home from toronto

took me 12 hours to get home after three flight cancellations at pearsons. the fog was so thick you couldn’t see more than 20 feet in front of you! i would have been nervous sitting on the plane that eventually took me home, but by that time i didn’t care about anything other than getting there. toronto was a really cool city and everyone i met there was just lovely. the gig was pretty fun once the sound problems were fixed, andrew and and the sensoria gang were real cool guys. the whole toronto experience was a bit tough though, and everything was all last minute and screwey since i was so useless last week. the city was really a lot more like america than i thought it would be, sort of a blend of chicago/philly/new york. and it was cold, damn cold. cold and hard. it was -20c the day i arrived, but warmed up towards the end, which made the snow melt and the sidewalks got all sludgey.

started a really cool tune while i was there with christian XI, who is a lovely and gracious chap. i’m really looking forward to finishing what we started.

i played catch-up all day with work and home shit, and i’m still not even close to finished and it’s almost 1am.

had a really nice lunch with miro today, we talked and schemed and plotted. lots of really exciting things going on with the all the new surefire projects. lots of work to be done too.

my new release on tube10 was released today, and got a pretty funny review on boomkat. i reckon i will probably never get a review i’m pleased with from them, oh well. i am quite happy it’s out finally, that made me happy to see.

DJG - Bunker / Apophenia
Tube10
10” // £6.49
DUBSTEP / GRIME / FUNKY
Released: Feb 2009
Catalogue Number: TUBE10

**Transparent Green Vinyl** Tube10 follow their run of impeccable form with an installment from DJG following in the wake of killers from Spherix, Jus Wan and TRG. ‘Bunker’ is one for the dimmed lights and smoky rooms with a pressurised late night groove built from well cushioned subbass driven kicks and tense atmospherics, while ‘Apophenia’ on the flips picks up the pace for the floor with a driving raver informed by the technoid rollers of Peverelist and early D’n’B from the likes of Omni Trio with referential rave diva vocals and lush darkside vibes. Fans of Peverelist, Appleblim or Burial need to check this!

i just finished writing this email interview response for my friend tomas who is going to take probably 5 words of it and use them in some article he’s writing about techno/dubstep, here’s what i sent him (i wonder if he’ll use any of this):

Q: Is dubstep moving away from dub and toward techno? Is this a good or bad trend?

No, I don’t think so… I think dubstep is essentially a BPM range, a vibe, and a lot of bass. How you present those elements is up to the producer really. Dubstep is sound system music, it has it’s roots in other sound system musics like dub, reggae, jungle, 2step. I think what a lot of producers are doing now is just experimentation with the vibe and aesthetic of techno and pulling from their immediate or past influences. If you think of it like a stack, I’d say the bass is at the bottom, the vibe is in the middle, and the BPM is on top basically keeping it together, that vibe layer is really where you can do anything you want, and a lot of people have been using techno sounds within that.

I have been a longtime fan of Rhythm&Sound, Monolake, Deadbeat and the Chain Reaction records, so to me the idea of blending dub bass-weight and dub aesthetics with techno vibes and sounds is nothing new! Producers in Berlin and elsewhere have been doing it since the 90s. I think what is exciting now with dubstep messing with techno sounds is that it’s a new genre, but to dub techno heads it just makes sense, it’s really nothing totally new, it’s just sort of a new format - a logical step.

I really love the tenseness in techno, that’s what I like to work with in my tunes lately. I really enjoy working with the emotive palette of techno, and the space and meditative feeling of dub. That is my feeling anyway, that’s how I use techno. It’s that tenseness. I feel like I can make a more personal statement with techno sounds but not be cheesy (I hope).

Q: What do you like or dislike about dubstep’s changes in the past 2 years?

I honestly really have enjoyed hearing where the sound has gone, I try not to romanticize the past too much with dubstep, too much of that goes on in this scene - it’s an obsessively self-aware and reflective genre and scene (I think that’s partly because its populated by so many shell-shocked ex junglists). But I do still really feel like there are exciting things happening all the time in dubstep. I love what’s coming out of Bristol, all the stuff coming out on Pinch and Peverelists and Appleblims labels, Headhunter, Rob Smith, Joker, Jakes and so on - Bristol is killin it right now. Jus Wan, Djunya, Eskmo and all the SF gang. This sick producer in France called F. XI in Canada. Untold, Quest & Silkie, LD. The originators still inspire me too, the DMZ/Deep Medi sound, Skreams deep ones, Distance, Cyrus, Benga. There is no shortage of incredible music in this scene.

Obviously the sound has found some commercial success in the UK/EU and in a lot of the bigger parties here in the states, and with any success like that a formula sets in, and seeing that hasn’t been inspiring at all really, so I would say I have disliked a lot of the formulaic tunes and how prevalent that formulaic sound has become. I don’t like the corny Breaks and modern Drum&Bass influenced sounds, but that’s just me. A lot of what has become popular in dubstep recently is just a really narrow idea of the sound, a watered down, easy-to-swallow, simplified notion of what the sound can be. I haven’t enjoyed seeing that happen, and how it’s effected a lot of the dubstep nights and dances. But I told myself a very long time ago I would never again become too personally invested in a music genre, you can’t control what happens to these things, all you can do is make music that matters to you and see where it takes you.

i really must get some sleep tonight.