Music For Small Audiences

For three and a half years I lived in Calgary, Canada. Tucked into the foothills of the sunny side of the Rocky Mountains, its a city full of lovely people, and a city with a buzzing dance music scene. Returning for a visit a few weeks ago I was honoured to be given the opportunity to play a two hour set on a Saturday night at my favourite place in town. With an incredible sound system, positive bar staff and a clued up clientele, Habitat Living Sound has for years been a centrepoint of the Western Canadian progressive house scene. It was a real buzz to play a proper set there again, and even better to see so many familiar faces. The evening was rounded out by Pallares and Isis Graham, and despite the jetlag it was a sensational evening. This mix is the live recording of that set, recorded from the booth on Saturday, August 8.  Regular listeners will likely recognise a few of these tunes, with this set pulled together to showcase for my Calgary friends the sort of music that has been stuck in my head since my last trip through town. Thanks again to Cary, Isis, and Cowtown. To many happy returns!

Just seven days until I fly back to Canada for two weeks. A week in Toronto with friends and family, a weekend gig in Calgary, and then the better part of the week in the mountains. Looking forward to the break and the upcoming adventure! A guy named Max once told me that every record I fall in love with changes my sound as a DJ. As my music collection continues to grow and expand, I continue to fall in love with records, which is why I have invested in a new Stanton ST150 turntable. Along with the latest edition of my favourite elliptical stylus and some impressive record cleaner, my return to the ST150 has a bit of a nostalgic vibe to it. It is a great turntable to mix on physically, and in a dark room it is very easy on the eyes. This mix is equal parts modern and nostalgic. With bits of vinyl both new and old, it has plenty of introspective melodic grooves for your next intercontinental trip.

There is something uniquely interesting about preparing to embark on international travel. The combination of project planning, packing, social arrangements, and general getting-in-order-of-things prior to departure provides a structured timeframe and sense of urgency that is sometimes missing from every day life. We may be OK being late for work now and then, but no one wants to miss a flight. This mix was recorded in the spirit (and context) of preparing for an international trip. As befits the mode of transport, this mix is fast-paced, serious and energetic. It is as equally suitable for flying high above the clouds as it is for wistful contemplation at the beginning or end of your next adventure.

My good friend Kevin once explained that one of the secrets to success is having smart friends. Along similar lines, the secret to good podcasts is having friends with excellent taste in music. This mix contains more than a few gems that have found their way to me via the collections of others. From suggestions made during social get-togethers and mixes exchanged through to emailed promo links and folders left on my desktop, I am blessed with a pipeline full of amazing music. It gives me no small amount of pleasure to explore these many suggested musical directions - so please keep them coming. At three hours long, this mix is the bounty of my most recent tune hunting expedition. Enjoy.

It has been said that just as art is used to decorate space, music is used to decorate time. Having just moved into a new place in Richmond six weeks ago, I am surrounded by a number of undecorated walls, with frames leaning up against the walls in proposed locations. We have yet to get up the courage to take hammer and nail to wall, but I suspect the time is coming soon. Thankfully we have not been as delayed in setting up our sound system. As such, Episode 030 of MFSA is the first mix recorded in the new place. Recorded at a time of year when those here in the southern hemisphere are feeling the chill of autumn while those in the northern hemisphere are yet to fully feel the warmth of the summer, it has a bit of a cool weather theme happening. (DA in Dubai and J+S in India, you may need to sit in front of an air conditioner!)

From early 2012 to early 2015, I lived by myself in a tiny-but-beautiful apartment high above the South Yarra railway station. Nineteen stories up and facing straight west across Port Phillip Bay, it offered panoramic views of the city and a regular rotation of the sort of slow-motion sunsets you read about in photography books. For three years my best friends were a king-size bed, a lazy leather couch and ten well-placed speakers. While I have recently moved into bigger digs and am pumped about what the future has in store, I will never forget the sights, sounds and solitude of my shoebox in the sky.

Urban living and travel means noise is never far away - and while we cant close our ears as easily as we can close our eyes, we can still find pockets of silence through mechanical means when we have the right equipment. My favourite earbuds block out so much ambient noise that I can have the volume on nearly zero even in a crowded city street. This lends an air of surreality to the surroundings, as if I have injected a soundtrack into a silent film. And when sleep is needed on a school-night, there are few things as reassuring of rest as sliding in a couple of bright orange industrial earplugs and killing the lights as soon as the sun has set. Sometimes its OK not to know what the neighbours are up to. There are more than a few moments of silence in this live mix. At just over three hours long, it is intended to provide an evolving and emotive soundtrack for your own silent movie, whatever your sound source.

There is the theory of the Moebius, a twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop - but I cant say that I have experienced it personally. In my experience time is linear, and the further things recede into the distance in either direction, the fuzzier they become. They say it does not matter where you come from, it only matters where you are going. If this is true, then does it matter how much we remember how we got to where we are? As we move from one moment to the next, should we blaze a trail? Should we leave signposts or breadcrumbs for ourselves or for others? At what point does the mystery of obscurity become a defining feature? This mix was recorded live in January 2015. At just over two-and-a-half hours long, it runs long enough to provide the soundtrack to a walk from one town to the next.

When I was a kid growing up, we would often spend weekends in what we called cottage country. We were a few hours north of the city, and seemingly a million miles from Torontonian suburbia. One of the few FM stations available on the radio dial was 93.1 CHAY-FM. It played elevator music, musak, terribly saccharin instrumental versions of popular songs with soprano saxophones in place of vocals, and plenty of electric pianos and jazz guitars wrapped into a big hairy cheese sandwich. Many moments of peaceful childhood contemplation were interrupted by the wail of that soprano sax. I learned quickly that not everyone has the same taste in music. I now know that people who think better of this music than I do have a name for it. They call it Beautiful Music, and on further investigation it seems that in many cities it ruled the airwaves for many years before its eventual decline. The history of it as a genre is an interesting story. This mix is what I loosely call melodic progressive house. To me, it too is beautiful music. It was mixed live in December of 2014.

The end of 2014 is here - and so is Episode 025 of Music For Small Audiences. This mix takes its name from an astute observation made by a good friend (and very good DJ) by the name of Andrew Campbell. As Andrew sees it, the likelihood of any rule being enforced is inversely proportional to how far down on the list of rules the actual rule in question is. The first few rules? OK, those we may need to pay attention to... but by the time you get past the first few, bah, if they were important they would have put them at the top of the list! This episode was mixed live the day after returning from a three day trip to an outdoor electronic music festival many miles from civilisation. It was inspired by the music, people and experiences of that incredible adventure.

Packing up for a weekend away is always a mixture of emotions. Excitement for the adventure to come is mixed with anticipation and sometimes a bit of stress. Do I have time to do everything I need to do to get ready? What if I forget something? As we get older we learn a few tricks and techniques to help get out of our own way - post-it notes on the bathroom mirror, items we must not forget left blocking the exit, cloud-based list managers (that, like Santa, we remember to check twice!), and if all else fails, a publicly-posted mix named after the two things that seem to always be forgotten. A dirty weekend is one thing, but a weekend with no soap something else entirely. Safe travels!

What is it about being stuck in a sea of traffic that puts us on edge? Is it the uncertainty of the stop-and-start? The inability to control the actions of others? The paradox of being alone in a crowd? From The Spoons to Satoshi Tomiie, musicians have long seen parallels between romance and gridlock, and so I hope you will forgive me for again pointing them out. One thing I will say, whether you are in love, in traffic, or in both, good music does seem to ease the angst when things start to jam up. Recorded on a day when companions on two continents both found themselves trapped in traffic, this mix is an easy detour through some of the music that I have been digging in recent weeks. Whichever side of the road you drive on keep it rubber side down, and may all your lights be green.

Perspective is a funny thing. As humans I think we are conditioned to always want more. Louis CK has an insightful take on this, which you can find by Googling Everything Is Amazing, And Nobody Is Happy.  In some respects our desire to constantly self-improve is to be commended as having driven our survival as a species. With that said, aspiration for the future need not come at the expense of acknowledging the abundance of the present. Sometimes good enough is good enough – and what we already have is amazing enough as it is. This mix is just on two hours long. Mixed live, it is imperfect.

I have often been struck by the curiously polite silence of a packed early morning commuter train, where people are pressed closely together yet rarely speak to one another. As the city flickers by in the morning sunlight we share our physical space yet remain alone with our thoughts - at least until the silence is broken. As a soundtrack to urban living and exploration this mix is largely instrumental, with just a few carefully selected vocal cuts. In deference to the 20 year old drum and bass record from which it takes its name, it is is both atmospheric and polyrhythm-driven.

Episode 020 of Music For Small Audiences is called Earth Tones. The title comes from a few different places. First, the recent expansion of my wardrobe. Melburnians are known for wearing plenty of black and dark grey, and I am no exception. I have however recently expanded my palette, returning to a few browns and greens. Similarly, I have been exploring very earthy sonic palettes, such as you will hear in this mix. Well grounded in terra firma, this mix keeps the tempo pulled back and the energy in check, relying on melody and groove to get the job done. It runs an hour and forty-five minutes, and it was mixed live for a small audience on a recent Friday evening.