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- DJ Promotion
-- Jack Moss - Live @ Absorb, Leeds, 13.10.13
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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Ah, unexpected bump. I actually had a relisten to this one recently and I think it�s pretty solid throughout. By �Zargon� I presume you mean KalGan, and I agree that those tracks are a bit of a weak point, mainly because they go on for so long. I�d just discovered him and wanted to use some of his stuff, but I think 16 minutes or so of samey music is a bit unnecessary. Another thing that stood out playing these tracks on a good system is just how fucking bassy modern drum �n bass is, even the chilled out stuff.

Exactly.

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You call the mix into Reverse Engineering �unfortunate� but Love Cry simply stops dead at the end of the phrase, and the only way I could think to get out of it was to play something that opens with a big wash. So yes, the track selection there was somewhat functional.

Yeah i noticed that. I've had to deal with tons of tracks like that in my mixes due to the music i chose but to be honest i wouldn't really know how to handle that in a live setting either, as you don't really have the time to lay out good bridging material. It sorts of feels like you could have looped the bare percussion of lovecry and layered it over the intro of reverse engineering, but it probably wouldn't have worked out tempowise. It's unfortunate though because it was a very varied section of music and you really need close to flawless mixing at such a point to keep it all together. At that point it also felt like the rythms were built down enough and you could have gone straight into a non breakbeat section. You pulled off a few good 'reset' transitions at other points in the mix, like how Baja goes into the BoC track, and later when landing party goes into a spoken word section. These are very effective atmosphere builders. You may also have been able to build on the guitar section at the end of lovecry.

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The bit in the middle that was your favourite part... I was going to play more of that stuff and have quite an extended mid-section in a moody, sombre vein but the vibe of the room was starting to feel distinctly morbid and a big group of people walked in during the Pascal Savy track, so I decided to take things back �up� ahead of schedule. In a room full of people chatting and socialising, that �haunting� sound doesn�t really work. I do think this kind of set benefits from a bit of darkness to offset the fluffy ambient prettiness I tend to veer towards, but I also don�t want to turn it into Music For Graveyards. I�m thinking of playing some gnarly glitchy stuff in future sets to try and create some darker contrast without totally flatlining the atmosphere. It�s all a learning curve.

Playing with contrasts is indeed key for sets like these in my opinion, since you have a very broad range of music to play with you might as well use that to your advantage and make things interesting. I personally didn't feel that section needed to be much longer either, so circumstances seemed to have worked out in your favor there as far as I'm concerned. The thing with dark atmospherics is that for me at least they always come of as far more powerful and gripping then any other forms, it's just something that hits home more then anything else because it feels very real and visceral, rather then dreamy and distant. Maybe we should follow up on that darkness mix-off idea you had a while back sometime.

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I personally was really pleased with the section book-ended by the Solar Fields tracks, which is the psy-chill section in my eyes. The really soft, rounded bass of those tracks sounded great on the system and these tracks transport my mind�s eye to the hyperreal, ultra-vivid �trippy future garden�, to borrow a phrase from Planet B.E.N. But that�s the subjectivity of music made to tickle your imagination, I suppose.

I dunno. It definitely has its charm, don't get me wrong. But it came at a point were i felt the mix needed something more lively, my attention was wandering off a bit. Divine Ordinance in particular started to grate on me after a while. It was very well done flow-wise though.

I�m intrigued by the �dark-off� idea, if you�re definitely willing to commit to it. I know your mixes tend to have extremely protracted gestations, whereas I�d rather not listen to ultra-bleak material for any longer than is necessary. Also, on this:

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I was surprised to see the direction you seem to have taken for your live-mixing endeavors, since I always thought of you as more of an aspiring dancefloor DJ. Though I wonder what the reasons were I do applaud it.

I never really wanted to be a club DJ, for numerous reasons. I get really burned out if I have to listen to any given sound for too long, and being a club DJ really requires pigeonholing yourself to a recognisable sound. Searching for tracks in the same few genres week in and week out is the quickest way to make me start hating music. There�s also a million and one aspiring dancefloor DJs out there, and actually getting gigs of any worth whatsoever involves either a monumental amount of ass-kissing (at which I�m utterly terrible) or gaining a profile as a producer, (which I have no interest in). �Chill out DJs� (for lack of a better term) are in short supply, so it�s much easier to stand out by default if you do happen across a promoter who requires them. And really, I find I�m intuitively better at working with moods and atmospheres than I am with energy levels and dancefloor dynamics. Almost all of my mixes made with dance music tend to be geared towards home-listening. Ask me to make people dance and I run out of ideas after about 30 minutes.

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I�m intrigued by the �dark-off� idea, if you�re definitely willing to commit to it. I know your mixes tend to have extremely protracted gestations, whereas I�d rather not listen to ultra-bleak material for any longer than is necessary.

Well I don't know what i would make yet. Was thinking more of an open challenge as was suggested in one of psyshell's topics here i believe, so more people could potentially join in. Regardless with all those challenges coming up i don't have time for it yet anyway, it's something for future reference.

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Also, on this: I never really wanted to be a club DJ, for numerous reasons. I get really burned out if I have to listen to any given sound for too long, and being a club DJ really requires pigeonholing yourself to a recognisable sound. Searching for tracks in the same few genres week in and week out is the quickest way to make me start hating music. There�s also a million and one aspiring dancefloor DJs out there, and actually getting gigs of any worth whatsoever involves either a monumental amount of ass-kissing (at which I�m utterly terrible) or gaining a profile as a producer, (which I have no interest in). �Chill out DJs� (for lack of a better term) are in short supply, so it�s much easier to stand out by default if you do happen across a promoter who requires them. And really, I find I�m intuitively better at working with moods and atmospheres than I am with energy levels and dancefloor dynamics. Almost all of my mixes made with dance music tend to be geared towards home-listening. Ask me to make people dance and I run out of ideas after about 30 minutes.

Suspected as much. I just figured you'd be more comfortable with playing dance music for your first shows, but I was wrong apparently, and I sympathize with your story for what it's worth.

Do you have the oxynucid set as well by the way, how did that go?

I think that one of the things that defines a DJ�s art is the stage before you go anywhere near a mixer and you�re listening to new tracks. Picking out a track, hearing certain aspects of it and thinking �I can use that� is how a DJ cultivates his/her sound and style. Another DJ would play the same track and not hear it in the same and not integrate it into their approach. When I hear ambient/downtempo/electronica tracks I�m more likely to get the spark of invention and think of ways I can use them. With dance records I get that spark less often. I love techno and would love to be able to lay down a banging techno set but when I shop for techno records I can�t interpret what I hear as something usable. I don�t have the techno skillset, the way of reading tracks and knowing what to do with them. That for me is where the creative side of DJing lies � when you hear someone play a given record in a certain way that makes you think �Wow, I�d never have thought of doing that.�

Very true, but dance music is simply more mix-friendly i find. I remember when i started to play around with mixing software i would literally just pick a few techno records i liked that were of similar style, order them by BPM from slow to fast and i could make a serviceable mix out of them just like that. Obviously it's not going to be very good but i shows you can easily get yourself out of a sticky situation when playing live, because you're mixing beats first rather then atmospheres. Clubby genres really lend themselves for that.

Electronica can just be a world of hurt, there's rarely any convenient intro's or outro's and you can't always rely on there being similar tempo's either. You often have to look elsewhere for continuity. I find it most impressive when people are able to do this live without screwing up. It's one thing to have the idea in your head but laying it down when it counts is a different story altogether.

Provided tracks have beatless intros/outros you can always improv a key-matched blend out. I tend to pre-plan tracks with fiddly intros or outros as part of specific transitions with other tracks. I might have little sections of 3-4 tracks prepared like this that will start and end with pads/ambience, so I can insert these sections into the set when I feel it�s appropriate. Obviously there is a degree of ridigity to this approach in that you become committed to playing 3-4 tracks, but it also allows you to play tracks you could never use in a straight beatmatched set.

This too.

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