As long as I’ve been a DJ my shows have been two to three hours long. I couldn’t imagine doing a show in less than two hours. I saw my shows as a journey that I took the listener on and those journeys took time, ideally three hours so there would be a first act, a second act and a third act. But when I relaunched solipsistic NATION as a podcast I had to do away with that structure.
If you listen to podcasts then I’m sure you’ve noticed that shows usually clock in anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and there’s a reason for that. Your average radio listener will tune into a station for seven to 15 minutes and then spin the dial or turn off the radio. Podcasts are different in that most people will listen to a show from start to finish and asking them to sit for two to three hour show is asking a lot. So an hour is the most you can expect a person to listen to a show.
At first that seemed a tremendous compromise after doing years of two to three hours radio programs. How I could condense that journey to a mere hour? I felt like I was cheating you, the listeners and myself.
But after a few months of doing one hour editions of solipsistic NATION I came to accept that limitation. After that I began to think of it as a challenge. How much great music and engaging interviews could I pack into an hour? Pretty soon I came to think of any show longer than an hour as being excessive. When I think of doing a three hour show now I see it as wilderness that I would quickly get lost in. I’m afraid my shows would meander aimlessly.
Today’s guest DJ is Pietrobot, who we had on the show just a few weeks ago. Pietro is the co-host of Digital Nimbus, an electronic music program on KUCI 88.9FM in Irvine, California. Pietro is also the managing editor of Igloo Magazine. Pietrobot, alongside his fellow DJ and wife, Freakquency Modulator, blaze a trail into the wild frontier of electronic music. Each week they lead their listeners through unknown sonic landscape, introducing the listeners to natives along the way in the form of interviews and live performances.
Despite everything I said before, I envy Pietrobot and Freakquency Modulator and their leisurely safaris through sound. We have the good fortune of having Pietro with us to navigate through through this week’s mix. Don’t be afraid to lose yourself in the music.
Photo Credit: nana_cindy42
- Port-Royal “Putin vs Valery”
- Interview with Pietro, co-host of Digital Nimbus and managing editor of Igloo Magazine
- Worriedaboutsatan “Morwenna, Pt 2”
- Hammock “The Silence”
- Bitcrush “A False Movement, True”
- Aaron Spectre “The Wrong Fuel”
- Ben Frost “Theory of Machines”
- Interview with Pietro, co-host of Digital Nimbus and managing editor of Igloo Magazine
- SubtractiveLAD “Spoiled Honey”
- Syntaks “In The Wake”
- Fabio Fonda “Re-Seed”
- Interview with Pietro, co-host of Digital Nimbus and managing editor of Igloo Magazine
- Disinterested “Dissonance”