Unrushed with Aspetuck
Introspective music guiding my brain through a cold winter
I recorded a new mix recently for a series called Unrushed, run by the lovely Mareena. She & I crossed paths a few times last year, first after my Delayed crew introduced us when we caught her set at Laut in Barcelona during Mostra weekend, the next was in passing at La Nature Festival in Belgium a few months later. A resident at Tresor & touring the globe on a regular basis, she’s a very talented vinyl-only techno DJ & runs Unrush, a label, podcast & event series focused on ambient sounds, the other end of the musical spectrum. She has a very keen understanding of & appreciation for this contrasting yet symbiotic relationship between techno & ambient music. I was so flattered when she asked me to record something for her series - it’s a treasure trove of mixes, with an emphasis on providing temporary sonic oases from the flood of information our brains are being pummeled with on a daily basis. The series has been active for almost 10 years & has hosted over 100 artists including some dear friends including Moon Patrol, ASIP, & my mastering engineer Sven Weisemann.
I wanted to go in a experimental direction with my mix for her, as it reflects my listening habits these past few months. It feels like a continuation of the story I was trying to tell with my HOC mix that I did for my friend Joan last winter. As my studio & modular systems have continued to develop, my ear is more & more drawn towards sound as sound, rather than sound as music. The addition of a much-needed subwoofer in my basement studio space has only further crystalized these listening habits & my appreciation for the wonderfully weird. I often think of & refer to ‘sound art’ & minimalist experimental electronic music as massage therapy for the mind. A lot of the material I’m drawn to is live recorded from modular synths & there’s such a beautiful unpredictability & rawness to it.
Here’s some brief background on how the mix came together:
I gathered some favorites both new & old over the course of a few weeks. I had the initial anchor of wanting to play at least 2 tracks from Frank Bretschneider, an artist who has been inspiring me pretty much nonstop for the past few years. I think of all the artists who have had an impact on my studio output & listening habits since I began my modular journey 5 years ago, he stands out the most. Born in East Germany in 1956, he was one of the co-founders of Rastermusik in 1999 & his work to me represents a form of avant-garde minimal techno that has a unique warmth & humanness that isn’t always captured with the kinds of sounds & production techniques used in the genre. Now at 70 years old, he has remained uncompromising with his artistic vision for more than 40 years & is very much still actively releasing the most fascinating music. Here’s his latest on his old pals’ Raster-Noton. If you ever needed to look for a reminder that there’s a lifetime of experimental music ahead of you, he’s the ideal example. I certainly strive to be doing what I’m doing well into my 70s.
Back to the mix, I was originally expecting it to be due at a much later date after Mareena initially reached out, so I was taking my time carefully setting ideas aside. All of the sudden there was a slot available in two weeks, so I woke up one morning at the start of February & recorded it in one go with the refined selection of music I had in my playlist. Sometimes the stars align with a DJ set & things just work. I gave it a quick master, exported it & walked down to the Hudson river with my headphones on. The music I selected was very much inspired by the arctic landscape of upstate New York this winter: heavy, unrelenting snow coverage, a fully frozen-over river & bone-chillingly cold temperatures. It has been the first real winter we’ve had since we moved here 5 years ago. I’m tired of talking about the weather but this mix was definitely inspired by my surroundings. Listening to it for the first time after recording it that day in early February, somehow the mix was perfectly synced up to my roundtrip walk down to the river & back. It felt like a sign, plus I didn’t have any notes for myself, so I sent it off.
Here’s what I told Mareena:
“I wasn't planning on getting it done so quickly but inspiration hit yesterday & I recorded it in one take, it's always soo nice when that happens. I listened to it on my bitterly cold morning walk today (-18 celsius) & it happens to be perfectly timed for the trek from my house down to the frozen Hudson river & back. It starts off a bit darker with some trippy, heady, super subby stuff, then eases into bliss about halfway & just cruises. It's made up of music that's been guiding my brain this winter, cleansing & grounding stuff that feels similar to the way a long walk in the bitter cold can feel, providing a much needed reshuffling of the mind & helping me remain present through these icy cold, dark months.”
I hope it can provide you with some meditative benefits, it certainly has done so for me. Stream it here, or from the embedded player above.
Tracklist:
Miguel Angel Tolosa - salon 20-04
Heribert Friedel - 0.5
Shifted - This I Know
Frank Bretschneider & Peter Duimelinks- Lux
Frank Bretschneider - Go! Said The Bird
Daniel[i] - Borders
Material Object - Assembly
intermountain - intermountain 01
Kamran Sadeghi - Day One Part Two
Theater 1 - Sterling
Mapstation - One and Three Chairs
Refracted - Drifting In
Tensen Park - Pause [forthcoming on Never Late]
Solma - Egg Theory
To Rococo Rot - Mit Dir in Der Gegend
Saint Green - 뭉
PS here are 2 clips from a live jam in my studio the other night that went on for hours & hours (headphones recommended)