Category: Listen

Today on solipsistic NATION…

Never before in human history has so much information been available to so many people. You’d think that would be a good thing, right? But it can be overwhelming. What to do? Zite CEO Mark Johnson offers a solution on how to deliver your favorite magazines, newspapers, authors, blogs, and videos right to your phone or tablet. I’ve been using Zite the last couple of years to help me stay on top of everything that’s going on in the electronic music community. Through Zite I can read articles from such respected sources as The Quietus, Factmag, XLR8R and more. Electronic music related news is only one of the sources Zite offers. Politics, technology, arts and culture—Zite has it all!

The Search Engine is the latest album from DJ Food, and it devours everything DJ Food has previously released even as it moves in new directions. I’ve been a fan of DJ Food as far back as late last century. I love the noirish psychedelic sounds and samples, and anyone who incorporates the ironic poetry of Ken Nordine into their music, well, their okay in my book.

The Other Guy’s Stephen Lombardo‘s latest EP, The Long Drive, has a lot of joy distilled into it: his engagement, the birth of his daughter… But there’s also some tragedy to it. The Other Guy and was one of the artists I featured on the show when I launched solipsistic NATION as a podcast seven years ago. The Other Guy’s music has always been sexy, lush and dark. Perfect fit for today’s show, right?

Ronan Carroll of Grouse returns to solipsistic NATION with his new album, Heads. Same Grouse. New sounds! I’ve played Grouse’s music on the show several times in the past and he even made a brief appearance on solipsistic NATION way back in 2007, so it’s be good to have him on the show again for a longer conversation.

I actually recorded the interviews months ago, but as you know, I took the summer off after I crashed and burned producing solipsistic NATION. I spend nearly every free minute working on this show and once solipsistic NATION started taking off and getting millions of downloads every month, I took on bigger and more ambitious projects. I also planned to open the show to outside contributors to help expand the show. But I put the carriage before the horse. I started tackling those projects before I had the staff to take all of that on. Like I said, solipsistic NATION consumes all my free time and energy. I burned myself out. I couldn’t sustain that all by myself.

I’ve spent the last few months away from music and podcasting. Almost all media, in fact. I needed it. But I’m back and recharged. But there will have to be some changes to solipsistic NATION if I want to continue without exhausting myself like before, and that’s where you come in.

If you like the show and want to support the show, tell a friend about solipsistic NATION. Tweet about us on Twitter. Flatter us on Flattr or purchase a solipsistic NATION t-shirt. If there’s an artist or label you’d like to send my way for consideration to be on future shows, send me an email. I also plan to take a 3 week vacation from solipsistic NATION every spring, summer, fall and winter. During that time I’ll have guest hosts and DJs running the show while I’m away. If you’re a DJ or if you think you’d make a good guest host, you can also shoot me an email.

I’ll go into more detail about how I plan to make solipsistic NATION bigger and better on next week’s show!

One last thing, and it’s important.

Troy Psymbolic, of the Psymbolic multimedia label, was recently diagnosed with chronic pain syndrome and autoimmune response and he needs your help. If you can spare him 10 or 20 dollars or more it would make all the difference in his life. That’s about the cost of an album these days, right? Why not spend it on Troy?

For more information got to gofundme.com/LoveForTroyPsymbolic.

Okay, that’s about it. Join us again next week. I have a few guests in mind but I’ll keep that under wraps until their confirmed.

See you then!

Photo Credit: ©Nestor Prado

1. DJ Food feat. DK “Sentinel (Shadow Guard)”
2. DJ Food feat. 2econd Class Citizen “Magpie Music”
3. Interview with Mark Johnson, CEO of Zite
4. DJ Food “In Orbit Every Monday”
5. DJ Food “A Trick of the Ear (Album Edit)”
6. Interview with Strictly Kev of DJ Food
7. The Other Guy “Morning Call”
8. The Other Guy “Illusions”
9. Interview with Stephen Lombardo of The Other Guy
10. Grouse “Arm The Harmless”
11. Grouse “Silent Protest”
12. Interview with Ronan Carroll of Grouse

Summer vacation is over and I’m back!

I’ve been away for the last few months recharging my batteries. It takes a lot of work producing a show like solipsistic NATION and, quite frankly, I had hit the wall. Constantly listening to new music, reading music blogs, posting on social media—I just don’t think it was healthy for me to be doing that nearly every free moment of each and every day.

Let me expand on that a little bit. It’s not just that I was listening to too much music, I was listening to too much bad music. People send me a lot of free music to review for the show and because people were kind enough to send me their music I felt obligated to listen to it. All of it. Unfortunately, statistically speaking, a lot of it is terrible. It’s just the way it is. And I have to listen to a lot of it to find the good stuff, the stuff I feature on solipsistic NATION.

I don’t mind mediocre music because at least with mediocre music is not terrible, it’s just mediocre. But bad music wounds me. And it makes me angry. You might be thinking to yourself, hey, it’s just music—get a grip. That’s true, but music, good music, is important to me. You don’t produce over 300 shows of electronic music unless it is important to you. And so bad music infuriates me because not only is it wasting my time but it feels like a physical assault. Presumably the people who make bad music have heard good music. Why not emulate the good rather than subject us with their shit?

I can’t do it any more. It’s just exhausting. So I’m changing my policy. I’ll give the bad music 30 or 60 seconds of my time but if it’s clearly not getting any better I’m just going to skip past that track like everyone else in the world does.

I’ve spent the last few months actively not listening to music and slowly letting my soul heal. I’ve kept my social media and blog reading to a bare minimum, gathering my strength. But now I’m tanned, I’m rested, and I’m ready to take on the world!

I want to thank you for listening and your continued support. I’ve got a lot of big plans for solipsistic NATION and I’ll need your help. We’ll talk about that more on next week’s show but in the meantime, if you’d like to help support solipsistic NATION, tell a friend about the show. Tweet about solipsistic NATION on Twitter. Flatter us of Flattr or purchase a solipsistic NATION t-shirt.

Now let’s get to what’s important—great electronic music!

Today on solipsistic NATION we’ll also hear a special live in-studio performance by wAgAwAgA. We also talk to wAgAwAgA about launching his own record label, Cooking Up Records; his growth as an artist from album to album; and traveling the world for the field recordings he features on those albums.

Robbie Martin from Record Label Records first turned me onto wAgAwAgA with the release of wAgAwAgA’s Midnight Sampler album on Robbie’s label (check out our showcase of Record Label Records here). wAgAwAgA’s album was lush, dub-heavy and dense with the sounds of nature and world music. In fact, Midnight Sampler made my list of one of the top 10 albums for 2012. wAgAwAgA has since moved in new directions and his music has become more restrained, kind of minimal, really. But all those elements that I love in his music is still there, which you’ll hear on today’s live set. I think you’re really going to dig it!

Join us again next week when we’ll showcase Tripswitch‘s label, Section Records (check out Tripswitch’s live set here). I think. I’m still getting my ducks in a row.

See you then!

1. wAgAwAgA “flagnag dub”
2. wAgAwAgA “floaty edit”
3. Interview with wAgAwAgA
4. wAgAwAgA “Live”

Got a great show for you today! We’re going to rock out to Pepe Deluxé, live from the Tavastia Club in Helsinki. We’ll also chat with Pepe Deluxé co-founder, Jari Salo.

Before we talk with Jari, let’s address the elephant in the living room. Where the hell have I been for the last three months!?!

I wish I could tell you that I was on a tour around the globe, or that I was on a river boat, writing the great American novel, or something equally grandiose to justify my long absence. But I’ve got nothing–because I did absolutely nothing. And I think I needed it. Or must have needed it.

solipsistic NATION has been growing by leaps and bounds the last year and once I started getting millions of downloads a month I kicked into over gear and took on a lot of ambitious projects for the show.

Thing is, solipsistic NATION was already taking up almost every free moment of my life. Between constantly listening to new music to play on the show, arranging interviews and producing and promoting shows-there simply wasn’t much room for anything else. I burnt myself out.

The last few months I’ve barely listened to music. Instead, I’ve really been enjoying… quiet. It’s given me a chance to do a lot of thinking and reflecting, or not thinking at all. And slowly but surely I’ve been recharging my batteries, so to speak.

Clearly, I can’t go on like I did before. I just can’t. In fact, before I crashed and burned I was planning to expand solipsistic NATION to include contributors to the show, to make solipsistic NATION more of an audio magazine. I was already heading in that direction, I just should have had that all in place before biting off more than I could chew.

I’ll tell you more over the next few weeks as I make that transition.

It kills me that it took me three months to get this show out because Jari and I must have spent at least six months getting his live set together and arranging our interview. And it’s a great interview. Jari’s a hell of a nice guy and had so many interesting stories to tell. I hope he’ll forgive the wait.

Special thanks goes out to Alan Ranta for making today’s show possible.

I mentioned earlier that I’ll be having regular contributors on the show. Alan’s one of them. Follow him on Twitter @alanranta. While you’re there, follow me @solipsistic.

Okay, it’s already been three months since my last show. Let’s not wait a moment longer.

1. Pepe Deluxé “The Secret Forces In The Mountain”
2. Interview with Jari Salo, co-founder of Pepe Deluxé
3. Pepe Deluxé “My Flaming Thirst (Instrumental)”
4. Pepe Deluxé “Live, Club Tavastia (February 16, 2013)”

Stop me if I’ve said this before. Or skip ahead a few paragraphs. Whatever.

After spending the last six years or so producing edition after edition of solipsistic NATION I finally figured out one of the important reasons I love electronic music so much and that reason is surprise and delight.

I’m surprised it took me so long to work that out because it’s blindingly obvious—one of the first things they teach you in art—in fact, is surprise. It’s playing with your expectations and revealing something new. That element of surprise may reveal something sacred or profane and, if done deftly, causes delight.

Pop used to do this. In a way, it’s what made pop music pop. But pop music has been so colonized by corporatism that it’s rare that something fresh and new escapes into the wild. Hip hop used to do the same but it followed quickly in pop’s footsteps at a gallop. Electronic music has relatively remained immune to the constraints of pop music and is free to play fast and loose with our expectations of music, constantly mutating and adding each genre and sub genre of electronic music’s sonic distinctiveness to it’s own. Yes, that’s a Star Trek reference.

Major labels are once again rediscovering that there’s some cool shit happening in electronic music and seems content for the moment to deliver it to the masses in the form of EDM. I don’t doubt that it will soon turn it’s great, lidless eye (Lord of the Rings reference) to other genres of electronic music in it’s never ending quest for the next new thing to make a buck off.

Today’s label showcase on solipsistic NATION features select tracks from Naboa Music. There’s a lot of breakcore in Naboa Music but that’s just the framework to explore it’s inner weirdness. So entrenched is Naboa Music in exploring these sonic territories that I don’t think it’s a label that could ever be tempted to embrace the dark side (Star Wars reference, and a rather forced one at that).

But seriously…

I’m always asking for labels to feature on future editions of solipsistic NATION and [tlr] made the case for Naboa Music. [tlr] has been on solipsistic NATION a number of times and his most recent album, Homunculus, was released on Naboa Music. When he suggested I do a feature on the label I listened because I trust [tlr]’s taste in music. And I was right to do so. Just listen to today’s show and see! We’ll also chat with Laskfar Vortok‘s Naoboa Music, cofounder. He’s got a unique vision for what a music label can be.

Naboa Music is weird and wonderful and will take you in some very interesting places.

Join us again next week when we’ll talk with Zite CEO Mark Johnson and recording artists Grouse, The Other Guy and DJ Food.

See you then!

1. Allen, I Hate Myself “Day Break Ground Score”
2. Interview with Laskfar Vortok, cofounder of Naboa Music
3. Autofuture “Mountain Revenge”
4. Naboa “Monopolar Pulse”
5. Beytah “Burning Villages”
6. Oxygenfad “Custom Firmware”
7. Eddie B. Rock “Dungeon Quest”
8. Psychedelic.Osmo “Kenta Cho Achieves Godhood”
9. Victor Vankmen “Walkman Spaced Reverb Dopeness (Feat. GDS)”
10. [tlr] “Magic Powers”
11. Syphilis Sauna “Comfort Zone (On Addiction)”
12. Naboa “Butcher Blossom 5”
13. Interview with Laskfar Vortok, cofounder of Naboa Music
14. Arson[EYE]-K “Thirty Puzzled Five Fidge”
15. Helium Ointment “Rubber Chicken”
16. EDN “2-1 Death Peak”
17. Genus Inkasso “Marshal His Being To Culture”
18. Laskfar Vortok “Hurler’s Pappy”
19. Interview with Laskfar Vortok, cofounder of Naboa Music