Hey again.
Things got crazy busy with work again, and this got pushed right to the bottom of priorities. Seems unrealistic to think I can keep this up regularly with content that interests and inspires, but not going to give up on that hope yet. In the meantime, here are some messing musings and life updates, as well as the usual music recommendations.
Work has calmed down a lot, and it’s great to have more time to focus on the things that I actually value — like spending time with my family, meeting up with friends, and getting back into working on music. That need to feed my creative output has also been on my back for a while now, so it’s massively rewarding to finally have the time and energy for it.
Although I have the word “creative” in my job title, my job does very little to fulfill my urge to be creative. I think this is because I have a very low level of control over the final output with zero opportunity to incorporate any form of self-expression.
One possible explanation for this might be that it comes down to the fundamental differences between “art” and “craft” and why it’s important not to inherently combine and consider the two as one discipline. Client work serves a set purpose — it’s made to advertise the product or service they are trying to sell. The process to get to the specifically functional result requires following a tried-and-tested approach, with (particularly in the case of the clients I work with) very little deviation or originality. So I think that because it fits very squarely into the definition of craft, I don’t find it satisfying my explicit need to create. That’s the role of art. That’s where the complex expressions of ideas, emotions, and experiences happen. That’s what I can’t get from my job and why I need external channels of output.
Of course, it’s not as clear-cut as that. The lines have been blurred between art and craft throughout history in many different mediums. William Morris, in his backlash to the mass production of the Industrial Revolution, wanted to elevate both the social and intellectual status of functional craftsmanship. He believed passionately in the importance of creating everyday objects that were beautiful, well-made, and produced in a way that allowed their makers to have a lasting connection with both the products and the people using them. And even in the world of advertising, there are opportunities for more creative approaches (if you are lucky enough to work on such projects for clients that want/allow it).
Following this logic, it could be argued that quote-unquote dance music is simply a craft — it’s music that is made to serve the purpose of being played by DJs in a club to get the crowd dancing. It may have been an underlying reason that Steve Albini (news of his passing hit this morning, RIP) always detested “mechanized dance music, its stupid simplicity, the clubs where it was played”— because to him there was no art in it, it was simply craft. I’d say that “Business techno” certainly falls into the category of craft with very little blurring of the lines. However, as a long-term avid lover of dance music — a home listener of dance music — it shouldn’t even need to be stated there have always been artists doing very interesting and emotional things with dance music. Adding soul, injecting new energy, infusing different sounds. For many artists—especially around the birth of house and techno (in places like Albini’s adopted hometown Chicago) — dance music is/was one of very few voices through which the marginalized community has had to express themselves. And you can hear that, you can feel that, in the music. That is the definition of art. But when that expression is missing, or when any other imaginative and/or innovative spirit is missing, when it is just some fucking dude in his apartment that his parents pay the rent for downloading some loops from Splice, putting them together quickly in a DAW to play in the club so that he can upload a video to Instagram to get some likes, that’s craft. That’s the crusty bottom-end scrapings of the rubbish bin of craft, Kraft cheese slices.
At the end of April, I was lucky to see Larry Heard play at OPPA-LA, a small venue in Enoshima. I’ve been a fan of Larry Heard ever since I bought Chris (Greenberg – the guy I make Greeen Linez music with) the cassette version of Classic House Mastercuts Volume 3 for his 14th birthday, and we were dancing around his bedroom to Mr. Fingers Can You Feel It. I got reunited with the track when I picked out a free copy of Warp10+1 Influences (an impeccable compilation of 80s Chicago, Detroit, and British house music that influenced artists on Warp Records in the 90s) from a bucket of mostly rubbish promo CDs at the student radio stand of my university freshers fair. Since then I was introduced to his incredible 90s albums — either as Mr. Fingers or Larry Heard — and also loved his Cerebral Hemispheres LP in 2018.
I don’t go to clubs often at all. I’m too old for that now. But when I have been to clubs in the last few years, I have tended to be disappointed, mainly because at least (if not most) of the DJs drops some garbage or boring shite with absolutely no soul. It’s not a case of not being down with the latest music the kids are listening to, it’s more a case of the kids playing 90s/2000s music and not having enough knowledge, sense, and/or experience to be able to distinguish between crap that was either shite at the time or records that haven’t aged as well as other music from the same era. If the bank of Mummy and Daddy is helping support your lifestyle enough so that you can buy pretty much every dance twelve-inch from 20-30 years ago on Discogs, then yeah there will be gold in there, but there will also be a lot of utter crap. There’s definitely an issue where these people can’t seem to differentiate between the two. Also there has been a trend over the last few years (in Japan at least) for bland-as-shite “oooh it’s so dark and scary, and I’m so cool and edgy” techno. That shit does nothing for me.
So, it’s rare for me to have a positive experience at a club nowadays. The release party we did for RGL and Fujimoto Tetsuro a couple of months back was an absolutely great evening, but we curated that event…
The late great Andrew Weatherall compared the club experience to the one Christians have in churches, or even going back 3,000 years ago to the ancient Greeks and their Eleusinian rituals. “Secular transcendence,” as Weatherall referred to the club version of the experience. The same urge to be taken away from the realities of life and achieve direct contact with the divine, helping you find the core of yourself — just without the religion. Although it’s hard to disagree with the comparison, in practice, it’s practically impossible to experience it if the DJs break up your trance-like state by dropping some Alice Deejay trance-like garbage.
But I had a very healing experience at the Larry Heard event, as both Mr. Larry-san and DJ Izu (the mid-50s Japanese warm-up DJ) played absolute non-stop gold. Beautiful music that makes you dance and have a massive emotional attachment at the same time. I haven’t continually danced like that for many years. It seriously had a lasting positive effect on my mental health. And it finished at 10pm – which was a parents-in-their-40s super bonus!!
Anyway… I’ve fully immersed myself into catching up with all the music ideas I have been dying to explore for the last few months, but haven’t had the time and energy to do so. It’s dangerous to force creativity just because you have the time to be creative — you aren’t usually going to get good results that way — but there’s definitely been an overwhelming build-up, and now that the floodgates have opened, I’m riding that wave in an extremely productive manner. I’m currently working on four projects in parallel, which is exciting.
But there is also another side to focusing time and energy on making music. Work is work, and as much as it sucks when it completely takes over your life, what I have noticed in the past (especially in hindsight with my former job) is at quiet times, if you’re not occupying your thoughts with creative productivity, then you have too much empty mental real-estate for Mr. and Mrs. Dire State of the World and their extended family of self-loathing to move in very quickly, bringing with them a full kennel of black dogs.
To be honest, there is a balance though, and I overdid it a bit yesterday, jumping between four tracks concurrently. I’m feeling the psychological debt today. It’s crazy how fast you can go from being in an ecstatic flow state to acutely hating everything you have ever created and deriding and ridiculing your own abilities.
That’s why I’m putting my attention on this today. I’ve definitely found it important to have more than one creative output going on at the same time – whether that is two or more tracks, different projects, or separate creative fields completely. If you hit a wall with one thing, you can continue being productive with something else. Otherwise, you’ll come to a total stop. And it’s very hard to get started again for a good while if that happens. Not that there is a great deal of creativity behind these Substack posts, but just discussing creative processes keeps me feeling productive and inspired.
I wanted to share a couple of things that I’ve come across since my last update that related to the subject of creativity.
Firstly, a couple of months ago, it was all over my Twitter timeline that on a podcast, excitable perfect-pitch theater-kid musician Jacob Collier had taken issue with Rick Rubin’s artistic philosophy — particularly Rubin’s statement that “the audience comes last” in the process of creating art. When this was quoted and shared on social media, my first inclination to was naturally side with legendary producer Rubin over Collier and his hyperactive haircut. I’m not that familiar with Collier, except for videos of his “the audience choir” live stunts that popped up uninvited on my timelines, making me cringe with horror in the same way as the phrase “now we are going to try a team building exercise” does at work-related seminars.
However, on hearing what Collier actually says (not just reading the clickbait headlines), I found it quite thought-provoking. Collier’s argument is that Rubin is excessively reducing creativity into only two categories — one in which you make for everyone, the other where you just create for yourself. He believes that for an inherently creative person, the notion of making work for yourself is not a novel concept at all — suggesting a far more interesting concept is that of making work for and with others because he believes great art comes from an exchange of ideas and energy. Collier feels it is OK to want to reach and move people through art as a fundamental motivation, just as much as it is OK to create just for yourself. Importantly he reiterates that there’s not just one way to create.
Furthermore, he calls out Rubin’s attitude that “art is only pure and meaningful if you make it for yourself” as hypocritical coming from someone who has reached so many people through the beautiful and meaningful albums he has worked on. He feels it’s disrespectful to deprioritize these people’s reactions to his work.
I think the takeaway from this discussion is interesting. Particularly when you recognize that as a Gen Z representative, Collier is someone who has little memory and life experience in a pre-social media era. Does this mean he indicatively cannot separate art from content, or at least see it as part of a larger two-way communication tool with his audience? The opinion he is arguing against comes from someone whose greatest (or certainly best regarded) achievements were created even before people had dial-up internet in their homes.
On the one hand, you have the idea that you shouldn't be making creative decisions in your art to simply please the consumer — particularly if you don’t yet have an audience. Which seems pretty sage advice before it is challenged. On the other hand, Collier argues that creating with an audience in mind enriches the process of making art, and if you have an audience, deprioritizing them puts you in the dangerous position of shutting them out and just expecting them to be there for whatever you make.
Certainly, when I start working on any music project, I would be lying if I said I don’t for a moment contemplate about how the final result will be received. I actually think considering the relationship with the intended audience is an important part of creating new work. It can be a real stimulus to get started on something — that feeling of wanting to make something that people are going to like — even if the end result becomes very different from the initial motivation.
This is something similar to what I discussed with Gold Panda in my interview with him, too. We talked about the balance that needs to be found between hearing something new and cool, witnessing it turning heads, and wanting part of that attention, and the inevitable result of what you are creating in the end sounding very much like “you”. But it’s important to embrace and cherish that true-to-yourself voice, fans of your music are there for that honest and uniquely “you” expression.
One relationship with the audience that is worth mentioning here is that the majority of people won’t know what actually went on within the creative process. There is no way for those listening to your work to know whether everything in it was 100% intentional and met your vision before and during making the music, or whether you were actually frustrated or disappointed with the result because it didn’t align with your initial intentions.
With craft, if the product of your work doesn’t function as it should, then there is a clearer evaluation of a failure to achieve the goal, but with art, the audience can’t really make a judgment on that as it’s completely up to interpretation. I think understanding this and keeping it in mind during the creative process is one way that you can deal with that overwhelming anxiety that gets in the way of actually finishing things.
But what about if you are neither creating for yourself, nor your audience, but instead for someone else and their audience? I don’t have any kind of definitive answer on that, besides the experience with my day job that I mentioned earlier, but this week I fell into a YouTube rabbit hole of Twitch livestream recordings from Ian Kirkpatrick discussing his writing and production of some of Dua Lipa’s biggest tracks, such as ‘Don’t Start Now’ and ‘New Rules’. I was quite blown away by how surprisingly candid Kirkpatrick is in the videos, screen-sharing the actual Cubase project file he used for the productions.
There was a lot of gold — a lot of which is snuck between technical issues, tangents, and swearing — but some of my favorite insights included how much he layers things. Like, he’ll put layers and layers of sounds in just the drums that you’ll probably never be able to hear, but it really gives all the parts this extra texture. For example, on the drums for ‘Don’t Start Now’ there is actually this bitcrushed-to-fuck sample of a four-to-the-floor kick and snare that he put in just to add a bit of fuzz to the transients of the main drums. When I do something similar in my production, I feel guilty, like I’m breaking the rules of keeping things simple and paired down as much as possible, which a lot of producers preach. But I will also put extra parts in my productions that you really can’t hear, just to warm certain EQ frequencies or give things extra texture, and it was really reassuring to find out that a successful top-end producer does the same thing.
I was also super excited when he was like, “Yeah, this is the delay VST I used on the track, it’s my favorite delay VST” – and I was like “Holy shit! That’s *my* favorite delay VST too!” (Waves H-Delay, if you are interested...) He’s also using all the Fabfilter plugins — which, although a bit pricey, I cannot recommend enough because they are total game-changers, even just the Pro-Q EQ one.
One other insight that was particularly interesting wasn’t necessarily to do with the art of production, but more workflow advice — simple but kind of genius. Kirkpatrick said that when he listens to his work with fresh ears after a long session, usually the morning after, he sets up his mic and records his own feedback in real-time on a new clean track at the bottom of the session. Things like “that hi-hat is too loud”, “fix compression”, “change up synth” etc., all on one audio track synced with the whole project. As he addresses these changes, he deletes the corresponding part of the feedback audio stem, until he’s addressed it all and there’s nothing on that channel. I thought this was a really interesting way of doing things, as usually I check mixes on walks with my phone/headphones playing the track from Google Drive, and I have to remember all the changes I want to make. Probably why I don’t have enough room in my head to remember other important info…
If you are interested in checking out some of the videos, they are here:
This one is quite long and there is a lot of faffing around and technical issues, but there are some gold moments if you have the time:
Going to get back to producing now, but hopefully I’ll post he again soon, fingers crossed with an interview with an interesting creator, rather than this kind of rambling.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Amon Tobin that I’ve just seen on Twitter before publishing this (most of which I wrote last week) as it’s rather in line with the general thoughts above:
“If you’re wondering how to make what people want, you’re an entertainer. if you’re wondering why no one wants what you make, congratulations dumb dumb, you’re an artist”
Recommended listening:
Omertà - Collection Particulière
I can’t remember how I first found this — maybe a tweet(?) – but I’ve been enjoying this album a lot since I did. Collection Particulière is the second LP from French sextet Omertà. It’s like a blend of Sea and Cake, Eleventh Dream Day, June of 44 kind of stuff with dream pop, 70s arty psychedelia, and Serge Gainsbourg’s work with Jane Birkin. The bass is particularly Doug McCombs-esque on the whole album, and that might have been my entry point in liking this. There is a steadfast groove in the minimalist energy and a nice flow to the album as a whole, too. It gradually gets more angular and aggressive in a, dare I say it, Shellac and Slint way as it plays out, but that shift in drive feels very natural and comfortable. For me, the standout tracks are ‘Amour Fou’ and ‘Moments in Love’ — although the latter bears some similarity in rhythm and melodic structure to the Art of Noise classic of the same name, I can’t find any information about whether it has any relationship to it — but the whole album is a nice compact 34-minute listen, so definitely worth checking it out.
Fujimoto Tetsuro & RGL - Bring Me / Destiny
No rules to say I can’t put Diskotopia releases in these recommendations. We put this out a couple of months back and it’s a great split release from two super nice Tokyo-based artists/DJs who Brian and I have known for years. Two tracks from each artist and then remixes of the other artist’s two tracks — eight tracks in total. I’ve been listening to this a lot since we put it out; it’s like my go-to if I can’t decide what to put on for the commute, etc. The reason being that it’s just got such positive vibes to it that it feels like medicated escapism from the reality of 2024. Mood II Swing, MAW, and Strictly Rhythm vibes meet jazz-fusion, garage, amapiano, downtempo, and 80s groove to create eight tracks of the “Shibuya-soul” club vibe that’s reminiscent of pre-3/11, pre-fūeihō Air and Seco Bar events. If you haven’t had a chance to listen, put it on and immerse yourself in the sunshine for 41 minutes.
Stupid Kozo - Full Send EP
Keeping things in the same family as above here – this new EP from Cosmopolyphonic/Cool Radio extended family member Stupid Kozo with crazy-nice artwork from RLP and a remix from Monsieur Fujimoto of above release, both from the same crew. Some different vibes in this EP, but definitely a rather mid-90s summer affair. ‘Bae Mastermind’, ‘Once Upon a Time’, and ‘Midnight Clock’ come across like ghetto-tech meets hip-house remixes of Rodney Jerkins and/or Dallas Austin productions. ‘Land Sax’ takes the R&B influence and infuses it into 130-bpm diet jungle production, also borrowing the Kicks Like a Mule’s “Your name’s not down…” Bouncer vocal sample. But it’s the Fujimoto remix of Land Sax which is the real diamond on this release — a lush 2-steppy jazz-fusion boogie hot mineral bath to just soak and soak in for hours… so nice, one of those tracks to put on repeat.
Doc Sleep - Cloud Sight Fade
Doc Sleep is DJ and producer Melissa Maristuen. We’ve been lucky to have worked with her for both our label releases — with Glenn Astro as Beats Unlimited for and EP on Diskotopia, and we had a Doc Sleep track open the second Ashigakari compilation. Released on Dark Entries, Cloud Sight Fade is the follow-up album to last year’s debut album Birds (In My Mind Anyway) on Tartelet Records. It’s an album of ethereal house and techno that pays homage to her years of experience in the queer clubbing community. The tracks sit between “muscular” New York house, Berlin “twilight” techno, and funky West-coast breakbeats — all connected by the same kind of dreamlike vibe that feels both timeless and modern at the same time. It’s a solid listen that works as background music or closer attention absorption – but be warned, title track ‘Cloud Sight Fade’ will catch you off your guard after the hypnotic ‘Water Sign’ because the combination of the jerky bass line and snaky Detroit-esque synth part goes proper hard…. Seriously such a tune. Really would like to hear this on a loud sound system. Great selection of tracks from a talented producer and all-round nice person.
Fuga Ronto – Greatest Treasure
My wife Megumi put me onto this great release. Zurich-based duo Fuga Ronto, aka Tobi Schweizer & Ron Shiller, blend elements of synth-funk, dub, fusion, new wave, and ambient on this second album for Swiss label Phantom Island. After the take-it-or-leave-it intro with its rather tongue-in-cheek vocal sample collage, the rest of the album’s production is very nice indeed. There’s definitely a strong Compass Point All Stars vibe across all the tracks, especially on ‘Greatest Treasure’ and single ‘Falling Star’(is that Kathleen Turner around the 4-minute mark?). There’s a bit of Thompson Twins and Blancmange going on there too. The album gets more mellow on the B-side, sliding seamlessly into a sunset Balearic ambiance on the closer ‘Mystery Of Zambio’, making it a perfect 30-minute release to put on at Golden Hour for that afternoon-to-evening transition.
Low End Activist - Airdrop
This is the latest release from one of my favourite labels at the moment, LA-based Peak Oil, from the sophomore album from Low End Activist, otherwise known as Jamie Russell, the head honcho of the Hypercolour and Social Sneakers Club labels. Building on the foundation laid by the 2022 LP Hostile Utopia, this second album Airdrop, takes a fresh approach to the artist’s aesthetics and production. The album delves into memory and nostalgia, paying homage to the vibrant energy of early '90s rave culture while creating a sonic landscape that feels both timeless and spaceless. Drawing inspiration from the rave scenes of South West England, particularly events held at places like Waterstock and White Horse Hill, the album offers a nostalgic journey through hardcore music, infused with dub influences that echo in the way the speakers at those raves did across rural landscapes around them. While a lot of other artists have visited this era of music, exploring similar sounds and influences, Low End Activist brings a unique perspective, striking a perfect balance between concept and execution through a skittery, stripped, and rewired deconstruction of the stables of the rave, jungle, and new beat genres. You can picture yourself in the countryside under a full moon, surrounded by ancient and modern spirits, lost in the throes of hardcore beats and breaks. From the immersive experience of ‘Waterstock’ to the energetic thrills of ‘Tango Skit’ each track takes you on a meticulously crafted journey, culminating in a satisfying conclusion. You may need to take a moment to unwind after to listening to this.