Greetings! Here’s Disco Droppings sonic journey into Recess Festival2015 in Tonasket, Washington. Love this name first of all, reminds me of that rad cartoon from my childhood and of course, all those times of freedom in elementary school. Fitting cause that’s just the vibe they are going to create, check their description! Happy to lift up these artists, and salutes to everyone on the roster, all planning to attend and of course the crew organizing the shenanigans. I’ll be one year older, and what a way to celebrate. Charging up energy..
Catch this lovely lady tonight [3.13] at Kremwerk. Let’s jump into our conversation on dBfest 2014, late late nights and her return to Seattle..
DD Hello there Avalon! Welcome to Disco Droppings, how are ya?
AE Doing good, chilling in Arizona right now having some family time, gearing up for a big weekend.
DD Now I first saw you play at Decibel Festival 2014’s dB After Hours over at Kremwerk, which also featured Scratcha DVA (with a surprise Kode9 b2b set), Lincolnup and Ben Tactic. It takes a special feel to hold a crowd super late into the night, and I was totally captivated by your DJ set. You had a very strong focused presence, and it’s always a good sign when you forget where you are and how tired you might be and just get lost in the energy. How did you feel about that experience?
AE I absolutely love those kind of late nights where you’re not confined to time, the energy curves into an infinite amount. I had a great time, got to go in a lot of different directions. Plus the craziness of dB fest and all the out-of-towners added a lot of extra spice.
DD I haven’t gotten the chance to play much outside my home base in Seattle. I’m curious about how your travels affect your mindset with music? Compared to when you were more stationary.
AEIt’s definitely a challenge to asses the crowd/club/scene in a new city you’ve never been to before. Got to be extra on your toes while still bringing a cohesive atmosphere and idea to the night. Especially in Europe where an hour flight means a completely different culture, language.
DDCybernetic Edits is a nifty little site hosting these free new remixes of yours. What drew you to these artists for your reworks? My eyes widened when I saw Technotronic!
AE Thanks! I play a lot of edits, and often have people come up asking what some weird version of a track I played was. And on top of that I’m not the only DJ who does it! This one’s got a Bananarama edit from Derek Opperman, and I’ve got some great stuff in the pipeline from other artists coming up. Some of the best moments I’ve experienced in clubs are special crazy deep edits/remixes/versions of big tracks. We’ve already reached the virtual trainspotting singularity with discogs/youtube/forums/etc, might as well make it easy and fun for people to snag some different cuts.
DD Feelin’ the sass in “Pressure/Quoi!”. What was going through your head when these tracks came together?
AE Pretty straightforward, starting with a strange sample and a kick drum. I made “Pressure” in about a night, never second-guessed any of the voices or sounds, and “Quoi!” I thought no one would like because of the goofy vocal sample, but I still play both nearly every show.
DD You make your return to Kremwerk on Friday, March 13th, how’s the energy gonna’ be this time around?
AEI’m so pumped to come back! I love Seattle, it was actually the first non-SF DJ gig I played back on Valentine’s Day 2014 I believe. As always, I make no assumptions and take every show individually, but I have good vibes in store ❤
We are counting down to the next “Disco Droppings Presents” at Kremwerk. I’ve got performing artist Goodwin here to talk about his musical shenanigans. A personal favorite from the Motor night, you can see his live Techno set this Thursday. It’s a pleasure to join forces..
DD So with music, you started out more experimental. What drew you to Techno?
GSo the strange but true story of my musical progression is that I was actually really into electronic music in high school during the 90s “electronica” wave. I started out buying stuff related to the Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, etc. and progressed to some amazing (and some totally crap) compilations that really opened my mind. From there I fell in as resident nerd in a group of much cooler kids who were DJing at my friend’s house and just getting deep on all kinds of shit. I found jungle/drum & bass pretty quickly after that, and amassed a decent collection of 12″s while working and was still living at home with my folks. But by the time I moved to Seattle I had gotten a lot more interested in punk and hardcore music. Mainly because as someone underage I could legitimately participate in it and it was really pro-youth empowerment. And those elements were really absent from the, at that point, heavily commercialized Bay Area rave scene, or at least my experience of it. By the time I got to Seattle that sort of naturally led me to start volunteering at The Vera Project, and from there helping my friends do experimental pop, noise, and free jazz shows. So at that point my musical education started all over again, which was fantastic.
A lot of factors drew me back to House and Techno as I got more and more into playing experimental music. A few of my peers had been making “noise” music that referenced a lot of stuff in the Chain Reaction and Raster-Noton universes and while I love that music, it wasn’t the exact territory I wanted to tread in. Around this time re-discovered a cache of mp3s on my hard drive of stuff like Mr. Fingers, Model 500, Ron Hood, Frankie Knuckles, and Phuture and it all really drew me in all over again. And from there, these funny coincidences kept happening that kind of drew me further and further into dance music again.
DD I see I see. We’ve both been encouraged by Dave Segal over at The Stranger. YourRamparts EPwas described by him as “tonally and melodically advanced”, quite the compliment! What’s an influence that you would give that same description?
G A really foundational influence for me is Juan Atkins, especially the Model 500 stuff. I think of any major influence of “GOODWIN” that’s probably who pops into my head the most as someone that phrase would apply to. So many of his songs hit it home for me even after so many years of listening to them. On songs like “Night Drive” or “No UFOs” especially, it’s really the totality of those songs that strike me. For me, every element in those songs is a hook and that’s always been impressive to me. There’s so much craft there. Other folks that I can think of right now are probably artists like Fela Kuti, Meredith Monk, Talking Heads, Steve Reich, Kraftwerk, and Curtis Mayfield. For me an important part to GOODWIN is making music that’s rhythmically dense with lots of interlocking melodic parts, and I definitely think about those folks a lot in that context.
DD Love it. I first saw you play at the Motor night in Seattle. Kremwerk hosts, and that vibe is one of my favorites currently in the club. What do you enjoy most about Motor? For people unaware, maybe you could also give a quick summary of the monthly..
GFor sure. MOTOR is a monthly club night and label based in Seattle that was founded by Sam Melancon in 2012 and is now run by Sam and a collective of folks. I can’t speak for Sam, really, but MOTOR more or less evolved out of a tendency in the last few years for artists with backgrounds in experimental or drone or psychedelic music to flirt with rhythms from house, techno, italo, and other dance musics. I think what I like the most about MOTOR is how broad its scope of music is, and just how deep of trippers the general audience is. It’s people who are fucking enthusiastic about good somewhat strange dance music. I have to give it up to Sam and crew for just making a space for folks to come in and play in Seattle and be well received and have shit be done right.
DD So, going into performing, what’s your live setup consist of?
GIt’s been pretty consistent lately, though I just had my laptop take over sequencing and drum duties for my ailing MPC. But generally it’s MPC or laptop on drums and sequences and then a Roland TB-303 clone I built, a Volca Keys, a Yamaha TX81Z, and then lots of FX boxes, both pedal and rack. Mixing and EQ and FX routing plays a big role in my live sets because things like delays can help add that rhythmic density that I talked about that earlier and modulation FX add that cosmic element a bit.
DD Well I am very excited to have you at the next Disco Droppings Presents. Till then!
It’s Monday, and the dust slowly settles in Seattle. Decibel Festival comes to a close, and there was a lot to experience over the past five days. I felt the full spectrum of emotion, but for me things ended a bit too soon. After bank issues on Saturday night, and late late parties at Kremwerk, Rebar and Monkey Loft, I took a suppppppppper long walk back to my car. Finally crawled to my vehicle, headed home and hit the bed. Unfortunately when I woke up, I noticed that it was Monday morning, and I had missed all the Sunday shows. (゜-゜) Oops. Luckily, Nark Magazine has a show ready to go tonight (FB Event), and this headliner is more than equipped to pick up the pieces and keep the vibes movin’.
Listening to the latest incarnation of Hercules & Love Affair, a now decade long music project, there are moods people of all sorts can connect with. If your more of a solo dancer like me, there’s this strong, independent energy. You’re going there to have this personal experience with the music and deal with some shit. I don’t have much experience going to clubs or shows with a significant other, or finding one there, but on that level you’ll be set as well. Dark romance and a sexy feel comes through easily with Hercules.
I love their attitude of turning hardship into elegance. Queer collaborators of all sorts have come together over the years under the guidance of Andy Butler with different stories to tell. Through teamwork and compromise, Hercules & Love Affair has cemented all these emotions in a fun way that’s still moving.
The band are joined by Wolf & Lamb’s Navid Izadi, Bright Light Bright Light and Nark tonight at Neumos.
Don’t miss Bardo:Basho at Kremwerk this Thursday,July 31st in Seattle. “Disco Droppings Presents” is in its second month, with Basho aka Kirsten Thom playing alongside Zoolab (debut DJ set), Sphyramid (live set, 7 Deadly Records) and myself. Kirsten has produced brand new music just for this show! She mentioned it being very rhythmic, can’t wait!
Let’s get to our conversation..
DDHii Kirsten. We’ve known each other for a short while now. I did a live dj mix and interview on your show for Hollow Earth Radioback in May. Thanks again for that. How would describe your show?
BB Hi Trevor! That was really fun. My radio show emphasizes experimental electronic music, mostly on the darker tip. I play lots of techno, and some ambient, drone, and noise stuff. I also try to play as much local music as possible, and I make sure to represent female producers.
DDThere are a bunch of sub groups in Seattle for electronic music. These often have many similarities to me, with differences in the genres and styles focused on for each crew’s parties. What’s the crew like that you usually find yourself with? That would be secondnatureyeah?
BB I have a lot of friends who work on secondnature, who focus on hypnotic techno. I help out from time to time, and attend almost all of their events. That is probably the crew I am closest with. I co-curate an electronic music event series called Elevator, which tends to feature avant-garde and noise-oriented stuff. I also go to Motor as much as I can, along with Sweatbox parties..and I’ve been really impressed with some of the more post-punk and industrial-leaning events like False Prophet and Lust Strength, which both take place at Kremwerk.
DD Something told me to put on Blade Runner as visuals to this LP Samplerof yours. Fit together perfectly. Are you a fan of the film?
BB The last time I saw Bladerunner was a long time ago. I remember enjoying it, but I think it’s time for me to watch it again. I will take that as a compliment!
DD You should. This is your debut album correct? I’m curious about the path that’s led you here as a producer…
BB The album I recently finished (but have not yet released) is my very first as Bardo:Basho. I’ve been building my production skills for the past three years, and it’s been a slow process. I started out trying to make techno, but then I found that more vocal-oriented, home-listening type music was more expressive for me. Now that I know a little bit more about sound design, I’m making my way toward a more dance floor friendly sound. Before making electronic music, I sang and played synthesizer and rhythm guitar in a few bands, and played classical piano on my own.
DD “Meditative” is one of the hashtags on the LP sampler. Is this something you practice? Whenever I see you there’s a calm, collected energy that I sense.
BB Thank you! I don’t sit down and meditate regularly, but I try to always be present in the moment, and focus on my breathing for a few minutes a day.
DD You’ll be playing this month’s “Disco Droppings Presents” at Kremwerk on Thursday, July 31st. This will be a live set from you. Any hints you can give readers as to what you’re going for?
BB This set will be very rhythmic – think bongos and kettle drums – with layers upon layers of vocal loops, and a touch of acid synth. Thanks so much for having me! I’m really looking forward to Thursday.
dd 