’d loosely describe autumn leave’s and park’s and pretend that any of the sentiment implied was my own, and not just mimicked from the daytime TV I’d resigned myself to idolising. Year 10 and 11 english class gave me a close encounter as well. In the way it was set out it was more life lessons and personality development. I never gave my teacher the disserved credit for that. She was one of those that does quietly and subtly touch your life and is never thanked for it. Maybe one day ill be able to show her thanks. She was pretty fit too.

The class itself amounted to little substance. Though this is a drastic oversimplification that spout’s from my classmates, I didn’t appreciate what I was being given. This, however, does show why it was character building. I wont go into explaining highschool drama. The likes of high school musical and most other teen movie’s pumped out of Hollywood since Ferris Beuller have already covered that base. Some did it rather adequately too.

No, I shan’t indulge in complaining about loose fictive kinship system’s and discrimination via a bad case of small town mindset. Instead I will discuss the English class that I never appreciated. If I’d have not been so ignorant to refuse myself the lust to come to grip’s with it that I have now I think it would’ve pointed me in the direction of anthropology so much earlier. The class consisted of my teacher struggling to get a word in around empty headed teens. An A.Perry would shout and overact and show all the irritating symptoms of ADHD. There was one in every class and it was briefly me. Then there was a J. something or other. He was a prick and I could write whole essay’s looking into the depth’s of his vulgarity and the capacity anyone could have to fully loathe his character. He would make the sarcastic comment’s that come naturally to those who, admittedly, matured early than others. Or atleast believed he did. I was one of those, too, for some time. Probably still am.

There was obviously the smart ones who sat down and shut up. Perhaps some of them even enjoyed the subject to such an extent I believe I would now. There was numerous other name’s I could rattle out to distinguish the riff-raff I sat amongst, but ill save that for darker and more drunken times of verbal masturbation.

Though the teacher sometimes struggled to pierce the fog of ignorance that amassed in the classroom, when she did she did it well and with beauty and meaning beyond her years. I recall numerous times she tried perilously to define, outline and truly express the beauty that she saw in such works as Of Mice and Men and Blood Brothers. Recalling now I could physically sense the lusting feminist holding back a dyke of an unencapsulated love for literature as an art form. She was creaking with how much the distinction was just that. Distinct. A pin prick could burst this bubble and she could rattle off into the wee hour’s discussing every insightful phrase, word and comma that made the ink and paper into gleaming gold of righteous truth.

In time’s like this I weep that beauty is the greatest praise I can give such things. Beauty is a beautiful word with beautiful heritage and history, but even beauty isn’t beautiful enough to define true beauty. Perfection is imperfect, it is the little imperfections that make those perfect, and I guess in some sense that is what makes the English language such an intricate and bastardy language to master, let alone wield. In such a fashion I urge for more words. More to describe the infinite depths of character I’ve noticed in people. My teacher’s passion for her subject. Her longing for it’s understanding and appreciation. She martyred herself in the name of a craft that has forever been martyred for. I can think of sparse few so disserving.

Lo, English has not mastered the expression of beauty in my mind. This is evident in the fact that I cannot grasp at enough letter’s on a page that allow me to make those reading truly believe, truly FEEL how the awe inspired by people such as her. This roaring ember of loving passion Is held in many who I’ve found inspiring. Im sure it’s in even more than that. Any who love their craft disserve not what they get. Yet another on the list of catch-22’s. “Whistle on your way to work”, as a Leonard once said. Passion for a craft brings the beauty of music straight into reflex and refuses to stop there. Those who are passionate for their craft disserve not what they get because they want for no more than what they have. On my death bed if I can say that I lived the large year’s of my life deep on the trail of happiness I would die alone with small thought’s and pure and certain grief. But if I take my final breath and think to those times that I’ve been exactly where I’ve needed to be, wanted to be, and forever longed to be; death would simply be the full stop at the end of the verse I contributed to the infinite sonnet of life.

[3490148]

Nocturnal cont.

Tackle - Benzedrine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlM1ITmeTwM

Continuing with the theme of night... I’d call this track ‘dark’ off the bat - but what do we mean when we say dark? But before I get stuck into that I want to look at the piece for the week. Tackle’s Benzedrine is around 07:30, and begins with almost a minute of sound design and atmospheric prep. Short teasing bursts of drum samples and synthetic bass swells build a kind of tension, before a brief pause, and then the real drum breaks kick in.

The tempo sits around 150BPM, slightly faster than Dub-Step, but much slower than most Drum and Bass or Jungle, which are it’s obvious peers. This makes the whole thing sound slightly too fast and too slow simultaneously. The rhythms are also quite different from the standard DnB break. Many of the patterns work with a kind of rule-set-rule-break motif, building expectation and anti-climax, sometimes within the space of a single bar.

While there is very little melodic content, sections are easily distinguished from one another; though I think this is more than simply changing patterns. The key is the underlying texture, or atmosphere of the track that shifts between sections. This includes the hum and hiss of recording equipment, as well as environmental sound, and acoustic elements such as scraping metal.

Brief moments of ‘silence’, where the loudest samples give way to the underlying atmosphere are the easiest points of entry, but on repeated listens its much clearer just how many layers of sustained tones and textures are playing at any given moment. These are then added and subtracted under conscious threshold of the attention grabbing breaks.

I feel the overall production of the track captures the mood of the night perfectly. One of the key ways it achieves this is by keeping a particular balance of quiet and loud sounds, and reverbs. The reverb is mixed quite high, but some of the quietest sounds like the amp hum doesn't seem effected by it. During the day most ambient electrical sounds in our home are drowned out by day-time activity, and it isn’t until we sit still in the quiet of night that we hear what was always there.

The relative volumes of elements in the track are also established by playing them together: for example drums sound different when you hit them hard, or soft; so by pairing a synthetic bass tone with the sound of some cans being kicked across concrete, we can establish parallel relations between synthetic and natural sound objects.

Reverb also helps establish these kinds of boundaries. ‘Quiet’ sounds such as amp hum, are mixed loud, with no reverb, as they would normally not be loud enough to be heard reflecting off distant surfaces, whereas the loud drums have loads of reverb. The mix builds a night-like environment.

Week 4 - Sound and Place

Speaking to the first assignment - 20% - 500 words.

Pieces we were played in class looked at:

Activation of people

Technological mediation of place

The world beyond ours (extra-human)

Preservation

Soundscapes

Improvising or collaborating with spaces

Natural vs built environments

Realtime vs edited recordings

In class we were talking about the way a soundscape might change drastically, (from a symphony of sirens to a waking fishing village) what we hear now may not be the same in 10 years, 100 years...

The night might be a way for us to travel the greatest distance, within the shortest distance. The night and its noise floors, its density - how quiet it is brings things closer to us.

A challenge to represent a place without simply sticking a mic out a window.

Stay away from the middle literal description of the place. Possibly move toward a hyper-literal approach.

While recording try to really meditate on what it is you’re doing, become better aligned with the task at hand, which will then hopefully open a new space, where the real work takes place.

Don’t step out as day-light into the night-space - you will blind it.

Try answering questions with sound: what is the night? The night is a place where [sound]. This might simply be a documentation of the process of asking this question.

Draw inspiration from the Japanese focus on negative space from week 2. Akira and light video essay ect.

Look for assumptions, look for the justs as a way out/through. It’s just a recording out a hotel window - all they did was hit record ect.

Brian Jones’ ethnomusicology and the mistake of trying to capture what is there. Perhaps a more productive approach is to try and produce something.

Of course there are gear fetishes, but this could be undone by or substituted for magic, where the tools are a nexus. Again, the hyper-literal as a way out.

Think about the activity or the passivity of the action - where is the power placed in the recording? How thoughtless or obvious are your choices?

How can you include or remove yourself from the recording process or the environment? - The example given of the old pianos being left out to rot - the environment is present in the piece before you’ve even set about recording or playing them.

Pitching things up or down can effect the density of the space, you’re not just moving faster, you’re sort of populating the spectrum with more harmonics, but self referential and recursively.

Felix Hess and Francisco López play with this idea of compression and expansion of time. Lopez’s ‘arbitrary’ cuts of approximately 2 minutes for every hour of recording time are no less arbitrary than the way pitch shifting cycles through live incoming audio.

Ways of accessing a space:

what are the sounds I can hear?

spatial dynamics/architecture

socail funtion of the space - ritual/transport/entertainment ect.

narative - what story does it tell?

signification - what does it mean to me?

100 words on each theme

Chasing Epiphany

Trying to explain to people, or sell them on the art project. The communication of ideas. Have the work perform that function (a numbers meaning is what it does - need to look up this quote). Art practice is not something you ever ‘get’ or hope to have done - Rick Roderick: Philosophy is like housework, there is always more to do, the point may be closer to ‘keeping up’ rather than ‘completing’.

How to shed opinion in favour of questions?

Opinions don’t generate anything, or open things up.

[kashforgold]

My Top Tracks of 2016

So after months of struggle and conflict, I have conceded that I need to just settle on a list of tracks that I thought banged. This is it:

(visuals courtesy of my fly photoshopping skills)

Before I elaborate on this list, you need to know I have tried to limit this list. Anyone who has spent more than 10 minutes talking to me will know that I am obsessed with Our Lord and Saviour, Yeezus. If you’ve managed to guide the convo away from Kanye, I probably will mention that I am an ardent follower of Lord West’s disciple, The Rapper of Chance. And if you’ve gotten to know me really very well… Frank Ocean will have definitely popped up on the playlist.

In this list, I have imposed rules:

1. No Kanye West

2. No Chance The Rapper

3. No Frank Ocean

4. Avoid the glaringly obvious…

This final rule means I have had to take out a few tracks that have defined 2016 (Work, Black Beatles…), but I have included a few big hits I feel aren’t given the critical acclaim they deserve. Now I’m cutting the crap and starting from the bottom…

Level 5

James Blake - Noise Above Our Heads

I will happily tell you that I don’t know what James is singing about. The lyrics confuse me and parts are distorted to the point of being indistinguishable from noise… but good lord it is a powerful noise. I don’t need to know what James is singing because I feel it in his voice, I feel it in his instruments, I feel it in the layers and the distortions. This track creates longing, a melancholy hope, an unsatisfying acceptance. James Blake creates environments around his songs that push you not just to listen, but to feel, and this track is loaded with them feels.

Disclosure - Boss

I’m thinking back to Electronic music before Disclosure and I don’t remember it being this clinical and precise. Disclosure are clinical and precise, but they got just enough Funky for this Beat Junky. Firstly, that bassline rolling over throughout the track has some direct link to my arse. My movements once it starts are involuntary. I can try my hardest, but there will always be a little grind in my waistline when this drops.

Kodak Black & French Montana - Lockjaw

So who knew that excessive MDMA usage can cause your jaw to lock? What if I told you that in various ‘hoods’ pants aren’t worn low for style, they simply sagging under the weight of weaponry… Kodak Black and French Montana are depicting these 2nd World Problems in relatable scenarios, and with one of the smoothest flows I’ve heard all year. Kodak has had a solid year with killer flows, and on this track he flows in and out, around, inside, outside and all through Montana’s bars. They blend together the way you wish your Stir-Fry Noodles and Vegetables would.

Katy B x Chris Lorenzo - I Wanna Be

Apparently, this beat has been floating about in Lorenzo’s sets for a while. I can understand why. It hovers in that period just before dawn. You don’t want the night to end, but this would be the perfect conclusion. You don’t want the comedown, but this is the soft pillow you want cushioning you as you float back: sleepy and uplifting. There aren’t many scenarios where this song would feel right to me, but when it does, I know it will be magical.

Mist - Karlas Back

I saw a tweet that summarised this dude’s situation perfectly. It was something along the lines of “The only person from Birmingham allowed to speak is Mist”. All Brummies struggle in life with their misfortune of an accent, but this guy BANGS. Grime is dominated by Roadmen from LDN, so its refreshing to hear an exotic accent (yes, I did just call the Brummie accent exotic).

Danny Brown - When It Rain

Danny Brown sounds over the top and completely bonkers, so it makes sense for him to rap “When it rain, it pours”. Brown’s showing how extreme the world he knows is. Bullets are not raining, they’re pouring… This isn’t another rapper glorifying the violence he grew up in, nor is he looking back at it having escaped. Danny Brown shows you how this life be straight from the hectic streets! He ain’t slowing or dumbing it down for you. Danny’s out of his mind, and this shit is real.

Level 4

MØ - Final Song

This ain't as funky as Kamikaze, or as cool a song as Kamikaze. But it still gives me an energetic joy. It’s gotta be MØ’s quirky voice, or the odd emphasis she puts in at unorthodox points in words. but whatever it is, this song is trash and awesome.

Kungs vs Some guy and some other Bollocks - This Girl

The more you analyse it, you find a number of elements plucked straight from the catchiest tracks of recent years: a guitar riff lifted out of Get Lucky, trumpets that wouldn’t sound out place with Omi, a chopped up and screwed vocal in the bridge/chorus. There are probably more, but this is too vibey to even care. If a track makes you feel too glorious to analyse, its doing something right.

PARTYNEXTDOOR - Come And See Me

A song about one-sided casual relationships. PND gets some sassy lines in (”talkin lot about ‘we’, Oh you speak French now”), but this light bravado depicts him more as the antagonist. This whole song makes us empathise with his ‘victim’. PND and Drake make weak arguments for their case, but their ‘cold’ front is made weak and brittle. This track is a soft light on the fragile facade of heterosexual masculinity. 

Solange ft Lil Wayne - Mad

The Angry Black Woman is being asked why she always gotta be so mad. This song isn’t complex at all. It’s as though, not only is Solange explaining that there is a lot for her to be mad about, but she’s dumbing it down for us sheep. The double standards and discrimination are clear in society if you know where to look, and Lil Wayne offers some examples. But Solange keeps this track very maternal, and it gets more comforting with every listen. It’s a protest song that is aware that anger and proactivity achieve nada. The revolution is gonna be patient and will delicately empower us to pick apart the lies.

Giggs ft Donaeo - Lock Doh

Giggs is barely even rapping here. A few carefully selected words, couple tings name-checked, a raw minimal beat, and Donaeo on the hook: somebody make some mash cos this looks like the recipe for a Banger!

Level 3

D.R.A.M. & Lil Yachty - Broccoli

Back in 2015, D.R.A.M gained a cult following. Hotline Bling was one of the best tracks of 2015, but I feel Cha Cha set the tone that Drake polished off. Many other artists have fallen away having gained an initial boost with a Drizzy connection. D.R.A.M looked like he was to follow this path. He was too weird, his great musical ideas to few and far between, and just seemed a bit too off-centre… *In walks Lil Yachty*. The kids love him and I appreciate the boyish immaturity he raps with. The Broccoli beat perfectly complements this boyish immaturity. Lil Yachty stole this track and looks set to get bigger, but hopefully not better.

Lil Uzi Vert & Future - Too Much Sauce

Lil Uzi Vert is another artist riding this new wave in Hip Hop with Yachty, and the aforementioned Kodak. His voice is a little whinier (in a good way) than your average rapper, and this track again is the springboard shooting Lil Uzi and his style up the wave. Despite Lil Uzi’s efforts, Future is the star of the track. Future is the blueprint of contemporary Hip Hop! His sound is all over this. Every other big track this year can be classed ‘Inspired by Future’. Every other rapper in this new wave is Future’s child. And my favourite word of 2016, is #Sauce.

Mura Masa - What If I Go

I love Mura Mama’s production and on this track he smashes it. It’s twinkly and swirly in the verses and the instrumental after the drop has just enough weight of bass. There’s an enduring sweetness that carries through the whole track. It’s like a Vienesse Whirl.

Alicia Keys - In Common

In Common keeps the rasp and Polish I expect from Keys’ brand of polished R'n'B, but mixes the flavours a little. Some genius in a studio polished off some slightly tribal drum beats which have no right to sound this smooth. This isn’t a normal beat, and this Alicia isn’t singing a conventional song. She is embodying the wooing process of today. She’s breathlessly nervous during the flirtatious part, then she sounds strained and stuck between options when she tells me that we have way too much in common. And then she’s announcing with certainty that I’m messed up too. And still I have no idea whether I’m in or not…

Level 2

Skream - You Know Right

I was on the M3 stuck in the 50mph zone when I caught this, mid-track, on Radio 1. It intrigued me, so I stayed. It was building up to something and it felt like forever. Still in the 50 zone, and still the track was building. The end of the limit was ahead, and the track switched up. It had to be turnt up. I was getting turnt up. I was at the end... I'd made it... but what do I do now? The song silenced to offer me a moment to think. Man, machine, and music were in a magical moment of synchronisation. BOOM! 

This track is everything great in British Electronic music. Elements of house, trance, dnb, two-step, garage. To fully appreciate these, you need to listen to the full-length version. It's a prime example of escalation. It's a demonstration of how the same beat, with the right escalation can switch from hard, to melt your face gassy

Yuna ft Usher - Crush

Instead of the awkward, terrifying, uncomfortable trainwreck I went through, I wish my first crush was more like this. Pure, innocent, untroubled. A little coy, with destiny guiding you where you needed to be. This track feels like its been touched by destiny. Every stage of the song seamlessly flows and blends. Usher and Yuna seem to be able to feel each other’s vocals and glide through this 4 mins making you wish it would never end.

Drake - Fake Love

Drake is the zeitgeist of 2016. He was on your radio, your phone, your fake news, your memes. But people still don’t understand that Views is probably his weakest album! The only track Drake dropped in 2016 that would make it onto his greatest hits (due 2018), is Fake Love. Some of Drizzy’s best work comes from his throwaways: Club Paradise, We Made It, Ransom, Draft Day, Hotline Bling, Dreams Money Can’t Buy, 9am in Dallas, 5am in Toronto... I could go on. IYRTITL was a mixtape of experiments that became one of his most critically acclaimed bodies of work. 

Drake is at his best when he’s experimenting, switching things up, venting. Fake Love is just this. He sliced up the tropical dancehall vibe he popularised w/ Rihanna, switched his style to mimic young Tory Lanez, and sprinkled a little of Hotline Bling’s Cha Cha magic. It shouldn’t work as well as it does, but there’s no point complaining because Drizzy is gonna keep dropping the catchiest bangers.

Level 1

Flume - Never Be Like You

I’ve not liked Flume for a while. It stemmed from an early disliking of some his remixes. Not my cup of tea. And I’ve swerved around this teacup since, but then I heard Never Be Like You. Turns out this Flume kid can create audio magic.

Contrary to all the OTT maximalist stuff I associate with Flume, this sounds like its being forcibly restrained. There's an angst being held back, with twinkly hope popping through in sweet bursts. It's disjointed with silent patches specifically placed to enhance the overarching rise and fall. This wave is coursing throughout the whole track, constantly gathering momentum until the end when your ears yearn for it to crash, that never comes. This is an exhilarating, breathtaking journey that exhausts you, but never truly ends, no matter how many times you try to find one.

Beyonce - Hold Up

The reason I had to allow Beyonce in this list is because everyone else would have you believe Formation should be up here. They are mistaken.

Look at the origins of this track. Ezra Koenig tweeted “hold up... they dont love you like i love you”. This already sounds like it could’ve been Vampire Weekend’s most profound song ever. Then Diplo, the most influential producer this decade, gets Ezra into a studio and they create a demo converting this tweet into the shell of a masterpiece. *In walks Queen B*

Ezra probably repeated the ‘They don’t love you like I love you” for rhythmic purposes. Beyonce, with the torturous relationship of Lemonade, flipped the spine of the song. First, its ‘Hold Up, please don't hurt me like this’ and then its ‘Slow Down, you ain’t never gonna get better than me’. Each line has its own angle on the revelation of this infidelity. There’s a feminist strength in this song and Bey’s delivery adds an independent defiance. The beat carries a bumptious swagger to gloss over the delicious rage Bey is ready to ‘fuck her up a bitch’ with.

The reason this tops the list is unexplainable. The instrumental is on sitcom level of comical. On any other beat, this song would be nothing special. But they combine gloriously. Beyonce’s sweet, sharp Jam is so much more fulfilling with Diplo’s salty, gloopy Peanut Butter. It's another one of this universe’s mysteries as to why this piece combines so well together, but Diplo has a knack for this, and Bey’s gonna slay regardless.