Sunday Funk 6 (and Happy New Year!)

Hey everyone, typing this up from my inlaws' place in Slovakia. I've had some time to think about the music I want to include in the past playlist and this one, and I feel like I want to make a point and relate more to my own music with this writeup. 

I see my way of writing tracks as putting together a series of themes, be it the traditional melody and counterpoint, an expression of a sound, a kind of interaction between sounds. Those are the true building blocks of meaning in the way I understand music, and like the leitmotifs of composers I think producers have their own way of expressing musical meaning through the syntax of their musical conventions, or in their lack thereof.

So you could treat this playlist as a collection of my own 'leitmotifs' that are associated with certain feelings or ideas in my own work. I'll try to explain how each track in some way relates to the way I write music.

1. Commodo - Lobby Theme

I was captivated by this track with the dense low end percussion, the dissonant but clear pads, and the clarity of the foreground versus the background. These combinations show a clarity in the delivery of the musical idea and a willingness to entangle obscured soundscapes with forefront energy. This to me is a trope commonly explored in the darker styles of dance music, and shows technical and stylistic deliberation - the understanding that sounds with low end weight need not dominate a mix, used to a stylistic advantage. 

2. Loraine James - Simple Stuff

This track stands out to me for its detached rhythms and isolated vocals - how simple sounds can sound unfamiliar when taken to a sterile electronic environment. There is a push and pull with the way organic sounds interact with synthesized sound, and with the groove in this track even more detached from a 4/4 pulse the feeling of disconnection is heightened. Tracks like this inspire me to explore forms that feel 'uncomfortable' in theory, because with dance music the environment in which the music is enjoyed often legitimizes musical systems with tension.

3. Mad Zach - Strangeloop
5. Hiroaki Iizuka - Contrast

As a person deeply invested in the craft of dance music I've become attuned one way or another to repetition. Repetition suspends the chaos and indifference between sounds and brings them into a logical frame, but to legitimize repetition one often needs to bring in a 'human' form of control. It's satisfying to me how natural deviations from patterns, like filter sweeps and alternating percussion sounds, evolve organically from the process of arranging and creating sound. In the tessellated forms of dance music a stage is often set for the delicate and liminal transformations of sound.

4. Little Simz - Boss

It was a no brainer to include a Little Simz track in this playlist. It is however a very contemporary arrangement and style of a UK rap song. I mean this with absolutely no offense to the artist, but in my own experience and listening history this sound is still relatively new to me, and it's certainly nice to engage with this music from one of the current trendsetters. Perhaps that is the takeaway from this.

6. Ivy Lab - Dresden Codex
7. Skream - Space Ghetto
8. Hudson Mohawke - Dance Forever

I feel these are the artists I aspire to be in many ways: having a deep understanding of the conventions and sounds of dance music but able to synthesize new permutations and variations from these tried and tested ideas. Being exposed to music like this led me to developing this framework of understanding dance music, and explaining the work of these artists becomes quite self-referential. This framework in practice involves an intuition and critical sense for aesthetic, all built on the preconception that this sense is acquired and subjective.

9. A. Fruit - Three Six Nine
10. Stranger - One Day
11. Luke Vibert - Prick Tat
12. Ross From Friends - Grubs

These tracks are some examples of personally cherished works that fit into my mental compartment of 'dance music history'. The personal and discoverable nature of music means that the old history of music, dance included, is renewed every day with new interest in these sounds. From my relatively recent musical history, this is how I perceive the 'classic' feel of dance music. 

Knowing the infinitely personal understanding of art and the infinitely variable application of inspiration, I allow for the impulsive flow of musical ideas as it relates most accurately to my perception of it, and through this recursive understanding I feel it best relieves pressure on me to deliver 'uniqueness' and 'innovation' with each idea.

13. French Kettle Station - 5G
14. Djrum - Waters Rising
15. Lusine - Ticking Hands (ft. Sarah McIlwain)
16. Donato Dozzy - Aurora

To express music in ever more instrumental, esoteric forms is the way I express personality in music. To experiment is to take risk, and when music became deeply entwined with my life it became a challenge to my own psyche. To write in such a way prioritizes the experience of the artist rather of the end product, but in a totally subjectively experienced form such as music I feel this to be another way of synthesizing ideas and sound in a way that adds intrigue to me personally. 

It is a striking notion, to share so intimately your emotions with the ether of song, but it brings me a catharsis, among the spectrum of internal calamities, respites, brief joys, and definitely moments of inspiration through the process of creating on top of listening. Sometimes there is a little personal crisis hidden within a piece of mine and to try and voice it in an evocative way is how I've been approaching artistic expression lately.

 17. Delta Sleep - Camp Adventure

This writeup has been a challenging one to write. As with many pieces that I create, musical or otherwise, it is a personally investigative process, making me stand clearly on a certain subjective meaning, a certain aesthetic preference. 

As the year comes to a close I look back on the personal thinking I've done this year, no longer simply dreaming in sound, but trying to untangle the loose ball of yarn that is all the micro-meanings within each part of each track. The cognitive approach to music to me requires inquiry and challenging in order to feel true to myself at any future time, and as much as I believe I know truly what I am saying, the same cannot be said at any other moment. This is art, the artist and their infinite faces. With this, I've set the stage to the theme of my next major body of work to come, January-February 2023.

I hope you've all had a great holiday season. On a more candid note, like this song, I've been struggling with getting things done, as it often is somehow at the end of the year. I hope you've enjoyed these musings, as they've been just as important to me for understanding what music truly means to me, down to the singular pieces, the singular notes. 

Thank you for reading. All these playlists will remain on the page indefinitely, and I welcome any of you saving these writeups for archive. Until the next time, let's all keep our ears out to listen.