Actually, on record stores:I used to do a lot of record shopping, but that stopped being possible in Victoria several years ago. When I was in Berlin last summer, I had the chance to go record shopping, and I discovered an amazing thing. Turn out I had not been listening to music, not properly, for the last five years. In a record store, with nothing between me and the needle, with no chance to distract myself, I had to take the damn time to hear things. This was relevatory. The amount of care I put into that purchase was much, much higher than any recent grab from Beatport or Bleep. Not because of format issues, but because of listening and focus issues.
I think it’s possible to listen to music this way online, but it’s much harder. Beatport times out after two minutes, Bleep works in 30 second chunks, Boomkat has BEEEEPS regularly. Randall Munroe, of XKCD fame, spoke to this a bit in this post , and there are apps like Freedom that turn off your internet connection. I just went through the Resident Advisor reviews RSS feed, paying as much attention as I could…and I still got lost, briefly, chatting with a friend. Focus is hard on the interwebs. The best way to really turn your ears on to music is to go to a record store, sit and listen for an hour or three, and then choose your tracks.
Yep. America! I’m hacking for The Echo Nest for the summer. No camera this year, so things will be fairly quiet. If you’re out east, drop me a line! If you’re not, I’ll be back in the 250 in September.
Portal 2 is out. I won’t be able to play it until I get back from Boston, which is crushing.
Boston! Here are my projects:
– TH TMPST, which has been discussed before.
– BABA YAHA AND PRINCESS VASILISIA, for bassoon, piano, and electronics.
– ABJURATION, for flute and marimba.
– RINGETTE, for tenor sax and ring modulation.
– ELEVEN, a series of electronic miniatures with Gerald Deo.
Jacques Greene played at Sub:Division at Lucky bar last Wednesday, and single-handedly restored my faith in music. What’s the best music to play in 2011? Everything: dirty, dirty Chicago acid, heavy dubstep, gorgeously lush 61 BPM R & B joints, driving Detroit techno, snappy garage, and so on. A spectacular set.
In other news, I am now a Serato person. So many things to say about that, but it can wait for a long post.
My man Stefan ‘Big Dirt’ Tarras is dropping in to town to, well, drop bombs:
I will be closing out the night, probably on my shiny new Serato setup: only five years behind the times. I am also leaving for Boston for the summer the next week: if you Must See Me DJ, now’s the time!
The man with the smuggest looking press shots in Dance Music played at Lotus several weeks ago: I acci-went, and had a really, really good time: he played a lot of vinyl, has that odd, casual, Detroit mixing style, and knows how rooms work. And I got to hear someone other than me play Strings Of Life, which made me happy. And now it turns out that Lotus is closed, which makes me doubly glad I went: I spent a LOT of time down there when I lived in Vancouver, and it taught me a lot about how records and people work
I made some techno, based on a few videos that I took last summer in Berlin. It’s lush and Detroit and has, I feel, some level of purity associated with it.
