Tuesday, May 20, 2008

I had a dream



Dublime @ Fabric Sunday 25th May featuring Lee Perry Soundsystem, Congo Natty aka Rebel MC, Dillinja, Loefah, Don Letts, Souljazz Soundsystem, MCs Pokes, Warrior Queen and Rod Azlan. Pole, Sleeparchive, Kode 9, Scuba, Pinch, Appleblim vs Peverlist, Downshifter with MCs Flow Dan and Rogue Star. Iration Steppaz, Moody Boyz, Anti Social, Dusk & Blackdown, Earl Gateshead and Jonny Trunk.

It was around the end of 2001 that I decided I wanted to learn to produce. The early Forward>> parties at Velvet Rooms had got me hooked and so I set myself some goals.

One of them was that I dreamt of playing Fabric. It seemed laughable at the time, in fact my friend, who I expressed this goal to (hey James!) definitely had a good laugh. Getting to a stage where I’d play the club seemed so impossibly far away that I couldn’t even see the steps required to get there. In fact they remained distant as close as this Christmas, over seven years later.

But I’m playing Fabric this Sunday. I blame the dream.

In general, I’m not overly mad about dreaming. The term seems synonymous with people of no action or direction. It conjures up suggestions of naivety, which won’t get you very far.

But there’s another kind of dreaming.

I guess I tend to focus on what’s possible, what’s real or what’s around me. Electronica’s headspace irritates me because it’s all plastic utopias, whereas dubstep’s bass is grounded in reality. But the key part of getting to where I’ve wanted to be has been allowing myself to not just accept what’s around me but to dare to imagine what could be.

The first time I mentioned the words “Dusk + Blackdown album” it was summer 2006 and I’d been on the phone to our (very understanding) distribution company. Just me saying the words out loud had left me shocked. I came away from the phone and thought “damn, I’ve said it out loud now, I better go work out how to do it.” I’d dared to dream.

So there we are: Dusk and I are playing Fabric on Sunday. Seems insane but it’s true. I for one won’t be taking it for granted.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

As I'm a dreamer too, i find this comment very inspiring: "...to dare to imagine what could be." That's what I'm trying to achieve nowadays.

Big up all dreamers, and work hard!

cólz said...

'Electronica’s headspace irritates me because it’s all plastic utopias, whereas dubstep’s bass is grounded in reality'
i like it, insightful as ever blackdown

selector.dub.u said...

Congratulations on doing the work necessary to making your dream a reality. Here is to many more.

Cheers man! you deserve it.

Elijah said...

dreams are goals with a deadline- napoleon.

you did good!

Anonymous said...

'Electronica’s headspace irritates me because it’s all plastic utopias, whereas dubstep’s bass is grounded in reality'

Not really sure what you mean by this. Are u saying that some electronica can be a touch pretentious and that dubstep isn't? I'd rather music made me think than just made the feet move personally, but it's an interesting point.

Anonymous said...

Either way (I wrote the above comment), I thought this was a great post and one I talk about here:

http://www.susology.com/

Anonymous said...

...and congratulation btw :)

Anonymous said...

'Electronica’s headspace irritates me because it’s all plastic utopias, whereas dubstep’s bass is grounded in reality'

is essentially meaningless.

How a sine/square wave at 50Hz is more "grounded in reality" than an equally synthetic tone higher up the frequency range is beyond me.

I can guess at the kind of electronica you're talking about (e.g. the Leaf label?), but for every dreamy, shimmery, 100% synthy bit of electronica there are other tunes which are 100% sampled (therefore "real") and yet fucking horrible - windchimes, ethnic nosepipes, you know the deal.

I'm wary of any music that's allegedly "grounded in reality" - it's the kind of thing bell-ends who make shit indie or thugged-out hip-hop say.

Blackdown said...

I stand by my comments about electronica. In essence I think with a lot of genres there's kind of underlying template sound signatures that reflect the mental outlook of the producers and audience.

With electronica, especially of the mid 90s IDM type, all the synths and clean melodies portrayed this kind of sterile, empty headspace, where the fans dreamily would imagine outer space or worlds where things worked perfectly and they werent actually powerless geeks who read Iain Banks novels and knew every Sim emulator but hadn’t kissed a girl yet.

Dubstep - and all of the bassy, raw urban genres - are like some kind of loud wake up call to this kind of tedious fantasy world. As such they reflect their surroundings and the imperfect worlds they come from. To me, that's grounded in reality.

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