After a few years back into music, I decided to actually think about who I am and what I aim to do. Primarily, I love music and always have. I love listening to it and I love writing it. I particularly like sounds that can evoke a feeling and when I write, I aim to capture a feeling. I try to make tracks knee deep in atmosphere that you can get lost inside. I like EDM and found that there are many tracks out there with emotional weight that carry dreams or at least, allowed me to insert my dream.
Our senses our powerful. With the right scent, you can be whisked away, even if just briefly. Cut grass is famous for taking people back home. I like the summer heat on a big city pavement. As daft as it sounds, for me, the smell of the hot sun radiating down on the road tarmac of a big city still makes me think of the dreams and aspirations I had shortly after graduation when the world felt full of opportunity. I went to London, full of hope to experience a new life there and remember the smell of the city as the sun poured down on the busy streets. Even a few days ago, I got hit by that smell and transported back in time and it gave me a quick pause to reflect. Just like scent. Music takes you to places. It’s powerful. It can help you remember a lost emotion, passion or feeling, a time, a place or something new. When I write, I often think about what stuck with me. This build up in particular (link) hits me. I think about Lucid, I Can’t Help Myself and a few other build ups from nineties tracks that I like (one a little too cheesy for me to not say without embarrassment). I really like the harmonious build up but more importantly, the sentiment of hope.
Analogue music has been a rich part of my childhood and as a result, I love to seek out older tech and use it in my set-up. not just due to their familiar analogue sounds but also because of the quirks. Engineers had a lot less memory and tools to work with an so had to get creative. Often finding workarounds that led to pleasant imperfections and some of the gear that went for thousands of pounds has now been discarded and goes for peanuts. I understand why those, a lot of it is a headache to work with. To make it work for me, I went through the extreme lengths of learning how to write software editors and DAW plugins that modernise the workflow of old tech, so that I can save settings with my DAW projects, throwing away the need for copious notes for dial settings and photos. As a result, I tend to only use vintage gear that interfaces with midi. All of this lead me into my second life of a hybrid software/hardware developer so that I can make the tools that make the emotion.
It lead onto another really nice thing. To help the planet, I share my editors. My philosophy is that if I can keep older gear going when parts die out and still give it meaning, it’s got to be a lot better for the world than constantly using energy to make new things, often rehashed with crappier components and lacking soul. A lot of hardware from the eighties and nineties were created in an evolving landscape with new and exciting sounds, often by people with passion. It’s great to be able to do my bit to keep this flame alive. The more I shared, the more musicians I met and the more I learned. That alone has been very rewarding.
Background wise, I originally hail from Brighton and have been on the music scene for a long time, DJing in clubs back when The Pressure Point and The Brighton and Gloucester were a “thing”. It’s been fun but prefer to be in the studio.