mezzanines

interview // karl hyde

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 22:19:47 -0400

Musician, vocalist, poet, painter, writer, graphic designer, bon vivant – the man most renowned as one half of Underworld, Karl Hyde, is a man of many faces, slipping effortlessly between roles with a remarkable ease that makes his decades-long career in the creative industry a truly enviable one. His most recent jaunt is into the world of solo musicianship – one that sees him releasing his first effort Edgeland later this month before heading down to Australia for a string of performances in his own right.

Youth in Trouble: A Discussion of Rave Culture, Ecstasy Use and Moral Panic

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 00:29:00 -0500

oh, up all night in bright-lit wonderland
communicate online with I don’t understand it
with a music taste abominable
man, I’m worried sick for youth in trouble

The Presets, Youth in Trouble

This research essay aims to demonstrate the continued relevance that the moral panic model offers to the contemporary world of criminal justice studies and beyond by showing how it reflects and contributes to the processes by which young people in particular are stigmatised and marginalised by mainstream media and the criminal justice system. In particular, this essay will focus on the phenomenon of “rave culture” and the associated use of illegal substances such as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (hereafter referred to as ‘ecstasy’) and how the effects of reporting by media on the phenomenon contributes in a wide variety of ways to criminal justice responses. This essay will focus on a number of case studies across jurisdictions including Australia, the US and the UK in illustrating these points.

The concept of moral panic is often attributed to Stanley Cohen’s groundbreaking study on media responses to mods and rockers in the sixties – a process by which the incidence of criminal activity gains media attention and is saturated and amplified through the identification of symbols and predictors and the construction of simplified narratives, resulting in harsh and punitive criminal justice responses that serve to alienate and marginalise young people in particular (Cohen, 2011).

The rave phenomenon began in various places throughout the US, the UK, and the Spanish resort island of Ibiza during the eighties, quickly gaining notoriety for their association with trespass and illegal drug use in the process of throwing their ad-hoc gatherings intended for youth to dance through the night in a variety of esoteric social locations such as warehouses, factories and open fields (Fritz, 1999). Similar parties began to emerge across a number of jurisdictions including Australia and were frequently associated with a number of cultural markers – the emergence of electronic music that was frequently played at such events, a very particular style of dress, and most crucially, the consumption of illegal designer drugs including ecstasy.

As Coomber et al (2000) assert, the reporting is characterised by “exaggeration, distortion, inaccuracy and sensationalism and was heavily reliant on identification of certain characteristics such as key areas (MacGregor, 1989), cultural markers, and beyond in order to construct the imagery of young people as “folk devils” in mainstream media. Drug dealers present at such events are cast as the personification of evil, as were the individually problematic adult drug users who partake in the use of drugs, through drugs and public health policy responses (Peretti-Watel, 2003). The identification of this problematic section of society by the media, as MacGregor (1989) points out, is often tied to certain locations (such as Liverpool in the UK) and cultural markers (including smiley faces and fluorescent clothing) in media reporting, lending a sense of human interest to these stories. In addition to this, society’s understanding of the kinds of people who use drugs has frequently been gendered and racialised, and to associate drug use as a cultural practise engaged in by the marginalised makes it a topic more convenient to report on, given its ease in creating a narrative of good versus evil (Manning, 2007) – both factors contributing to the creation of a restricted and distorted image of actual drug users who represent a sense of moral decay in modern times.

In Australia, the media and criminal justice responses in reaction to the death of Sydney schoolgirl Anna Wood in 1996 exemplify the values at play and the discourse that emerge surrounding societal perspectives on young people, drug use and rave culture. The news values evident in the reporting of Anna Wood’s death are many – Jewkes (2011) points to risk and proximity as two key news values that influence the presence of particular stories in the media – and Anna Wood’s death presented a serious threat to the status quo through the popularisation of drug use with young people, in addition to the element of simplification that the narrative presents due to Wood’s status as an ideal victim and a compelling story to report on. As one editor put it, “there’s no doubt that she came from a middle class environment and she was the quintessential fresh faced Australian child that everybody could relate to… that really made her an emotional subject” (cited in Hunter, 1996:4). As a result of these factors, the widespread coverage of Anna Wood’s death was ideologically represented as a threat to social order in wider society – not just the marginalised and socially-excluded who previously made up the subjects of media reporting on drug use and related crime, but coming to represent a new class of youth who took engaged in the risky consumption of illegal drugs as an everyday recreational activity akin to heading down to the pub for a beer (Taylor, 2008).

Legislative responses in the US and the UK reflect a similarly punitive response to the issue. The reforms made to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (c.33) in the UK included provisions aimed to criminalise raves through banning music at gatherings that included “sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats” - this can be characterised as a move by the UK government “explicitly aimed at suppressing the activities of certain strands of alternative culture” (Gilbert, 1999:150) in response to growing media concern about drug-related deaths. In addition to this, the Reducing Americans’ Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act (the RAVE Act) is another example of harsh punitive sanctions imposed by politicians in an attempt to “crack down” on the emerging moral panic. Proposed during the summer of 2002 by Senator Biden as an extension to the 1986 Crack House Statute, the overwhelmingly punitive nature of the act is indicative of a government’s desire to use the rhetoric of the war on drugs to suppress electronic music and rave culture (Levy, 2004). The act’s broad language and potentially damning consequences for ravers and rave culture rather than merely restricting ecstasy use resulted in serious scrutiny and criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union, the dance music community and American public at large and did not pass any committees in the House or Senate – until in April, 2003, when Senator Biden used the AMBER Alert bill in order to pass the RAVE At by adding provisions of the RAVE Act to the AMBER Alert Bill – a piece of legislation designed to respond promptly to child abduction.

Conceptualising the response to rave culture and drug use as a “moral panic” helps to illuminate the reasons behind the punitive responses to the issue, as a result of simplified, negative and saturated media coverage of the problem. But the relationship between the media, the public and the government is a complex one, each serving to reflect and shape each other in a series of different interactions. Nevertheless, the resulting conceptualisation of crime and appropriate responses to it is often referred to as penal populism by criminologists and the manner in which the media promotes penal populism – the increasing support for more punitive penal policies - occurs in three ways (Roberts, Stalans, Indermaur, and Hough, 2003).

Firstly, devoting a disproportionate amount of time to the coverage of certain acts and offences can characterise the incidence of crime in a distorted manner – one which amplifies its occurrence and simplifies crime problems in a manner that places an emphasis on punitive, law enforcement-based solutions. The public generally derive their information about crime and punishment from mainstream media, such as TV and newspaper reports – sources which often rely on political actors for information, and public concern about drugs following the lead of government initiatives is a reasonably established occurrence, with the sharpest increase in support for punitive policies occurring in the nineties in conjunction with a period of intense government activity in the “war on drugs”.

Secondly, the media influences politicians directly and indirectly by framing the discourses surrounding emerging criminal justice issues. Sociologists argue that this is symptomatic of a shift in public attitudes towards criminal justice and the role of government in general – indicating a growth in expectations regarding control and security (Hier, 2002). As Garland (2000) argues, this has three results: these changing lifestyles necessitate the incorporation of risk management as a routine aspect of life, perceptions of increasing social disorder increase, and the role that mass media plays in shaping our expectations from the law changes. Crime is viewed as an amplified presence in society - one which is often associated with social groups and subcultures that can be cast as folk devils in society (such as users of illegal drugs), and makes it a problem that needs to be dealt with urgently.

Finally, the media creates a platform that favours certain kinds of policy responses – for political institutions and governments, there is a particular interest in punitive policies when it comes to drug-related issues and crime and justice in general. To be seen as “soft on crime” is an extreme vulnerability for political parties, so the rise in increasing sanctions for those who offend (previously more the domain of the political right but more frequently with more centrist and left-oriented parties) makes sense – it is interesting to note that the public in the UK had a low level of confidence in the fact that we are effectively dealing with drug related crime both there and in the US during the time the moral panic regarding rave culture was emerging (Belndon and Young, 1998).

This, however, marginalizes the importance of social exclusion in explaining the incidence of these issue. As Buchanan (2004) argues, the resulting punitive responses have resulted in a failure to address the reality of contemporary drug use. This disconnect between common wisdom and the reality of drug use can, to an extent, be explained by the mass media’s influence and its failure to address the fact that drug use generally results from a sense of social exclusion to begin with. The construction of drug users as folk devils in media and the punitive responses to the issue result in a further marginalisation of those who use drugs – making existing on the margins of society increasingly more difficult during their use, and presenting new problems in the attempt to “get clean”. Buchanan points out that studies of drug use in society has found that those who use drugs are disproportionately undereducated and underqualified for most employment opportunities – suggesting an underlying set of factors at play in predicting drug use in the population. The kinds of assumptive media imagery that surrounds drug use generally leave little room for expanding on these issues – instead, casting the prevalence of drug use as a result of “moral decay” in society that can be resolved through increasingly punitive sanctions.

However, it is important to note the limitations of the moral panic model offered by Cohen and reappropriated and reinterpreted by a number of contemporaries. For example, Waddington (1986) criticises another pioneering study on moral panics and mugging by Hall et al (1978) on the grounds that there are little ways to assess the proportionality of media and criminal justice responses to crimes that become moral panics. Without any criteria for assessing proportionality, defining social responses as moral panics is little more than a value judgement. In the case of rave culture and ecstasy use, it seems possible to argue that this is the case for long-term reporting of drug use in the media. Long-term analysis of reporting on illicit drugs recognises that while previous research indicates that drugs overwhelmingly emerge in media in direct relation to criminal justice issues and involve value judgements about drug use, a more long-term analysis of reporting reveals a trend towards not framing drugs as a crisis issue and an increased focus on non-legal issues relating to drugs in more recent times (including mental health, employment prospects, public amenity, etc.) in 40.1% of reports (Hughes, Lancaster and Spicer, 2011). It seems reasonable to suggest that public concern about reforming drug use laws was justified in containing the problem and understanding of broader social factors at play in the issue as well.

To conclude, the moral panic model offers us a valuable insight into the relationships between mainstream media, politics and the criminal justice system in understanding how punitive penal policies become a part of popular wisdom and how this serves to alienate and marginalise young and vulnerable sections of society.

References

Buchanan, J. (2004) ‘Missing Links? Problem Drug Use and Social Exclusion’, Probation Journal, 51(4), pp. 387–97.Cohen, S. (2011), Deviance and Moral Panics in Folk Devils and Moral Panics, Routledge, Hoboken, pp. 1-20

Coomber et al (2000), ‘How the Media Do Drugs: Quality Contro land the Reporting of Drug Issues in the UK Print Media’, International Journal of Drug Policy, 11(3), pp. 217-225

Fritz, J. (1999), Rave Culture: An Insider’s Overview, Small Fry Press, Canada

Garland, D. (1990), Punishment and modern society: A study in social theory, Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Gilbert, J. (1999) Discographies: Dance, Music, Culture and the Politics of Sound, Routledge

Hall, S. et al (1978), Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order, Macmillon, London

Hier, S. (2002), ‘Raves, Risks and the Ecstacy Panic: A Case Study in the Subversive Nature of Moral Regulation Author’, The Canadian Journal of Sociology, 27(1), pp. 33-57Hough and Roberts (2005)

Hughes, C.E., Lancaster, K. and Spicer, C. (2011), ‘How do Australian news media depict illicit drug issues? An analysis of print media reporting across and between illicit drugs, 2003–2008’, International Journal of Drug Policy 22 (2011) 285–291

Hunter, A. (1996), ‘Making the Myth of Anna Wood’, Reportage, UTS Independent Centre for Journalism, Sydney

Jewkes, Y. (2011) The Construction of Crime News: News values for a new millennium, in Media & Crime, 2^nd edition, London: Sage, pp. 39-64

Levy, B. (2004) When Cute Acronyms Happen to Bad Legislation: The Reducing Americans’ Vulnerability to Ecstasy “Rave” Act, Northwestern University Law Review, Spring 2004, 98(3), pp. 1251-1288

MacGregor, S. (1989) Drugs and British Society, Responses to a Social Problem in the 1908s, pp. 1-19

Manning, P. (2007) ‘The Symbolic Framing of Drug Use in the News: Ecstasy and Volatile Substance Abuse in Newspapers’, in Drugs and Popular Culture: Drugs, Media and Identity in Contemporary Society, pp. 150–67. Cullompton: Willan Publishing

Peretti-Watel, P. (2003), ‘Heroin Users as Folk Devils and French Public Attitudes Towards Public Health Policy’, International Journal of Drug Policy, 14(4), pp. 321-329

Roberts, J., Stalans, J., Indermaur, D. & Hough, M. (2003) ‘Explaining the Rise of Punitive Penal Policies’, Penal Populism and Public Opinion: Lessons from five countries, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 76-93.

Taylor, S. (2008), Outside the outsiders: media representations of drug use, Probation Journal, 55(4), pp. 369-387

Thornton, S. (1994), ‘Moral Panic, the media and British Rave Culture’ in A Ross and T Rose Microphone Fiends: youth music and youth culture, Routledge

Waddington (1986), ‘Mugging as a moral panic: a question of proportion’, British Journal of Sociology, 37(2), pp. 245-259

interview // hot chip

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:19:38 -0400

interview // hot chip:

Hot Chip have a busy New Year’s period ahead of them. After an absence of over two years, they’re headed back our way with dates at Falls Festival, Summafieldayze and Falls Festival as well as a couple of inthemix presented sideshows. Needless to say, it’s a welcome return – as well as leaving a very good impression on Australian audiences on their last visit, the boys have a killer new album under their belt. So with in Our Heads ready to show off for the first time, inthemix caught up with the group’s Owen Clarke.

interview // jimmy edgar

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:18:37 -0400

interview // jimmy edgar:

“I get bored really easily – that’s what it comes down to,” says future-funk superstar, photographer and artist extraordinaire Jimmy Edgar as muses with a self-deprecating laugh, when asked about his remarkable work ethic. The Detroit native, now based, depending on the day, in Berlin, New York or his hometown, is a singular entity – the kind of guy who encapsulates what it really means to be an artist. Renowned for a creative spirit enamoured with all strands of media – fashion photography, graphic design, and his one true love, music – the cosmic wild child’s CV is gloriously extensive, with this year alone seeing the release of his third full-length LP for bass-oriented label-de-jour Hotflush, Majenta, the reinvention of his live show, and a slew of groundbreaking collaborative works.

review // the presets, pacifica

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 22:50:15 -0400

review // the presets, pacifica:

Four years is a long time in the music industry to spend holed away, outside the limelight. After stealing away with a swag of ARIA awards following the release of 2008’s seminal electro LP Apocalypso, The Presets, made up of Sydneysiders Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes, made no secret of the fact that they were far more comfortable working outside the critical gaze of mainstream media. In the passing years, it seems that The Presets have faced head-on the questions of their long-term viability on the Australian music scene and remoulded themselves into something more adult, more thoughtful and considered – as the recent release of third studio album Pacifica reveals.

review // passion pit, gossamer

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 22:43:06 -0400

review // passion pit, gossamer:

When Beat last spoke to Passion Pit’s frontman Michael Angelakos, his insight into the turbulent period that made up the album’s writing period was painfully honest. “Most of these songs are about people, told by a person: me, who is seriously delusional,” he said, of the album. “I became obsessed with ensemble casts, theatre-to-film adaptations, and developing several characters’ life stories in an hour and 45 minutes in one single room. I had gotten tangled up in many issues, many of them involving my fiancée, that I wanted to visualise in some way.” Dig a little deeper beneath the glossy, multicoloured veneer of Gossamer’s uptempo, sugar-sweet pop, the album’s material proves a razor-sharp and raw insight into the period of time that followed in the wake of Passion Pit’s well-received debut release Manners.

event // the groves @ revolver

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 22:41:45 -0400

event // the groves @ revolver:

Having been around for awhile, it’s good to see Melbourne-based four-piece blues outfit The Groves finally beginning to make inroads into Australia’s thriving music scene. With a history that begins back in their high school days, the group’s self-titled debut EP launched at Revolver this weekend was an all-out aural assault from a group that shows much promise.

As bassist Leigh Macdonald conceded during the evening, the group’s debut EP has been a long time coming – but now that it’s here, it’s clear that the Groves are very much maturing into a successful, surprising act to contend with in Melbourne. Bringing a set largely comprised of material from the EP launched on the evening, months spent rehearsing and recording, mixing and mastering the self-titled EP in vocalist Antoni Riccardi’s home studio with the assistance of Stevie Mayo have come to fruition with a remarkably self-assured sound. Taking to the stage to a reasonably packed-out front room at Revolver, the group spent the following hour tearing through a well-paced and groove-laden performance.

interview // dj fresh

Sun, 16 Sep 2012 22:39:00 -0400

interview // dj fresh:

“I think it’s ridiculous to be honest,” Daniel Stein says, diplomatically, but with an edge of irritation creeping into his voice. It’s a sensitive question; asking the well-renowned DJ and producer for his thoughts on the detractors who decry the underground legend’s newfound mainstream success in dance music, having just made history as the very first drum’n’bass producer to hit #1 on UK music charts with the breakout single with Rita Ora, ‘Hot Right Now’.

The reaction is understandable: never one to retread old ground in terms of his music, the name of the aforementioned single functions both as a cheeky reference to DJ Fresh’s newfound status as hot property in the commercial dance music market, as well as an accurate assessment of his credentials, past and present - with his third studio record nextlevelism set due to be dropped in October and a spot on this year’s Parklife 2012 roster.

interview // benga

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 23:47:19 -0400

interview // benga:

Diary Of An Afro Warrior, the sophomore album to emerge from Croydon’s young dubstep visionary Benga, felt a lot like a manifesto – a declaration of dubstep’s emergence from the underground of dance music into the contemporary consciousness. Yet given that Benga, whose interest in music production began by the startlingly young age of 15, has since become a figurehead for an oft-misunderstood and maligned genre is not surprising.

Championing its creativity and singularity alongside a small collective of close friends and collaborators – the likes of which include other luminaries such as Skream, Artwork, and Katy B amongst others, Benga has come to establish himself as one of the most exciting young creatives to emerge from the scene. Last sighted here at the very beginning of the year, dubstep heads will certainly be pleased with the return of the warrior at this year’s Parklife, armed with a killer live new set-up.

feature // dj shadow, 'endtroducing...'

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:40:53 -0400

feature // dj shadow, 'endtroducing...':

This is where DJ Shadow – Bay Area-based DJ and producer Joshua Paul Davis – comes in. A hip hop head to the end and a crate-digging obsessive, Davis grew up thoroughly immersed in the world of music. To say there are elements of appropriation in his 1996 debut LP Endtroducing would be an understatement – it’s in the Guinness Book of Records for being the first album to be constructed entirely from samples of other people’s music. Which, if you haven’t listened to it, might sound like an accusation of unoriginality – and yet, once you do, you can see why it’s still lauded to this day as a completely original and visionary piece of work.

news // strawberry fields lineup announced

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 22:47:00 -0400

news // strawberry fields lineup announced:

Last year’s full lineup was a killer one, featuring everybody from Trus’Me to Moodymann and Mad Professor, and 2012 is again shaping up to be a summer season highlight. Fresh off the announcements come the UK-based Border Community head, musician and tastemaker James Holden, alongside the talents of Ghostly International’s electroacoustic wunderkind Tycho, Warp Records favourite Prefuse 73, Brainfeeder upstart Teebs, alongside an irresistably jam-packed first lineup – with more to come.

Goddamn do I loathe winters in Melbourne but if there’s something this city does right, it’s clubbing and festivals during summer. Already excited.

event // mount kimbie @ the hi-fi, melbourne (03/05/12)

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 07:43:00 -0400

As dubstep continues on its relentless trajectory into the zeitgeist of electronic music today, it faces numerous puzzling questions about its identity. What defines it? Where is it going? Can it shape itself into something that will transcend the limited shelf life that frequently means the inevitable death of other trends in dance music?

The answer to those first two questions is one that will likely never be resolved, but my hopes for the future of the murky depths of bass music are solidified by acts such as London’s ambient-electronica duo Mount Kimbie.

The spacious and windswept empty spaces and delicate, scattered beats of their first few singles and the outstanding debut album Crooks and Lovers all released through Paul Rose’s seminal imprint Hotfush, bear little resemblance to anything out there - especially in terms of anything tagged with ‘dubstep’, that is arguably one of Mount Kimbie’s greatest achievements. It’s artists like these, who play with the most appealing elements of genres whilst creating something entirely fresh and inventive from their rigid constraints that will ensure that dubstep remains a lively breeding ground for the newest and best in electronica’s emerging talent. And with Mount Kimbie, there’s no limiting genre to neatly slot them into - they’re teasingly, seductively undefinable, playing with the textures of cut-up and decidedly electronic beats alongside twisted instrumental samples and grainy, sunsplashed field recordings.

The result is a record that feels equally at home on your headphones walking back at 6AM from a night out, as it does in the immersive, cavernous surrounds of the clubs and stages you’ll frequently find them on these days. Equal measures pastoral and urban, Crooks and Lovers in particular is a success in creating a completely immersive musical experience - one that many other producers tend to neglect in a world where the EP and 12” dominate clubs and headphones. Offered the opportunity to catch them on their second tour of Australia after missing out on their debut shows due to a tragically paltry student budget neatly coinciding with the weekend of my 21st birthday was too much to pass up.

The Hi-Fi is one of Melbourne’s most outstanding music venues for electronic music - with a soundsystem that’s equally at home housing the best of Melbourne’s touring bands as it is for DJs, with an intimate stage space and a capacity that ensures every gig is crowded and sweaty, but not to the point where it becomes impersonal, it was the perfect setting to be immersed in the otherworldly soundscapes of Mount Kimbie.

Their performance was everything I’d hoped for and beyond. There aren’t a multitude of moments I can recall where a single song has made my heart freeze, time melt away, all those cliches - but their live shows are honestly something truly beautiful to witness.

So frequently is the term “atmospheric” used in dance music press that I suspect it’s lost a lot of meaning for many consumers of electronica. What the fuck do people even mean when they use it? It’s a generic and convenient catch-all for lazy journalists like me - and yet I can’t help but feel it summarises what they’re about perfectly. The duo, in previous interviews, have spoken about their liberal use of field recordings in constructing their tracks. Cathedrals, footsteps; the sounds of a city coming to life.

Dom: I was thinking about this today actually, I suppose it forced us to adopt the rhythms of an environment, and to think about how we build those rhythms, and why we are using them. The first time we came down here with a field mic, we were just recording the sound of my bike and then we went to the Southbank and recorded the sounds of skateboarders there, which we used on the album.
I get what you mean, the way you describe the album, because its very visual I think, dreamy almost. Each track is very different from the others, they all stay within this frame, and within each track itself it’s like a dream, going on and on.

And that’s something that permeates the sprawling, hazy soundscapes shot through with the eerie and ethereal. Their live show is an intersection between laptop-created sonics as well and live instrumentation. As well as a guitar, they had with them a drum pad which they used as a makeshift drum, I guess - hammering out their offbeat drums with drumsticks, creating something unique and very, very real. I’m trying and I just can’t put it into words.

Opening with the breathy, simplistic melodies of Carbonated, the two flowed smoothly into the guitar-bound, eerie Maybes - a heartstopping affair involving the clever manipulation of a single pitched-up vocal sample and a howling guitar into crescendoes of electric two-step beats and warm spashes of bass, before abruptly pulling it to the ground again as Dom took to the microphone for a rare interlude of unprocessed vocals. “Don’t go tryin’ to tell me - you’re telling me what, now don’t don’t baby, don’t maybes,” he sung in pleading tones on repeat.

Proceeding into a bevy of unreleased material which the duo claimed was part of their upcoming sophomore LP that was a joy to be a part of before ducking back into more familiar territory from Crooks and Lovers, the two spent their seventy minutes on stage creating a stunningly rich and intimate atmosphere that recalled the best of their releases to date, whilst reinterpreting and reappropriating it for the context of the live performance. While some complain that their use of sampling and instrumentation feels too amateur and technically-incompetent live, I would suggest that this is part of their charm - that element of unpredictability and youthfulness is something that lends their music a liveliness and emotive feel that frequently gets crushed into nonexistence by artists who feel the need to quantise and perfect everything to the point of lifelessness.

Heart full to the brim, watching the two leave the stage after an encore comprised of the bubbly and bright Before I Move Off signalled the end of something truly magnificent - I remember stumbling up the staircase from the stagefront with my friend Erica into the autumn air outside afterwards, both of us completely unable to contain our endless exhilaration, squealing and chattering away. The far-off and magical world of Mount Kimbie is one I suggest all fans of electronica make the pilgrimage to at some point - no doubt there’s something for everybody to appreciate in their strange and fantastic world.

interview // open family australia

Mon, 21 May 2012 00:58:00 -0400

interview // open family australia:

I am taking The 21 Challenge to raise money to support homeless and at-risk young people in Australia. There are more than 32,000 young people who sleep on our streets every night and I want to help do something about it. The 21 Challenge supports Open Family Australia, an organisation that has been working with at-risk youth for more than 30 years. As a Criminology and Human Rights Theory double major, I feel very strongly about the issue of youth homelessness. It’s a cyclical and pervasive problem, and these are people in desperate need of support from the wider community. I figured I’d put my skills as a budding academic and music journalist to the test, by writing a blog post for each day of the challenge. Expect anything from social justice, crime and politics, dance music, and anything in between. By sponsoring me you’ll be supporting Open Family Australia’s outreach programs with vulnerable young people, ensuring they have the best chance to get the help they need to get off the streets.

Read my interview with Open Family Australia worker Wayne Nielsen through the link at the top of this post, and check out my fundraising profile here.

interview // rob heydon, 'irvine welsh's ecstasy'

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:58:13 -0400

interview // rob heydon, 'irvine welsh's ecstasy':

The vivid highs and crashing lows of using and abusing empathogenic substances, and its effects on the perception of reality and ability to form relationships is brought out in vivid, unreal detail during the film. The intensely immersive and visceral nature of Ecstasy is possibly the best example so far of Heydon’s talents as a versatile and forward-thinking director. “The concept from the start was not to make a classic Hollywood film, stylistically amazing to watch - what we wanted was use filmmaking techniques that shot are in ways like late fifties, late sixties cult-cinema - documentary filmmaking styles like handheld cameras, longer takes, on-location sound and incorporate that into the narrative, of how we wanted to tell the film,” he tells me. “How do you tell that story the audience will understand what it feels like, what it looks like and what it sounds like living within the electronic dance music scene in Scotland?”

event // future music festival @ flemington racecourse, 11/03/12

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:17:00 -0400

event // future music festival @ flemington racecourse, 11/03/12:

There’s a reason Future Music is considered one of Melbourne’s biggest festivals – dance music’s grasp on Melbourne’s consciousness is undeniable and Future Entertainment have consistently delivered lineups that compete with those internationally. Future is a curiosity in that while it’s undoubtedly one of Melbourne’s biggest festivals in terms of numbers, it never felt like it – coordinating an event of this scale is no mean feat and that the festival was easy to navigate and never too crowded was a testament to the effort that went into organising the festival.

interview // orbital

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 08:40:02 -0400

interview // orbital:

Orbital, veterans of the rave made up of brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll from Sevenoaks in the UK, have left an indelible imprint on the landscape of contemporary dance music - one of the key figures in its emergence into the mainstream consciousness of the music industry. Having gone underground at the end of 2004 after the release of veritable classics including Halcyon, Chime and Belfast, the two went underground seemingly at the height of their career, and nothing from the Orbital camp was heard for five years - leaving heartbroken children of the rave to believe that the legacy of the duo was conclude there. To much fanfare, they resurfaced in 2009 with a headline show celebrating twenty years after that first single Chime, and with a new album on the way and an extensive upcoming worldwide tour, Orbital continue to keep the dancefloor moving and I speak to one of the brothers, Paul Hartnoll, about their extended absence, assembling the new album, and returning to the live stage.

interview // machinedrum

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 09:09:46 -0400

interview // machinedrum:

Who is Machinedrum? Despite a stellar ten-year track record of recording under the name, Travis Stewart’s many faces, names and records remain gratifyingly obscure. The New York resident has spent his years flitting between a number of well-respected labels that include Merck, Normrex and LuckyMe, and lately his musical palette has expanded to include an even wider array of sounds and projects. Having spent 2011 holed up in the studio involved in constructing some of the year’s most well-received releases, it seems an opportune time for the man to take the production gear down to Australia to show audiences exactly what he’s spent his time working on recently, and the questions I email off to Stewart in anticipation of such an event are received a week later, with decidedly short and to the point answers – nothing most wouldn’t have expected from one of the scene’s most industrious yet elusive producers.

review // underworld, 'a collection'

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:21:00 -0500

review // underworld, 'a collection':

The retrospective collection is frequently a worrying sign of age from artists whose careers are on an inevitable decline. After all, why bother coming up with anything new or original when you can make a shameless grab for cash with tried-and-tested material? It’s a cynical point of view, but one that has unfortunately been proven all too accurate many times before. However, given that 2012 heralds the most ambitious project Underworld have embarked on to late – taking on the role of music directors at the London Olympic games – as well as their twentieth year together, some sort of celebration is called for. The two-disc set spans the most recent output the duo have released of late, alongside the classics that propelled them into the mainstream consciousness of clubbers – but is A Collection a worthwhile addition to the extensive discography that Underworld have already released? It’s a difficult question to answer.

interview // kryptic minds

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 18:22:33 -0500

interview // kryptic minds:

Having spent years kicking about on labels including Metalheadz, Frequency and Monitor, the duo that make up Kryptic Minds are no strangers to the forefront of dance music’s perpetually-evolving scenes and trends. Formed over ten years ago upon the release of Si’s underground anthem The Truth, the duo steadily got to work together, enjoying a number of years at the top of the drum and bass game. Yet unlike many whose relevance eventually comes to be no more after too many years in the business, Brett Bigden’s and Simon Shreeve’s output remains as boundary-pushing and original as ever. Demonstrating the importance of never getting too comfortable, with the release of their first full-length album One Of Us on Loefah DMZ’s label Swamp 81 – a surprising and entirely pleasing excursion into the realms of deep dubstep with a keen understanding of the tension that lies beneath its surfaces.

interview // hudson mohawke

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 10:15:55 -0500

interview // hudson mohawke:

Yet the more discerning music consumers may point you towards the new wave of beatmakers emerging from the rainy cities of Scotland – remarkably young, yet as talented as many of their peers, figures like post-dubstep’s Koreless or hip hop hero Rustie seem to be changing minds about the sleepy country. Possibly one of the most exciting being Glasgow’s Hudson Mohawke (the production alias of Ross Birchard), immediately demanding attention when signed to Warp Records at the startlingly youthful age of 23. One of the genius children of the hip hop/electronica offshoot rapidly gaining attention at the moment, it was on the strength of two self-released EPs that he was picked up by the revered label, allowing him the opportunity to show the world the potential of these two worlds.