Scraps – Page 2 – decode•it

On Pause

Two sides of the same edge.

I am taking a break from this space for the time being. I plan to return, but I don’t have a plan for when that will be. There are some other things I want to work on for the next little while.

In the meantime, I invite you to consider an old turn of phrase surrounding the number of sides the same coin has. Two is how the saying goes, but there are actually three sides to the same coin. Maybe even four. The expression is sometimes used to illustrate when possibly unseen and perceived indivisible nuance is present within a situation—an illustration which is only effective if it’s possible to overlook the glaring and rudimentary counting error contained in the expression itself.

On paper, it’s clearly possible to see two sides of the same coin at the same time. Off the page, as long as there are multiple perspectives available, it’s possible to see more than two sides of the same coin at the same time. A single perspective view of all the sides of the same coin is also possible if the coin is spinning, but that introduces another dimension into the situation. Questions about the nature of observation arise immediately—philosophy and quantum mechanics go head‐to‐head. Or tail‐to‐tail.

As you can see, there’s a lot on my mind, but I’ve grown weary of looking at the same coin regardless.

Back in a bit…

AWD

A little faster now.

I’ve made another mix, and this one is legit quick—there are no sneaky speed adjustments like on Digitigrade. Did you know it started at 106 BPM and gained 28 more throughout the mix? The idea was to start from a mellow, disco‐like vibe and move to a more, uh, pie‐eyed pace by the end. I detoured instead and included a couple of nods to one of my favourite mixes of all time, Sasha’s Involver. Then I stuck a mashup mix I’d done at the beginning, and the ending was something that caught my ear at the last minute and had to be included as well. Though it started off and ended up roughly where I planned, Digitigrade still felt like it was all over the place—but I learned a lot by making it. I’m generally pleased with the way it came out, all things considered.

But this time around, I’m genuinely pleased with the result—mostly because it was unplanned. A couple weeks ago I was messing around with the DJ software I’d used for the last mix along with whatever I could find on my computer to practice with. Things evolved from there, and I ended up with just about 45 minutes of me essentially goofing around. My mindset was one of but will it blend? I tidied up after.

It reminded me, oddly, of learning to ride a bicycle. I had been instructed on how to ride one a few times, but to no avail—I remember always almost falling over. I don’t believe there was anything fundamentally incorrect about the way I was being taught—I just wasn’t getting it. It wasn’t until one day, when I had no one showing me, that I figured out how to ride a bicycle without falling over—eventually. I fell over a lot that afternoon as well. I bounced my chest off the handlebars a few times, once so badly I experienced the sensation of not being able to breathe properly. I’d never felt that before, so I actually ended up learning two things by the end of the day.

Similarly, I had been instructed on how to mix music together a few times, but it never really landed until now, when I’ve had the opportunity to quietly figure it out at my own pace.

And if this all sounds like too many words and not enough music, consider this the release party for the album, and I’m just another MC who won’t get off the mic. If I’m pretending to have an audience for these mixes, then I’m pretending to have launch events for them as well. It’s just more practice.

That said, I might take a little break from mixing. While it was really excellent to have something I could eagerly work on for hours at a time, day after day, there are some other creative projects I would like to spend as much time on and with as much singular dedication. Kerouac wrote the first draft of On the Road in three weeks. I don’t know what I’d be capable of writing in three weeks, but there’s only one way to find out—handlebars to the chest be damned.

Here’s mix number three in the meantime.

Track List

Fasten Your Seatbelt — Pendulum ft. The Freestylers
Intruder — Armin van Buuren ft. M.I.K.E
Ghosts’n’Stuff (Original Instrumental) — Deadmau5
Umbrella Beach – Owl City
Love You More – Armin van Buuren ft. Racoon
Wall of Sound (Parc Mix) – Airbase ft. Justine Suissa
Superfabulous (RS Edition) – BT
Purple Haze – Mesh
Children – Robert Miles
Tears After the Rainbow (2020) – Planet Funk

Digitigrade

One more for the road.

Back in August, I made Transformer. It was part mix tape, part dj set, and part something else. It was the something else part which made it the most challenging to classify—that and my abhorrence of labels in general when it comes to matters of expression. If it were possible to take years of thoughts and feelings, as well as all the observations in between, and then distill them into a single blog post, what would it look like? Easy: it would look like Transformer, an hour of music.

I’ve been at it again, musically, but this time it’s something a little more traditional: a 45 minute dj set. It’s a recording of a live performance from my living room on New Year’s Eve. It was my largest audience to date despite an incredibly exclusive guest list. Crowd estimates were upwards of one cat—whom I understand slept through most of it.

To further simulate a performance in real life—as 2020 dragged itself out of frame—I agreed with myself there would be just one recording attempt. I could practice all I wanted, but it was all or nothing after that. My first album was produced from the extreme comfort of a studio over a few days. My second would be produced all at once in less than an hour.

But why? Why would I do that to myself? It’s completely unnecessary. It’s way too much stress. And for what? I’m not even getting a cut of the cover or bar for my effort.

It’s all one take, but took a few takes. So that’s my 2020 compromise. And I left in some of the mistakes, including a massive one! But that’s my 2020 realism.

This is a club affair, so each track does play into the next. It’s supposed to be danced to, so the beat is more constant, and there is a touch of relentlessness to it. Under‐powered speakers need not apply. I engineered the file to be loud and be turned up loud, so there’s no clipping this time—life’s nash‐tastic enough as it is.

Track List

Rabbit Facts (Legoshi Mix) — Grand National
High Above the Clouds — Astronaut Ape
Talk Amongst Yourselves (Involver Mix) — Grand National
Pain Is My Relief — Airwave
Belong (Sasha Remix & Prankster Edit) — Spooky
This World Is Watching Me — Rank 1 & Kush
Shivers (Redlight Dub) — Susana & Alex M.O.R.P.H.
Soar — Eco

Same as with Transformer, listening is by request only for the time being. Again, most of this awkwardness stems from my intense desire for privacy, so if I know who you are then there’s a good chance you already know how to contact me, or perhaps you know someone who knows how to contact me.

There’s no need to listen too hard to this album, but dancing is suggested and strongly recommended. It’s been a tough one.

Happy New Year.

2020: In Review

Yes—it’s that time of year, again. Let’s just get it over with.

January

I was genuinely excited about the start of the year. There was no mistaking it for anything other than a year to mark the beginning of the future. Gone were the tedious pronunciations of the earlier years of the millennia. Did I have to acknowledge all the numbers—like I was writing a cheque—as in the year two thousand and eight? With an and? Years don’t have ands, and the future doesn’t use cheques. So clunky. Or what about twenty‐oh‐eight? What was that? Did anyone ever say that? Or the ‘aughts? Is this a hundred years ago? And the linguistic travesty awaiting the awkward teen years: the twenty‐teens? Abysmal.

It was the start of the year 2020 in January. It was now twenty‐twenty. The year finally sounded correct. The future was here. And I couldn’t have been happier. Let’s do this.

February

Okay—so things were not really going as smoothly as expected, mostly because the unexpected is traditionally not smooth, and yes—by definition—there’s always an amount of the unexpected present in the future. But, on the bright side, there was Leap Day to look forward to, a holiday I constructed for my own amusement because I didn’t think the day had received proper acknowledgement for being amazing.

It literally takes four years to create Leap Day, conjured out of nothing more than the second version of a still not so precise calendar. And then sometimes Leap Day isn’t a day and takes another four years to arrive. But it’s not a catastrophe, because it was all known in advance—it was just everything else that wasn’t. Life’s on the edge as a pandemic goes global. But it’ll be okay. Just grin and bear it.

Marpril? Munuly? Augustemvober!

A’ight—fuck it. I’m out.

See you in 2021.

Bullies

I’m sadly fluent in their language.

I was a new kid in a new school in a new town in Central Ontario. I was in Grade 9, my first year of high school. I’d started attending more than a few days after all the other students, so I didn’t get a locker assessment near anyone in my homeroom class—not that it mattered much. I didn’t know anyone at the school.

After a couple of weeks a student I only ever saw when he was using his locker beside me started leaving his locker open in a way which would block access to mine. Previously understood proper locker etiquette had taught me it was perfectly acceptable in that scenario to move his locker door silently and politely out of the way. As long as I didn’t push the encroaching door past the midpoint this allowed us both unimpeded and simultaneous access to our lockers. Or at least, that’s how it worked where I was from. I’d learned how to use a locker in another province, but I observed other students doing just as much without issue at my new school. It all went without saying.

This pattern of me having to move his locker door continued. I thought nothing of it as he was always at his locker first since I had longer to walk to get to mine. I assumed he was just opening up his locker with gusto and was either perfectly fine with me moving the door after the fact or oblivious to the entire situation. Either way, everything seemed fine.

Then he started pushing his locker door back toward my locker, blocking it after I’d gotten it open. The first few times I initially thought it was an accident because it would coincide with him moving things in and out of his locker. I’d give his door a little nudge if I needed to, but then he would push it back. And again, I thought it was all accidental. It was getting into heavier coat weather, and I assumed it was the locker door being brushed by bulkier material. But no—it was becoming a regular occurrence. Even though there was clearly enough space for both our lockers to be used at the same time, he was making it clear there was only space for him to use his locker on his time.

To reinforce this he started standing closer to my locker while his was open. He’d move a bit out of the way when he noticed I was there, just enough so I could still get to mine. But then the next day he’d move closer. And then a little closer the day after that. He’d also started moving a little bit less out of my way as well, all while continuing to push his locker door back toward me whenever he could. I would keep returning his door to the midpoint, as per proper locker etiquette, but it was all or whatever he could get as far as he was concerned. There was no midpoint to be had.

This went on and on, day after day. And I said nothing. But I told myself I didn’t really need to. Aside from the bizarre back and forth with his locker door and peculiar personal space power play, I could still get what I needed in and out of my locker. And besides, previous experiences with school administrations and difficult students had taught me not to waste my time by talking about it—the schools I went to generally didn’t give a shit about stuff like that, and I wasn’t stupid enough to out myself at this school by saying something and expect the result to be any different.

However, I broke my silence the day I found him standing directly in front of my locker.

“‘Scuse me,” I said. “Gotta get to my locker.”

I gestured in a pointing a manner, as if he might have been unaware my locker was beside his after all this time. He slowly moved out the way, but only after pausing just long enough for me to think he wasn’t going to. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at me as he kept talking with his friends.

He repeated this new behaviour over the next few days—but each time he took just that much longer to start moving, and moved just that much slower once he did. I knew what was coming by this point. One day he wasn’t going to move.

That day arrived with a twist. He’d opened his locker, blocking mine with the door as before, but instead of standing in my way, he was leaning on my locker with his back against the open door of his. I walked up to him as he posed. His legs were crossed at his ankles, his arms folded at his chest.

“Hey—gotta get to my locker. If you could… please,” I said, pointing pointlessly.

Nothing.

“Come on, man. I just wanna grab my lunch.”

He stared through me. Silence.

I stared back at him. My eyes made the request one more time, with a subtextual I’ve had enough thrown in as a warning. This had now been going in some form or another for almost two months.

No motion.

I moved fast. Without breaking my gaze I grabbed him by his collar and twisted the fabric up in my hand, yanking him by his shirt toward me as I stepped back. He lost his balance as I pulled us together. Using my other hand I flung his locker door out of my way. It crashed shut just before I used my entire body to slam him back up against the row of lockers. I broke eye contact as his head bounced off the metal doors with a thud.

He said nothing. He did nothing. And no one else in the hall seemed to notice.

I let go of his shirt, opened my locker, emptied its contents into my backpack, took my lock, and left.

I walked to the office to request a new locker. There was one available near the library, convenient as I would spend all my free time there. It was a locker at the end of a row as well—with plenty of room to share between me and my new locker neighbour, a neighbour who understood proper locker etiquette.

I never saw the other student again.