Bubblebath Episode 01 ft. Mat Dryhurst (for RBMA Radio)

Art by Kim Laughton

The first episode of my new monthly show for RBMA Radio aired a few days ago, and is archived here. Bubblebath is a two-hour show all recorded and edited by me, featuring new, typically lesser known tunes that I'm interested in, segments going for some deeper analysis, and interviews with various people from underground music culture. For the first show, I looked at the pseudo-humanistic style of James Ferraro's Human Story 3 and some other records, and talked to Mat Dryhurst about some of the problems facing underground culture today and his platform Saga. The playlist is below.

People in the US won't be able to listen to the archived version of the show for various legal reasons I'm afraid. If that's you, you might try using a proxy server, especially with different browsers. US listeners can listen to the show live without any problems, though, so I'll make sure to forewarn people in future.

· 00:00:02 – 00:02:41 Julien - Alpha Beat – Calm (from Calm 2 https://calmdot.bandcamp.com/album/calm-2)

· 00:02:41 – 00:05:28 Alfie Casanova - 4 Play – Calm (from Calm 2 https://calmdot.bandcamp.com/album/calm-2)

· 00:05:28 – 00:10:16 NKC - Salon Room – Her Records (from Hague Basement http://store.herrecords.com/album/hague-basement)

· 00:10:16 – 00:13:03 仮想夢プラザ - 秘密 – Plus 100 Records (from Balance with Useless https://plus100.bandcamp.com/album/balance-2) (extract, background, and again throughout )

· 00:13:03 – 00:18:17 Julien - Day Racer – Orange Milk (from FACE OF GOD https://orangemilkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/face-of-god)

· 00:18:17 – 00:23:52 NV - Bells Burp – Orange Milk (from Binasu https://orangemilkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/binasu)

· 00:24:50 – 00:29:57 Easter – Leda – own Bandcamp page (from New Cuisine Part 2 https://easterjesus.bandcamp.com/track/leda)

· 00:29:57 James Ferraro – various tracks from Human Story 3 – own Bandcamp page (https://jjamesferraro.bandcamp.com/album/human-story-3) (extract, background)

· 00:32:04 - 00:37:32 James Ferraro – Individualism - own Bandcamp page (from Human Story 3 https://jjamesferraro.bandcamp.com/album/human-story-3)

· 00:39:19 – 00:40:31 John Adams – Lollapalooza – Nonesuch (from I Am Love Soundtrack) (extracts)

· 00:40:55 – 00:41:20 Steve Reich – Eight Lines Number 1 - RCA Red Seal (extract)

· 00:41:36 – 00:42:30 Aaron Copland – Allegro from Appalachian Spring - Sony Classical (from Bernstein Century: Copland) (extract)

· 00:43:05 – 00:44:32 Jeffery L. Briggs – CivNet Opening Theme – Microprose (from CivNet Soundtrack) (extract)

· 00:44:48 – 00:45:24 Oneohtrix Point Never – Problem Areas – Warp (from R Plus Seven) (extract)

· 00:45:52 – 00:46:11 Kara-Lis Coverdale – AD_RENALINE – Sacred Phrases (from Aftertouches https://sacredphrases.bandcamp.com/album/aftertouches) (extract)

· 00:46:30 – 00:47:04 Giant Claw – DARK WEB 005 – Orange Milk (from DARK WEB https://orangemilkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/dark-web) (extract)

· 00:47:25 – 00:47:51 Metallic Ghosts – University Village – Fortune 500 (from City of Ableton https://fortune500.bandcamp.com/album/the-city-of-ableton) (extract)

· 00:48:58 – 00:49:59 Torn Hawk – The Romantic – Mexican Summer (from Union and Return) (extract)

· 00:52:12 – 00:55:08 Subaeris – Shadow Portal – Nirvana Port (from Transcendent God https://nirvanaport.bandcamp.com/album/transcendent-god)

· 00:55:08 – 00:58:23 Subaeris – Beating Heart – Nirvana Port (from Transcendent God https://nirvanaport.bandcamp.com/album/transcendent-god)

· 00:59:08 – 01:01:16 Klein – Babyfather Chill – own Bandcamp page (from ONLY https://klein1997.bandcamp.com/album/only)

· 01:01:16 – 01:03:45 Klein – Make it Rain – own Bandcamp page (from BAIT https://klein1997.bandcamp.com/album/bait)

· 01:04:49 – 01:47:38 Valentin Silvestrov – Diptych - ECM (from Valentin Silvestrov: Sacred Works) various tracks from Valentin Silvestrov: Silent Songs – ECM (extracts, background)

· 01:49:09 – 01:54:25 Swimful – Atop – SVBKVLT (from PM2.5 https://svbkvlt.bandcamp.com/album/pm25)

· 01:54:25 – 01:58:45 Swimful – Bounce (Simpig Remix) – SVBKBLT (from PM2.5 Remixes https://svbkvlt.bandcamp.com/album/pm25-remixes)

'Joy 2016' (essay for 3hd festival, where I'll be in October)

Art by Sam Lubicz

3hd festival is back for its second year in Berlin this October, and its website has gone up (click here). I'll be there lecturing and participating in discussions over various aspects of their theme 'There is nothing left but the future.' In the meantime, I wrote an essay for them (click here to read it) sketching some initial thoughts about some of the problems facing musical futurism and musical sarcasm after a summer of violence and Brexit, through the lens of the 'Ode to Joy' from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and Wendy Carlos's electronic version of it particularly (incidentally, Jeremy Corbyn, something of a lightning rod for various kinds of political tumult whatever you think of him, recently mentioned listening to Beethoven's 5th).

Beethoven's Ode to Joy has accumulated cultural and political baggage of apparently every different kind, and, especially, in extremes. It has played the role of humanity's highest and most noble achievement and an incitement to horrifying violence both. And it is the anthem of the European Union...

Who needs dehumanising machine music when you have Trump, when you have the rise of hatred the world over?

There is an important difference, of course, between the future and the futuristic. The futuristic is a costume, a thrill, a performance, a caricature, all from within the safety of the present. The future is what actually happens to you and at some point, whoever you are, it will hurt you. What can art and music help us to do and to say before that point?

Brunel University Post-Internet Working Group, London, soon

Click to enlarge and read the blurbs for each talk

I'm looking forward to participating in a Post-Internet Working Group at Brunel University that'll meet on two occasions, on Feb 4th at 2pm, when Michael Waugh will be giving a talk ('Post-Internet Popular Music: From the Underground to the Mainstream'), and on March 8th at 1pm, when I will be giving a talk ('"Accelerated by the Digital Age?"An Ambivalent Aesthetics of the Digital World in Underground Electronic Music'). Why not come along for some IRL content creation? ;)

Slides from my talk at 3hd, 'What is the Musical Object in the 21st Century?'

Here are the slides from my recent talk at Creamcake's 3hd festival in Berlin. This one was a bit more freeform, so apologies if the discussion threads are a bit unclear from them. It was a great festival altogether, with a great line-up of performances too - there was a write-up about it on AQNB.

Blogpost for Verso: On Music and Folk Politics

I've written a blogpost - click here to read it - for Verso reflecting on some of the aesthetic implications of the critique of 'folk politics' in their new book by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams, Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work:

When, in Inventing the Future, Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams critique the collection of tendencies within the contemporary left they call 'folk politics,' they could also be lamenting the aesthetics that now dominates those areas of popular music that were once progressive. Whether it's underground, or 'indie,' or even happens to be in the charts, contemporary popular music routinely 'chooses the familiarities of the past over the unknowns of the future;... habitually chooses the small over the large' and 'value[s] withdrawal or exit rather than building a broad counter-hegemony'. For independent music as in folk politics, 'organisations and communities are to be transparent, rejecting in advance any conceptual mediation, or even modest amounts of complexity' and both 'emphasis[e] the local and the authentic, the temporary and the spontaneous, the autonomous and the particular'. Srnicek and Williams show that these strategies arose and achieved much in the special political circumstances of the mid-twentieth century, and again, as aesthetic strategies in popular music, they arose during the same period in the countercultural atmosphere of jazz, rock, punk and, indeed, folk musics. And for both folk politics and folk-political music, the time has come to invent what happens next...

Slides from my talk at Unsound, 'Is Accelerationism Good for the Underground?'

Yesterday I gave a talk on the history, nature, and pros and cons of accelerationism at the Unsound festival. These slights might not give you the full picture of what was said, but since they're full of quotes and references, people have asked that I upload them.