Tracklist

Nad Dynaem (excerpt), Dakha Brakha, Na Mezhi
Xo, Whim, Po & Emili, Painted
Silver Light (dot tape dot remix), [.que], calm down
Black Wolves, Brynn, The Flux Sound
Harpsong, Scarfface, Let Them Eat Cake
Shimmer, Dauwd, Could It Be / Shimmer (single)
Den Andra Handen, Henrik Jose, Photo Album (single)
Clamantis, M-Pex, iPhado EP
Ghost Transference, Learning Music, An End Like This
Time Has Told Me, Jason Parker Quartet, Five Leaves Left: A Tribute To Nick Drake
Dhun in Raga Mishra Khamaj by Fateh Ali Khan (New Delhi), Human Mirror, India Field Recordings
One More Song, Mayon, So High-So Low
Psychedeliental, Kisszanto, Relax Capsule Volume 1 (Various Artists)

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1. One Year Ago…

I decided to stop being part of the destruc­tion of the old music indus­try and to be part of the con­struc­tion of the new music indus­try. At the time, I wasn’t sure what that meant: hav­ing dis­cov­ered Band­camp, Sound­cloud, Archive.org and Official.fm in the course of shar­ing some lo-fi cut-and-paste tracks that I’d put together over the pre­vi­ous year, I knew that I’d only scratched the sur­face. The more I dug, the more I dis­cov­ered: a range of net­la­bels, the Free Music Archive, free cul­ture blogs, a whole ecosys­tem of cre­ativ­ity that existed in ambigu­ous ten­sion with the com­mer­cial music business.

My place in that ecosys­tem was and remains unclear, at least to me – partly because the old label of “con­sumer” doesn’t seem to fit any more. I lis­ten to a huge amount of free music of all gen­res, and I’m always seek­ing out more, but I haven’t pro­duced any since last year. I started to share a monthly pod­cast (spo­rad­i­cally monthly, but I can always dream…) using only free music, and started a twit­ter hash­tag to share some of the best albums I was lis­ten­ing to (#yourfreemu­sic­to­day, if any­body wants to join the fun). I occa­sion­ally write to artists to thank them, I share spe­cific albums with friends, I write posts like this one – but none of that feels like it’s enough.

The rea­son why it doesn’t feel enough is described Alexan­der Stretton’s post, which fin­ished by say­ing “As con­sumers of the freely dis­trib­uted art we are par­tic­i­pants in the cre­ative com­mons cul­ture and com­mu­nity, but it is time we become active.” The inter­net pro­vided new means of dis­sem­i­nat­ing music, but while that shift has cre­ated new infra­struc­ture for mar­ket­ing and sell­ing, we have not yet man­aged to get away from the ter­ri­ble verb of “con­sum­ing” music. The music busi­ness con­tin­ues to dom­i­nate music – although some­times the price it pays is its own con­tin­ued exis­tence – partly because it con­tin­ues to dom­i­nate a model in which music is “consumed”.

So we reject that old label of con­sumer; we’re not Hun­gry Hip­pos, gulp­ing wildly at any cheap plas­tic mar­ble that the indus­try machine rolls in front of us. Yet it’s not clear what we are in a con­fused and con­fus­ing post-scarcity musi­cal econ­omy, where the tools of pro­duc­tion are in the hands of the work­ers thanks to a tech­no­log­i­cal cul­ture dri­ven by lib­er­tar­ian prin­ci­ples. We don’t want the free music cul­ture to become like poetry cul­ture, where those inter­ested in and sup­port­ing the music are pri­mar­ily the ones pro­duc­ing it, but what other mod­els do we have for participation?

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2. The Bush of Ghosts

In a 2010 inter­view for the Guardian news­pa­per, Brian Eno pointed out that “records were just a lit­tle bub­ble through time and those who made a liv­ing from them for a while were lucky… Even­tu­ally, some­thing else will replace it.” Eno is of course a sem­i­nal fig­ure in cut-and-paste cul­ture thanks to his col­lab­o­ra­tion with David Byrne on the album Our Life in the Bush of Ghosts, orig­i­nally released in 1981. In 2006 Byrne and Eno released  two of the album tracks for remix­ing under a cre­ative com­mons license, an early shot in the con­flict around music dis­tri­b­u­tion that con­tin­ues to rage. (I’ll take this oppor­tu­nity to plug a project that came directly out of that, Our Lives in the Bush of Dis­quiet, curated by Marc Weidenbaum .)

That album title was taken from Amos Tutuola’s novel, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, a clas­sic of African lit­er­a­ture. In Tutuola’s work, those enter­ing the Bush of Ghosts are trans­formed and trans­formed and trans­formed again; the Bush is the place “in which both ghosts and spir­its of the dead were liv­ing as if in their own town… Once one entered it, it was not easy to find a way out. One could not travel to the end of it; that was as impos­si­ble as it would be for a mos­quito to travel around the whole world with­out perishing.”

The Bush of Ghosts works as lit­eral / metaphor for the human sub­con­scious, the well of cre­ativ­ity from which our music comes. The music indus­try pro­moted the fic­tion that the Bush was so dan­ger­ous that ordi­nary mor­tals should not ven­ture there, that we needed expe­ri­enced inter­me­di­aries to nav­i­gate it on our behalf in order to bring back its trea­sures – the inter­me­di­aries being, of course, the record com­pa­nies. Cre­ativ­ity has always been regarded with unease, espe­cially by cul­tural elites who dis­like the way it eludes their con­trol, but the record com­pa­nies achieved some­thing great – they per­suaded us to actively par­tic­i­pate from our own alien­ation from that creativity.

3. … the Present Day

That alien­ation started with the rise of recorded music, which in some ways was a democ­ra­tis­ing influ­ence on music: for the first time, the great­est artists were avail­able for every­body to hear any­where, at any time. That hon­ey­moon period didn’t last for long, and in some ways the his­tory of pop­u­lar music has been a long process of tak­ing music back from cul­tural elites. First, play­ing music was reclaimed as mass-produced elec­tri­cal instru­ments (espe­cially the elec­tric gui­tar and key­board) appeared; then, per­sonal com­put­ers made the process of music pro­duc­tion more acces­si­ble to a wider range of peo­ple than ever before.

The last bar­rier was music dis­tri­b­u­tion, and the inter­net has cut the legs out from under the monop­oly pre­vi­ously held by music com­pa­nies and shops. The music indus­try started from the prin­ci­ple that every­body has the capac­ity to con­sume music, and was built around get­ting the max­i­mum num­ber of peo­ple to do just that. The prob­lem for that indus­try model is that it can’t earn enough money from get­ting more peo­ple to con­sume music any longer, since the cost of con­sum­ing music has dropped so pre­cip­i­tously. It’s still unclear, but the new music indus­try seems to start from the prin­ci­ple that every­body has the capac­ity to make music, and will be built around get­ting the max­i­mum num­ber of peo­ple to do that instead of merely con­sum­ing it.

This is the Bush of Ghosts that the music indus­try warned us about – dan­ger­ous to mor­tals, filled with trans­for­ma­tions, chaotic and deep – and told us that we couldn’t sur­vive with­out their guid­ing hand. Yet I just spent a year in the bush, liv­ing off only what I could for­age, and it turns out that the music indus­try lied to us. The trans­for­ma­tions are dan­ger­ous mainly to the music indus­try rather than to us, and you can live per­fectly well there (although whether you can make a liv­ing is another mat­ter). You can’t live there alone, how­ever, you need some­thing of a com­mu­nity around you; the new chal­lenge is to find the best tools for build­ing that com­mu­nity. Wel­come one and all to the Bush of Ghosts, because we all live there now…

BEZ KOMENTARA.

Tracklist:

Could It Be, Dauwd, Could It Be/Shimmer
Babelonia (Sepalcure Remix), School of Seven Bells
Zummer Zingle, Wyla
Buenos Salvajes, Andrea Roca, Arar
I Think I Like U 2 (Breakbot mix), Jamaica
Gates Of Hell, Jolea, …And The Ghosts That Followed: The Other Side
Someday in the rain, fu_mou, Green Night Parade EP
Tonight’s the Kind of Night (RAC mix), Noah and the Whale
Your love, Huba & Silica, El Origen de las Especies
Help Me Help Me, AllThatFall, Our Lives in the Bush of Disquiet
Einklang, Stephan Knoell, Fernweh
Movement 1 (excerpt), Ben Johnston, String Quartet 9
Floaters, Arms, EP

Digging in the digital crates for some street-walking sounds. Links behind album and artist names, pay them a visit and download their gear. Radio Free Djenovici winter broadcasts starts here….

Monk Attack, Wydow & Troubledsoul, AnthropoBeats
The National Anthem, Lupe Fiasco, Enemy of the State: A Love Story
Elephant Bleu, Chimr, Brillante Tour Eiffel
Jazzpolice, Rare and Cheese, Jazzpolice EP
Infirmary (ft. Dudu Stinks), D.L.O. the Iceman, IceMantis EP
Number Fourth, Music AutOmatiK, Cupboard Replacement
Extra Strength, G-DO & Xception, Fela-tastic: a Tribute to Fela Kuti
Pigeons Kissing, CRUMBS, Pieces and Portions Vol.2
Akula (Weedy Remix), Joe Kickass, Mind Joe Remixes
Afterthought, Mild Maynyrd, Dead Herring
Echo Boomers Generation Why, Texture, Synaesthesia
Church Master (feat. alleyes manifest), DJ Self Help, Spud Love
Alien Nature, Paul White, The Strange Dreams of Paul White
The Planet is my Canvas, Robot Koch and John Robinson, STROKE.MUSIC
D.U.M.B. (Remix), Dockta Valkus, Infobomb EP
Rebel Without A Pause (Whipped Cream Mix), The ECC, Gunderphonic
City Song, Homecut, First Word is 7

“There is no “real me”. I am like the sun shining on the mountain. I am not the sun, and I am not the mountain, so do not look for me there. The sun will take your eyes and the mountain will give you nothing. I am the patterns that the light from the sun makes on the face of the mountain; always changing, never ending. There is no real me to find. Instead you should look for the pattern.”

As always: links to the artists and the albums hidden behind the words below:

Stance Gives You Power, Hogan Grip, Stance Gives You Balance
Breathe For, Robert Paul, Trois Heures
The Author of Spring, Power und Beauty, The Gnome EP
After Sensual, Lazzich, Just Seen Nights
Couch (ft Ace Creator), Earl Sweatshirt, EARL
Eyes for Coins, Markus Wormstrom
Who never ends, Schizoid Bass, Free Juke Box
In the Museum, Tinyfolk, Black Bears
Bint al Wazir, Secret Archives of the Vatican, Dreams and Visions
Faded Polaroids, Kamikaze Deadboy, Cure EP
Cynics Recourse, Atlas Sound, Bedroom Databank Volume One

This month’s mixtape is a special request – music for gyms! – so what you’re getting is 100% uptempo feel-good hits for the summer. I’ve road tested this on the mean streets of various Balkan cities, and I can guarantee that this personal soundtrack will make you feel that your stumbling wander is actually an epic marathon. Would I lie to you? No, I mean really lie to you. Okay, shut up. (Note: should work equally well on treadmills.)

Owls, Experiments With Machines, The Owls EP
Secret Society, Logical Disorder, Violent Playground
Ion Funnel, Sudio, Strange Attractors EP
Ghost Train (Poka Remix), The Altered Beast
Supernova, Decktonic, The Dance Machine
Star Trek Theme (RAC Remix), RAC
Noiseeee!, Rodriguez Attack, Oh My Funk Vol.2
A Long Second, Diego Bernal, Besides…
C’Mon Everybody, The Found Sound Orchestra, 52 Weeks
Hang Up Your Hang-Ups (Genuine Fraud Re-Edit), Headhunters
Funkbuster, Dr Freebs, The Freebie Treat
Goes To Hollywood, Paul White

February was not the best month I’ve had this year, and there’s still ten months left to go; who knows, maybe it’s all downhill from here. This podcast is called Sometimes Love Turns, it started some time around Valentine’s Day, and it’s dedicated to a little red tomato. Some nice moves on here, especially towards the end – the last track is from Lucette Bourdin, who died this month but whose music will always be on hand. Let this one wiggle in through your tympanic membranes and rolf your primary auditory cortex – as always, links to the artists and their music are behind the words on the screen.

Fair At Night Lit With Candles, Dustin Wong, Let It Go
Ghosting, Young Minds, Imago Demos
Idle Life, airtoxin, Night Bank EP
Pete, I’ve Got Something To Say, The Neverdowells, The Neverdowells
Mestizo.Blood.Drums (La Famiglia mix), Mutamassik, That Which Death Cannot Destroy
Part 4, Alan Morse Davies, Night Falls Fast
Forever Unknown (ft. Twin Solo), Unit 21, Forever Unknown
Grande Comore, Southern Shores
Top of the World, Danny Murcia, Nothing To Prove EP
The Unlucky Valentine, Found Sound Orchestra, 52 Weeks
överbrygga, (swedish) Death Polka, överbrygga
The Unnumbered Stars, Lucette Bourdin, Horse Heaven

Here we are, back once again with the ill behaviour. After a 6-month break, Radio Free Djenovici is broadcasting again, and here’s our first podcast of the year: the slightly morbid Blinded While Driving. Don’t worry, the music is a lot more uplifting than the title suggests. Those of you following the ol’ Twitter feed will have noticed that I’ve been getting into the free music scene, which means that all of the tracks up in here can be downloaded for free (with the possible exception of Kanye West, who may have changed his mind twice already). So roll up, roll back and roll out the enjoy.

For You, Iambic, under these stars we’ll sleep again
Jazz Shephard, GDaddie, The Truth
Barcelona, Choke, Choke EP
Destroy She Says, Zoe.LeelA, Queendom Come
Please do not lie, Boa Constrictor vs The Honeydrips, Between Two Waves Volume A
Ribbons, Monster Rally, Coral EP
Good Friday, Kanye West (ft Common, Pusha T, Kid Cudi, Big Sean, Charlie Wilson), Good Fridays
Sunda Nights (ft Efen-Suling And I) / Sureshot, Madrotter , Unreleased Collaborations
The Sound Of Rain, Akito Misaki, TSOR EP
Grow down, MMOSS, I
Saudade, Tone Color, Today Will Not Be Like Tomorrow

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Mika: Clothes make the man, but are no substitute for sincerity.
Yeasayer: Best described as “yowling”, but in a very good way.
Miike Snow: Absolutely storming live but suffering from extremely poor sound mixing.
Die Antwoord: Fun, but still no idea how they got so successful.
Gaslamp Killer and Gonjasufi: Did Gonjasufi even show up? Limited tolerance for knob-twiddling.

NIGHT TWO
Atari Teenage Riot: “I’m getting too old for this shit.” This isn’t music.
The Horrors: Speak up man, nobody can hear you if you mumble.
SARS: Singalong magic, local crowd loved every moment, foreigners were puzzled.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

NIGHT THREE
Klaxons: Still look like student band who can’t believe their luck.
Royksopp: As rocknroll as electronica gets, but was there some lipsynching?

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NIGHT FOUR
Pendulum: Once again I can’t hear anything except this ridiculous bass.
Faith No More: Musical man-crush on Mike Patton, but trust me – amazing live.

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It goes without saying that we saw some other stuff as well, but these stood out the most. You’ll notice that not many DJs feature on this list, for two reasons: one, reviewing DJs is a waste of everybody’s time; two, the Dance Arena felt like an execution pit and was generally an unpleasant place to be. Even the Moderat gig was quite suffocating when you kept looking around for machine gun emplacements along the perimeter. Bonus information: Novi Sad is really lovely, and Serbian Railways are so bad they would be comical if you didn’t feel like crying the entire time you were on their trains.