So here’s the deal. When I first started featuring live sets on solipsistic NATION it was a segment I thought I would do from time to time. It took a while but it soon became a regular segment on the show.
I really like the live segments because on the face of it live electronic music seems like an oxymoron. Artists could easily just press play on their laptop and walk away and that would be the show. But obviously it’s more than that and each artist has a different approach to live performances. Their aesthetics are different, their gear is different and the venues are different. It’s those variables that make the live segments so engaging, not to mention it’s live! There’s so much room for improvisation and, gasp, failure!
But there’s the thing, I often found myself scrambling at last minute to get a live set and an interview with the featured artist for the next show. Worse, sometimes I’d have to skip the segment all together because I didn’t have anything for the show. So about a year ago I emailed a lot of artists I like and invited them on the show to feature recordings of their live sets. Makes sense, right? Build up a surplus of live sets and never have to worry about scrambling again.
Some of the live sets that I got were less than an hour. No problem, I just padded out the rest of the show with a few studio tracks from the featured artist. But sometimes I’d get live sets that were considerably less than an hour and my solution was to pair those set with other live sets of similar duration.
Here we are a year later and I’m down to the last handful of the shorter live sets. I could have waited another year and pair those remaining sets with other sets but I decided to release them today with an extended show. I just didn’t want to put off these live sets any longer.
So here you are: live sets from Forensics, ill.gates and Terminal 11! If you like what you hear then support them by seeing them when they tour your home town or by purchasing their music.
As I mentioned, today’s show is the last of the live sets that I accumulated a year ago. But I only needed to learn the lesson of scrambling once and I’ll have live sets from Prefuse 73, DJ Spooky, the Nortec Collective and The Bombay Dub Orchestra so stay stuned.
Join us next week when I’ll be showcasing music from Zero Digital Records!
- Forensics “Live (Dub City, Amsterdam, May 2009)”
- Interview with Forensics
- ill.gates “Live (Edmonton)”
- Interview with ill.gates
- Terminal 11 “Live”
- Interview with Terminal 11