⬆️ this is how I felt when I woke up to this DM in my IG inbox:

This, kids is why you don’t write “on-sale now” substacks late at night. On the plus side maybe ya’ll are also looking forward to me coming back in ‘27 ha.

ACTUAL dates

7 October 2026 —Vancouver, BC @ VIFF - SIGN UP FOR UPDATES
9 October 2026 — Durham, NC @ Good Moon Festival *Sold out*
11 October 2026 — New York, NY @ Gramercy Theatre *selling fast!
14 October 2026 — Los Angeles, CA @ Regent Theater

Sorry for the double email!!!

I’m sat here writing this to you as I listen to some Australian ambient for a new mix I’m making…to tell you that I’m bringing my Radio Hour to North America in October and tickets are on sale now!!

Haven’t heard about my Radio Hour? I don’t blame you - I put out a lot of different things, so allow me to tell you all about it.

ON SALE NOW!
7 October 2026 —Vancouver, BC @ VIFF - SIGN UP FOR UPDATES
9 October 2026 — Durham, NC @ Good Moon Festival *Sold out*
11 October 2026 — New York, NY @ Gramercy Theatre*
14 October 2026 — Los Angeles, CA @ Regent Theater*

*Presale tickets sold out

Tickets

Radio Hour was born in Hamburg - November 2024. I was the creator in residence at Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and they quite literally said “we want to hold a ticketed event with you at the end of the residency, what would you like to do?”.

Up until then, I’d done some pop up DJ sets in LA, New York, Sydney and Melbourne, but nothing ticketed, nothing that charged money. I wasn’t particularly ready to ask people to put down their hard earned cash to see me…do…something. But the challenge was set!

I thought - what could I do. I reflected upon past learnings:

• I like DJing, but I wasn’t a particularly good one

• I also don’t play dance music, so my DJ sets were somewhat…”eclectic”

• Interestingly, whenever I DJed, people would either come up to chat with me, or asked “when are you going to speak?” - which confused me at the time, until I realised that I’d built a relationship with my audience online TALKING, not DJing

I took these learnings, and wrote down: “what do people like about my videos?”

• My music recommendations

• My analysis, insights and discussions around music/culture/industry

• The fact that I don’t take myself too seriously…?

And out of that, the bones of Radio Hour began to take shape. And since its debut, the show has been to Hamburg for a second time, Berlin, Paris, London, Sydney and Melbourne. Last week I performed Radio Hour at the Sydney Opera House. Wild!

So…what is it?

A lovely message no?

Radio Hour…is kind of a talk show? A variety show? A radio show - on stage. It’s me - sharing music I’d only play behind closed doors. It’s me providing “op-eds”, debating audience members on somewhat absurd music topics, while also inviting some surprise guests on stage to chat and perform. So far I’ve had Folk Bitch Trio, Reggie Watts, Wilson Tanner and a Mariachi band!

I really believe this show is special. It’s vulnerable, funny, unpredictable and a night where music fans can unite over the love of music. A rare thing!

So join me!

I’m hitting up Vancouver, North Carolina, New York and LA this time around. But I’ll be back soon, as early demand has told me there are many cities that would like to have me! Lmk in the comments if you’re one of them!

Tickets

Bonus Behind the Scenes

I even filmed a fun video to promote it below:

• I thought “American muscle with a radio element” would be a fun concept

• I tried googling/hiring a muscle car, but they were all “wedding cars” that charge $2000 for half a day!

• In the end, we found an actual drag-car and drag racer/mechanic who was happy to sit on some folding chairs for 90 minutes and watch us film this thing for $250 ha!

• When he did a burnout at the end (no it wasn’t me - that thing has more horsepower than my “hatchback footed” self can handle), gravel flew up and hit me in the neck. I was…shook

“How am I meant to fly from Sydney to Brisbane, then Vancouver, then immediately sit down with one of the most electrifying artists of the moment…and be coherent?”

And that’s what I did. A day behind schedule, and a bag full of batteries, I flew 12,500 kilometres and spent thirty-six hours in Vancouver, Canada, and hung out with Fred Again.. - the British electronic music producer/DJ/phenomenon in an apartment I borrowed, so I could listen to music with him, before flying home. I think I saw four rooms TOTAL on my trip.

1. the concert venue

2. my hotel room

3. the borrowed apartment

4. the restaurant where I had pizza before leaving for the airport

The fruits of my airplane-odoured-labour just dropped on my YouTube here, with more behind the scenes on my Patreon here. But I thought it was worth capturing some of our conversation in writing, as Fred shared many thoughts I’d not heard him speak on prior - from hypnosis, to his classical training, and Moby. Let’s dig in!

“I know Beethoven’s right and I can’t wait to get there”

The song that Fred chose to play me:

Fred: So the reason why I wanted to play this is ‘cause— this is one of the late Beethoven string quartets and this is No. 15 in A minor. The adagio, the slow movement.

My classical teacher, when I was younger, was this guy called Mr. Baird or “Mr. Whitebeard”. He had this beautiful majestic white beard. He was like 75. He met his wife Penny at the Royal College of Music when they were both 19. I met them when he was 75 and we had 10 years of learning together until he passed away. And we’d go down to the basement, which had these two rooms that they’d both teach in. He had one with his piano and all his papers everywhere. She had one with her piano and all her papers everywhere. Incredible couple. His son still teaches my dad drums actually.

Derrick: No way

Fred: Yeah! For Mr. Whitebeard, who loved Beethoven more than anything - Beethoven was the absolute king for him.

The thing that really stayed with me, is that Mr. Whitebeard was talking about Beethoven, and how he had such a deference and a love for him and his music — he’d listened to it and played it all of his life. And he was like, “but I still don’t understand the late string quartets.” He’s like, “I still haven’t connected with them.”

But he was saying what he said at the age of 82 when he was saying this to me. He was like, “I know that Beethoven’s right. I just can’t wait—I can’t wait to find out.”

Derrick: What’s he trying to say?

Fred: I think he was like “I still haven’t found my point of connection with them.” But he wasn’t saying “I don’t like them.” He was saying “I know Beethoven’s right and I can’t wait to get there.”

Derrick: I love that though. I love that kind of openness to understand.

Can I say though as well, you talking about classical music is an absolute pleasure. Because I come from such a place of ignorance, I didn’t study it, I don’t know it, I just hear some things and I’m like “I like that, I don’t know why.” But you’re…you’re a student student.

Fred: I want to be able to—I want to learn things that Keith Jarrett plays.

Derrick: Ah, lovely.

Fred: Yeah, like the Köln Concert and stuff like that.

“I think a lot about things that are primal”

My song choice for Fred:

Derrick: I’m playing this for you because I want to know a bit about atmosphere and ambience. I feel like a lot of the soul of your music comes from that kind of thing.

Fred: I think about this a lot. I think a lot about things that are primal. Like, a four-to-the-floor is a very tribal feeling. For thousands and thousands of years, humans have probably made that—that beating thing. And similarly, I think drones, a lot of the stuff I do is born from starting with a drone and I feel like there’s something coded within us to find peace in that.

Maybe somewhere in nature…if you’re sat by a waterfall there is a drone of sorts there. I think there’s something in finding the drone that can sit at the heart of the piece. Often I’ll make the vocal around it and then it’ll just stay in there for the whole song and it just gives this kind of gluing bed that it can all sit on that I really like.

Derrick: Max Richter, who came on the show, told me that like he uses subsonics because it’s a frequency that occurs in thunder and waves.

Fred: One of the great subsonics is the low note in the first piece of Sleep by Max. The timing of that is just—it’s one of the heaviest drops ever.

“A song’s never finished, it just comes out”

Fred: We were chatting yesterday about things having SoundCloud energy. I love it when things can just be put out and feel spontaneous and present.

Derrick: Is that personal or is it a reaction to the industry?

Fred: I don’t know, I think it’s just how I’ve always liked it. Like when people play something at the show that night and then they say, “Oh, I put it on SoundCloud now and it’s there.”

I feel like there’s a mix you get on SoundCloud. It doesn’t make any sense as a thought because it’s just a place you put the file. I would say in the same way that FruityLoops has a sound of the drums. I feel like there’s a nice roughness to mixes on SoundCloud that has a really nice DIY feel to it.

Derrick: I was talking about it with Paris Texas recently when they came on. I think we all miss that era where it was just kind of loose. It wasn’t like “pre-save now”.

Fred: One thing that’s kind of a blessing and a curse with streaming now is that you can change the file after it’s out. And I get caught in that sometimes. Even after a song is out, I’ll be working on the mix for the next nine months just making tweaks.

And I’ll just swap it. And I don’t think that’s good for…I think it’s good to have to draw a line in the sand.

Derrick: Do you tell people?

Fred: No, I just do it. But it’ll be small things, I’ll be like “I want 50hz less on the kick drum so there’s more space for the sub”.

Derrick: I guess that’s why people used to do remasters, to “fix it later”…

Fred: I think me and Sonny (Skrillex) both get caught in this. I think it’s probably good for people who make music to have a hard line in the sand. Whoever said that line of “a song’s never finished, it just comes out”.

“I like it if I can say it in a simple sentence, that I could say to my sister or my niece”

Derrick: I was speaking to a lot of your team about everything that’s going on (performing ten shows in ten cities in ten weeks). Is this instinct? Do you see what everyone else is doing and don’t want to do that?

Fred: I’m not sure what we’re motivated by there. I like having a sense of structure even if you then fuck with it a bit. For example just saying “10 songs in 10 weeks”— I like having that as starting point of something that I’m like, “Okay, that’s what that’s going to feel like and then we can play a show each Friday and then we could maybe try and play the show back-to-back with the person we made the song with.” Having some sort of a road ahead that you can kind of “go”.

I like it if I can just say it in a simple sentence, that I could say to my sister or my niece and it’s really contained, even if you then deviate from the rules or whatever.

Derrick: I feel like your team really responds to that too because you’ve got the constraints of “this is what we’re doing” and now what else can we do?

Fred: Yeah. And now it’s like, “Okay, now what do we actually do?” (laughs)

Derrick: Let’s shoot a music video! In the gig!” Which is what happened last night.

“I love how the composers approach it from a place of real discipline”

The song Fred chose to play me next:

Fred: These are some unbelievable Bulgarian folk singers.

The reason why I’m interested to play it is, when we were talking about the things that feel tribal and primal, and folk music that can be passed down…the thing that blows my mind about this music is it’s so intricate. I don’t understand.

If you hear “Blowin’ in the Wind,” you can understand how you could easily just sit by the fire and learn that song and that could be passed down. This music though, I don’t understand how it’s being passed down. It must be that there’s things that are intuitive and natural if you’re raised in this culture that are totally intricate and complex to me. ‘Cause that (referring to a part in the song) is not a chord you get [in western styles of music].

Derrick: Wow, I love that.

Fred: The harmonies are the closest thing I can think about in relation to Rachmaninoff or something. And that is super-headsy, intellectual thought-through music that one man wrote. So I don’t understand how this level of complexity and intricacy can be like passed down.

Derrick: I guess it’s being together and learning it together and you feel your place.

Fred: Yeah.

Derrick: How does the classical Fred come into the—the artist now?

Fred: I think it’s probably kind of reactionary. I love particularly the romantic composers like Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev and Debussy and Beethoven.

Derrick: Were you into them early?

Fred: I sort of did that on the piano and tuned percussion from 8 to 18. And then I went to a classical music college.

There’s something good in the mindset of classical music in terms of — I love how the composers approach it from a place of real discipline. You get the odd rock star like Mozart, but most of them like Bach just woke up and went to work every day in honour of serving his God, but there’s this real dignified discipline to it that I really admire.

“Oh, forever. I want to be here forever now”.

My next song choice:

Derrick: Let’s change it up, let’s riff off this (Beethoven) [plays Moby]

Fred: This is a huge tune. And it’s all about this piece of polyphony here [the second piano enters the song]. It’s definitely inspired by Philip Glass, I would guess?

Derrick: Totally

Fred: I remember when I heard that and I was like 14 at school, my friend played it to me. And as soon as that other piano part came in I was like, “Oh, forever. I want to be here forever now”. Moby’s unreal at the cinematic feeling.

There’s just that one slice of intricacy between those two pianos and then all the ideas that support it and host it are all beautifully simple. They’re all just serving that one (piano part) — that’s a drone to me.

Derrick: Cinema.

Derrick: That’s it. That’s the show.

Fred: That’s it! Thank you so much Derrick, that was such a joy.

Derrick: Enjoy that?

Fred: Lovely, a lovely way to spend any day.

Thanks for reading this newsletter! I hope you find time to watch the full video. If you’d like to watch a behind the scenes on my Patreon, I’m gifting you the first month free if you use this link.

You can also subscribe to this newsletter below - I post here…sometimes ;).

Much love,

Derrick

Subscribe now

The conversation between Tobias and I came about after he wrote a now viral newsletter titled “Why Are All Pop Star Interviews Like That? — Thoughts on Jake Shane and the stanification of media”, an exploration of creator-led interview formats where the interviewer absolutely luuurves everything about their guest.

The newsletter was brilliant and had me thinking about my own show, Solid Air, where I have welcomed guests such as Lorde, Jamie xx and Ichiko Aoba into my home.

“Am I part of this new wave of new media, soft-ball press stops? No? But kind of?”

I DMed Tobias this thought, and off the back of some friendly messages, we set up a chat to speak on it more. Touching on:

• Solid Air and its place in music media

• Stan culture and the state of music journalism

• Whether there’s enough or too much music criticism

It was fun to explore these ideas in a safe space.

Please enjoy, and do consider subscribing to Tobias if you enjoy the interview!

Gen Zero

“I don't want a gimmick. I want to talk about the music."

Hello, dear readers…

Read more

9 months ago · 21 likes · Tobias Hess

BY THE WAY IF YOU ARE IN SYDNEY OR MELBOURNE:

I just announced a run of solo shows titled Derrick Gee’s Radio Hour (seen in London, Berlin, Paris, Hamburg). Tickets are already creeping closer to selling out, so be quick, I’d love to see you there! Tickets on sale here.

For the most part, music media and content are pretty ugly. I’m guilty of contributing to that circus. Was it ever not? Perhaps it was prettier when we used to read in order to discover new music. What a concept.

But with blogs, listicles and now short-form vertical videos - music discovery has been conveniently shrunk down and shrink wrapped into pocketable Pokémon booster pack-style bites, chock full of memes, rapid-fire recs and the odd shiny Charizard.

Personally, I’ve both benefited from this new form of music media, and struggled with it. Music, something so sacred to me that I hosted hundreds of radio show episodes for hardly anyone to hear, quickly became the thing I built my career on...reaching millions of eyeballs every month. I began to question: should something this sacred to me become something I flog for views? Honestly, it scared me.

So today, I invite you inside my mental gymnasium - a place where I wrestle with a passion project that became a career, and led me somewhere unexpected. Somewhere beautiful.

Mr. xx

I’m not going to start this story way back in January 2022, when I posted my first TikTok1 and quickly gained a following for both my interest in hifi and my obsession with music.

Instead, this story starts in August 2023, when I launched a weekly video radio show on Patreon2 called Solid Air - an evolution of my eleven year old weekly radio show Finetooth Radio, but in video form. A home-brewed radio show for the modern age (i.e in 4K), every week I iterated Solid Air - adding more cameras, a record player and interactive segments.

Then, one week last November, both XL Recordings UK and XL’s Australian rep reached out, and shifted the course of my “content creation” career forever. An email excerpt:

“We will have on-ground time with Jamie xx during his Australian tour in December. He’s available in Sydney on Monday 9th December if you’d be interested in teeing up a chat.”

A chat…a chat…what would be my version of a chat? My response: “why doesn’t he come over and join the show in my office? Tell him to bring his USB”.

Ok wait wait wait. I’m getting ahead of myself.

The audacity to invite an artist into my home, the same artist who was booked to perform to five thousand people in a warehouse that same day, wasn’t some delusional request of an internet influencer. It was actually a perfectly timed opportunity to further beta-test an instinct I’d had for a while. Let me explain:

Ugly Pretty

Unlike many shows, I like to experiment out in the open. Now, I don’t call them experiments publicly - but before I can fully commit to anything, I need proof. Proof that I like the idea, proof that I find it compelling, proof that there’s some longevity in it, proof that it’s original, proof that it’s me, and proof that it works.

Some experiments I’ve tried over the years:

• A weekly one-man podcast (2022-23, 52 episodes)3

• An interview series with some of the most interesting figures in music (2024, 10 episodes)4

• A festival “music journalist with a mic”(2024)5

To a greater or lesser extent, these were all fine pieces of “content”. But I wasn’t convinced that I was bringing anything uniquely me to the table, but rather a lesser example of things I’d seen in the past. So I dug deeper.

The Erika de Casier Interview

In search of a show closer to a true expression of me, when offered the opportunity to interview Danish artist Erika de Casier, here’s what I pitched to her manager via Instagram DM:

“What I had in mind was to simply hang out and ask questions - friendly and in my manner. I don’t do lists or quizzes, I’m just a fan that wants to hear more about Erika. Nothing formal. The ideal setting would be somewhere not staged, a park or something.”

“Why can’t it just be a hang?” I thought. No questions, no premise, no format, just two people, talking.

So - one mild afternoon in August, Erika and I walked from her hotel to a local park and we ate cake and talked. It was literally just the two of us, two cameras and some lunch-time runners circling the oval.

The St. Vincent Interview

That November, I was asked if I wanted to fly down and interview St. Vincent in Melbourne. Buoyed by my Erika interview, I pitched an evolved experiment.

I called it "talking over music" in my head. The idea of playing music and talking while it was playing felt thrilling to me. We all do it with friends, so why can’t my interview be that also?

A favourite quote comes from a friend of mine in this vlog6, where he said:

HA. It’s true. So - I flew down to Melbourne with a bluetooth speaker, two cameras, and a light, and talked over music with St. Vincent - the first time I’d ever done something of that nature. It felt…closer. Closer to what I was searching for. What exactly was I searching for? A genuine connection over music - rather than a journalistic pursuit for the best, most well researched questions. I’m not your guy for that.

I can see your socks

That live experimentation all lead to welcoming Jamie xx in my office less than a month later. My audacious request of “why doesn’t he come over” was a direct result of trialling new forms of music conversations in real time. I liked talking over music - that was the insight.

And as a strictly “shoes off” household, over the following months I welcomed into my home the socks of XL Recordings’ Richard Russell, Dutch DJ Jyoty, English composer Max Richter and North Carolina’s MJ Lenderman.

All of whom I admire greatly — and all of whom took the time to prepare songs and travel to my house to listen to music for an hour. Richard Russell told a mutual friend that it was his favourite stop on his global press tour. Jamie told me that the show inspired him.

Had I found what I was searching for? Almost. A combination of talking over music, hanging out as “regular people”, a space where I can make people feel comfortable and share music with them - felt like something I could bring all of me to, rather than trying to be someone else I’d seen before. Come to think of it, I bet not having shoes on really helps that comfortability in an interview setting.

But…there was a problem.

My home office was too small. I couldn’t move an inch without hitting a camera lens, nor could I keep my office door closed as it resulted in blocking airflow from my AC unit (apologies Max Richter). As the ever-present beacon of clarity, one day my wife said: “Why don’t you film it out in the main room?”

Oh Lorde

Filming it out in the main room was both a simple but brilliant idea, and a whole new daunting undertaking. To leave the confines of my little office meant moving all my equipment out for each shoot, re-setting it, creating a huge mess in my own house, only to pack it down and re-set it in my office for a livestream the next day.

But it was the right next step, the show needed to grow up. Serendipitously, at the same time that this decision was made, I was gifted three new cameras, which brought a whole new level of quality to the show. So from March to May, I upskilled myself in all these things I had no idea about - full frame sensors, open gate, Blackmagic RAW, patch bays, 2.5GHz vs 5GHz, and prepared for my first guest in the new room…who cancelled on me an hour before I was set to record!!! A blessing in disguise it turned out, as it was a dry run for an email I soon received from Universal Music:

“Lorde?”

A new room, more cameras, wireless mics, a Kiwi pop star, talking over music. The episode with Lorde became an internal challenge to myself. If someone who is capable of selling out arenas globally is willing to come over to my humble home (as one of her three "press stops" in the country), what was I willing to do to meet her on her level?

“What I want is for it to be beautiful”

Following the successful shoot with Ella (aka Lorde), having dumped the files onto a hard drive and uploaded them for my editor Jason to start cutting, I sent him this text:

You see, as I reviewed the raw files, something emerged that I hadn’t expected. Perhaps it was the filmic quality of the cameras, or the intensity of the solo shots. Perhaps it was the new room. Perhaps it was the now signature “hallway shot”. The show suddenly felt different than it ever had before. It had morphed from two lads exchanging songs in my office, into a very real and very vulnerable exchange between two people hoping the other would like their song choices.

All of a sudden, I was in search of “beauty”. Which I’d define as an intimacy, an effortlessness, a charm, a magic, a feeling, a dance, as well as a general visual prettiness. All my experimentation led up to this point, and when it arrived, it asked me to meet it where it had grown to.

I think this text sums it up best:

And the promo in question:

Love is funny, or it's sad
Love is quiet, or it's mad
It's a good thing, or it's bad
But beautiful
Beautiful to take a chance
And if you fall, you fall
And I'm thinking
I wouldn't mind at all

— But Beautiful, 1947. Lyrics by Johnny Burke, perfectly sung by Billie Holiday

The end, for now.

Ps. Guess my next guest!

On the left: me and my trusty grey socks
On the right: …?

Footnotes:

1. Some exciting news and a favour to ask

2. An exclusive playlist and a fun story

3. 11 months of updates in case you forgot I existed

Enough chatting Derrick, it’s been 11 months - get on with it!

1. Firstly, some exciting news and a favour to ask

Last year I developed a live show called Derrick Gee’s Radio Hour that debuted in the city of Hamburg. It sold out within minutes! Why Hamburg? More on that later.

If I am to describe the show, it’s kinda the best bits of what I do online…but offline. Music recommendations, hot takes, community discussions - it’s super fun! And guess what - I’m planning on bringing it to your city! Starting with a mini-tour very VERY soon.

I want you guys to be the first to know, so here’s the favour I’m asking: if you can take just TEN SECONDS to hit the button below or scan the QR code and enter either your email or phone number, so I can let you know when I’m in your city - direct to your inbox!

(I know you’ve submitted your email here, but I don’t know what city you’re in - and if you live in Indiana you probably don’t want emails when I’m, say, in Manila now do you)

👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇PRESS THIS👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

Sign up here

📸📸📸📸📸📸📸📸📸📸📸👇Or scan this👇📸📸📸📸📸📸📸📸📸📸📸📸

That’s it, that’s the ask. You know I don’t ask for favours without giving you anything in return, so ON WITH THE STORY ABOUT FLUTES:

2. An exclusive playlist and a fun story to boot

So the other week I received a mystery package in my PO Box. A cassette tape from Danish neo-RnB artist Erika de Casier. Yes, dear friends, I was “seeded”. A clever marketing strategy to get the word out about a new album with quite funny results: most people who received the tape didn’t have cassette players. Clever clever - seed an album where hardly ANYONE can play it. HA. But fear not, I wasn’t one of those people because I AM AN AUDIO NERD. Target 🎯, hit.

Anywho, I thought it'd be fun to play it on my Twitch livestream (yes I stream on Twitch weekly every Weds night/Thursday morning) - with the permission of Erika’s team of course.

The tape was cool, with some standout tracks, but one sound TICKLED my ear, and I was sent down a rabbit hole:

Ladies and gentlemen, the sound of the 90’s:

If you’re unable to watch the above video because you’re on a crowded bus or at work with a “no headphones” policy - allow me to explain. In one of Erika’s songs, there was a very familiar flute sound that was SO-VERY-90s, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, or where it had been used in the past. To describe the sound to you - imagine that time in the 90’s where Gregorian chants were all the rage, then suddenly the song would break down with a floaty, breathy, dream-like flute solo. Imagine a man, standing atop the watchtower of Enya’s castle, draped up and blowing a song of healing for the surrounding birds. That sound.

“The Enigma Flute”

So down the rabbit hole I went, and first I thought it was called the “Enigma flute”. Why the Enigma flute? Because Enigma, the Romanian-German producer was the one who made this sound his signature, figuratively blowing his flute so hard that his influence still puffs light gusts between the aisles of your favourite pachouli-scented health food store. He had songs like:

And:

Just like a gentle autumn breeze, Enigma has DEFINITELY drifted past your ears at some point in your life. If you press play on the above, you’ll likely go “oh yeah, I know these songs - but I’ve never intentionally listened to them”. He knew what he was doing by calling himself Enigma. Smart, flute blowing German.

(Listening to Enigma as I write this, I kinda fuck with it now?)

But what is it actually? : The “shakuhachi flute” sound found on the Emulator II by E-mu Systems Inc

There are too many synthesisers to count that have left a permanent mark on the music memory part of your DNA. Roland Jupiter-8’s synth brass (e.g. Van Halen’s Jump) or Roland D-550’s pizzagogo sound (e.g. Enya’s Orinoco flow), AND the Emulator II by E-mu Systems.

Mimicking the traditional Japanese bamboo flute called the shakuhachi, I highly doubt that the greasy-bearded developers at E-mu had predicted that their whooshing sound of the orient would become Janet Jackson’s cheat code to atmospheric ambience. But it did. And then some.

So there was only one sane thing left to do: make a playlist

Like Bugs Bunny chasing his carrot down a hole that bore into the earth’s core, on a cool Thursday afternoon, I irrationally and kind of obsessively clicked through the 222 songs that WhoSampled identified as having sampled the Enigma II and began making a playlist of my favourites examples. Did I have better things to do? Yes. And no?

Featuring Naughty by Nature, Janet Jackson, Sade, Enigma and Bobby V, I’m quite happy with the result of this playlist. But no playlist is complete without a cover-art, and I thought it’d be funny if it was a photo of me playing the shakuhachi.

To ChatGPT we go!

Ummm…maybe if he was my home brewing stoner brother? Try again.

WRONG AGAIN. AND WHY ARE MY ARMS SO SHORT? It’s like they kinda get it right but then fuck with it just so I’m forced to upgrade to paid ChatGPT. Never!!

All this to say, here’s the playlist!

A private playlist for your Substack-reading ears (eyes?) only, featuring my favourite finds that feature my favourite sound of the month, the shakuhachi flute synth.

Tidal, Spotify, Apple Music

And finally:

ICYM..the last 11 months

In case you signed up for my email list one day and promptly forgot about me, I’ve been busy! So here are some highlights of what I’ve been up to the last eleven months.

• A classical DJ set at Elbphilhamonie, Hamburg: I am currently the Creator in Residence with stunning concert hall Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg (I’m not there anymore but I filmed loads of content over six weeks that’s still coming out now!). As part of the collaboration, I filmed this set that I’m not only really proud of, but people have quite enjoyed!

• Solid Air - interview series: born out my Patreon, since December of last year I’ve been inviting select musicians over to my house to play music for each other. So far I’ve had Jamie xx, Richard Russell, Jyoty, Max Richter and MJ Lenderman over for a coffee and some music. I’m really proud of this show, because it feels so very me

• My Private Listening Club: Since August 2023 I’ve hosted my weekly video music show on Patreon. It’s a private listening club of sorts. It has since grown to a community of 3000+ people, created the opportunity for me to invite the above guests, and most recently I launched SolidAir.Live, a 24/7 radio station that streams the shows endlessly so that you can just drop in and discover music the old fashioned way, like real radio!

• Twitch: My third ever Twitch stream saw me livestream from a replica of my home office from the middle of two festival grounds over one weekend - streaming for 6 hours each day and interviewing artists like Beabadoobee, JD Valence and Brae and many more. I like to make things hard for myself don’t I? Since then I’ve really enjoyed going live every single week (Wednesdays 4PM PT, 7PM ET or Thursdays 12AM GMT, 9AM AEST) going back to back with the community and generally goofing off

• There’s too much to go over but I’ve had a few massive viral videos, been interviewed on a few podcasts, and was even featured in a German news segment (I can’t find the video, but it was bizarre)

Thanks for reading, miss you guys!!

Hi! It’s Derrick.

How are you?

Some of you are new subscribers (welcome), most of you are from my past super essay days (those were the days…) - to one and all, welcome!

If I may start with this - I value your time and your inbox so this edition is going to be MEATY (or mushroomy, depending on your preferences). I paused on my long essays a while back because I was doing a bit too much, but I wanted to send a newsletter to update you on everything that’s going on in my world, and things I think you’ll be interested to check out. Including:

• Newsletter exclusive: revealing all the guests coming up on my podcast

• Albums I recommend you check out

• Updates from my radio show

• A recap of some videos, articles and interviews you might have missed

Shall we? We shall.

Speaks Volumes

On the 16th of May I relaunched my podcast, renaming it Speaks Volumes (FKA Derrick Gee Speaks Volumes), rebranded it and introduced my audience to a ten part interview series, speaking to the creatives and world builders who make a unique contribution to music culture. It was rebranded by follower and now friend Jonny Sikov.

The series is half way through. I’m really proud of the series thus far - the depth of conversation and the diversity of the guests. You can listen to them all here or via YouTube. Here’s who I’ve spoken to so far:

Episode 1: Brian Reitzell

A beautiful human who offered to play me unreleased Aphex Twin and Mark Hollis (Talk Talk) if I ever visited him at his studio. Brian is a composer and music supervisor who’s most well known for supervising and composing Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, The Virgin Suicides, Hannibal and Friday Night Lights. I loved hearing his stories of how he constructed each soundscape, and the intriguing realities of sourcing music for an 18th century period piece.

Episode 2: Griff

The 23-year-old singer-songwriter-producer from London who has been tapped by Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa and Coldplay to be the next big thing. I opened the podcast by saying that I’m a huge fan of her music - a version of pop that is beautiful, mature and complex. I wanted to dig into the mind of a young person teetering on the edges of superstardom, on how she thinks, writes and feels her music. She’s wise beyond her years and was a pleasure to get to know her.

Episode 3: Book Club Radio

More inspiring young people! Tinzo and Jojo are siblings who launched their YouTube channel Book Club Radio just over a year ago to broadcast their New York house parties and practice DJing. A year later, they’ve built a global community of music lovers who love to party in an unpretentious, escapist fashion. Their goals are pure and have evolved the stage set by Boiler Room, taking it to a new and more inclusive place.

Episode 4: Machinedrum

A few months ago I had the hypothesis that the LA producer Machinedrum innovated a style of electronic hip hop that is now heard the world over. That hypothesis connected me with him, and we sat down at Ace Hotel Sydney to explore his journey, the 2010’s New York electronic scene and his now 20 year discography.

Episode 5: Molly Hawkins

The most popular and resonant of the episodes thus far - Harry Styles’ creative director and formerly that of FKA Twigs, The XX (via label Young Turks). I sat down with her in her home in Pasadena, where she opened up about artistry, expression and connection, and how she works tirelessly to help realise the vision of some of the world’s most influential artists.

Aaaand - revealing to newsletter subscribers only - the forthcoming guests on Speaks Volumes!

Episode 6: Kyle Chayka (20 June)

New Yorker staff writer and author of Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture. As someone who obsessively analyses culture on the internet, and me, someone who contributes to it - we had a fun conversation about the golden years of the internet and being swept in and out on the algorithmic tide.

Episode 7: Alexandra Streliski (27 June)

I sat down with Canadian neo-classical pianist and composer Alexandra Streliski to unpack and understand the new wave of classical music, the nuances of touring and turning up to a new piano at every venue, and the necessity and absurdity of sub-genres.

Episode 8: Nick Dwyer (4 July)

Director and documentarian, Nick Dwyer is currently doing the festival runs with his documentary A Century in Sound - a series dedicated to documenting the people behind some of Japan’s most iconic kissa cafes aka listening bars. A student and fan of the subculture, we spoke about the nuances of the culture and the rise of “Japanese inspired” listening bars in the west.

Episode 9: Nicholas Daley (11 July)

I’ll be 100% honest with you - this one hasn’t been recorded yet, so if it’s a nine episode series you’ll know why haha. The British fashion design sits between the intersection of fashion, British diaspora and music cultures, I’m excited to chat to Nicholas about how he expresses sound through fabric.

Episode 10: Willo Perron (18 July)

One of the design icons of the music industry - Willo is a creative and design director who has worked with everyone from Rihanna to Kanye to Drake on their immersive and expansive stage designs. With a long history in music and design, Willo tells the most inspiring and fun stories about some of the biggest artist projects of his career.

An all star cast if I say so myself!!! I hope you like (or have been enjoying) the conversations so far.

Four Albums to Get Into

For your consideration, here are a few albums worth your time (and that I’ve spent time with recently).

musclecars: Sugar Honey Iced Tea! (2024) [Apple / Spotify / Tidal]

A combination of spiritual neo-soul and jazzy house - the debut album from New York DJ/producer duo musclecars.

Mk.gee - Two Star & The Dream Police (2024) [Apple / Spotify / Tidal]

This album is going to be considered important in years to come - believe me. A fusion of Arthur Russell, Phil Collins, Jai Paul, James Blake, Sting and Frank Ocean - Mk.gee (pronounced McGee) has made an immediate impact on the alternative art-rock scene - with every budding guitarist desperately attempting to emulate his baritone electric guitar sound.

Kahil El’Zabar’s Ritual Trio/Pharaoh Sanders - Africa N’da Blues (2000) [Apple / Spotify / Tidal]

A lesser known jazz record that pairs up drummer Kahil El’Zabar with late icon Pharaoh Sanders. The resulting album is a dance of rhythms and cultures - covering standards and solos oh so effortlessly.

a.s.o - a.s.o (2023) [Apple / Spotify / Tidal]

Likely a one-and-done record from Berlin based Australian duo a.s.o, comprised of DJ/producer Tornado Wallace and singer Alias Error. Throwback and lofi trip hop (a genre very much on the rise), this one is an easy recommendation to those wanting something underground and vibey.

Air, Solid

Did you know I host a weekly video radio show called Solid Air? So far this year I’ve done themed episodes (house, international covers, new wave, Habibi Funk, jazz, International Women’s Day, J Dilla) and spent a lot of time tinkering and improving the set up of it. I really think it has come a long way and I’m proud to bring this to a dedicated community of music lovers - people pay for this show so I put in a lot of work to make it as high quality as possible! Check out the progression from August last year (launch) til now.

If you like, you can sign up for a free trial via Patreon here. You get:

• A weekly video radio show (also available as an audio/podcast app stream)

• Added to my close friends feed on Instagram

• Speaks Volumes 24hrs before everyone else

And finally - ICYMI

I put out a lot of things so I wouldn’t blame you if you missed a few of them. Here are some of my highlighted picks!

• Short video: Dua Lipa and her digital marketing strategy

• Short video: 91 year old Meg and the fotoplayer

• DJ Set: The Lot Radio Brooklyn (and highlights video)

• Interview: Fun with Dumb podcast

• Article: The New Yorker - The New Generation of Online Culture Curators

That’s everything! Appreciate you reading and don’t worry - I haven’t forgot about this newsletter! I’ve been mulling over how to come back to this in a way that doesn’t take me days and tens of thousands of words to write haha. Miss you. But hey, as you can tell - I’ve been busy!

Much love and all that.

Derrick

Marvin Pontiac — Small Car (1999)

From the Greatest Hits of a fictional character, Small Car is as absurdist as it is miraculous.

Penned by artist, actor and musician John Lurie, this winding, marimba-laden opus is a lil Tom Waits, a lil Leonard Cohen, a lil Polyphonic Spree and a favourite of mine for the swirling, hypnotic, tale spun from a familiar but nowhere place.

Marvin Pontiac was a creation from the mind of Lurie, and the enigmatic album was praised by the likes of Bowie and Iggy Pop. This particular number - how would you describe it. Hypnotic indie jazz? Experimental desert dissertation?

When I first played this song on the radio, a listener thought the voice was me - if only my voice contained that much gravel. In fact, it was Pontiac, telling a story about small farmers in small cars headed on a big adventure.

I think what I enjoy about this song is how immediately comforting it is, all while feeling strangely foreign. A conjuring of an imaginary universe, where Pontiac is a chieftain from another planet, whispering his strange findings into my ear.

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Hope you like it!

Playlist: Spotify, Apple YouTube

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Rare Bird - Passing Through (1975)

Some call it prog, some might classify it Yacht rock. I think the song is far too swampy to be yacht appropriate. Likely a canoe in a mangrove-type-beat.

Introducing Rare Bird - an English band that existed from 1969 until 1975. What’s most interesting about this band is that they wanted to centre their prog sound around the keyboard, I guess an attempt to set themselves apart from the other sludgy prog groups out there.

Their ambitious aim resulted in five albums and one “successful” song that charted #27 in the UK, but have mostly disappeared into obscurity.

Like many songs plucked from the depths of the dust bin, Passing Through has been revived as probably their best and most timeless song.

Norwegian electronic music duo Röyksopp put many onto the song via the much lauded compilation series Late Night Tales in 2013. A perfect playlist opener, Just Passing Through is mystical, it’s moody, it’s proggy but also difficult to place era-wise.

Their organ-focused ambitions reaches the desired outcome on this B-side single (with Don’t Be Afraid being the A-side). Plodding and mythical, the song paints a fictitious atmosphere of mist at dusk. If you know me, I love a song that has a second life breathed into it, long after the artist has disbanded. Do artists know their best songs or does time tell them after the fact? Or did they hear something we weren’t ready for yet?

A rare bird indeed.

Enjoy and hope you're good!

Playlist: Spotify, Apple (YouTub…

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Pansequito - No Me Importa Lo Que Digan (2009)

One of my fav fav favs!!!

Ballad to fiesta - this flamenco banger comes courtesy of José Cortés Jiménez, known mononymously as Pansequito, who passed away February of this year.

I’d be lying if I told you I know anything about the lyrics. My Spanish is as good as my Mandarin - non-existent.

If you follow my radio show on Patreon, I’ve been on a bit of a Flamenco kick - and my all time favourite flamenco song is this one. Do you know why I’m not a club DJ? Because I’ve DJed this out before. I think it’s a smash, but I think most people aren’t idealistic romantics like me.

Not knowing a lick of Spanish, I can only describe how my heart feels.

Pansequito’s voice in this song has lived a good life. It’s old and leathery and 90% throat because the lungs have almost given up the puff.

The song is like an ascension up Mount Teide - it is a relentless rise up into the clouds. The palmas (flamenco clapping) holds us on the train tracks. The guitar is the coal. Pansequito, the chimney. The bass sidles behind the curtain of the private cabins, along a the chorus of singers who draw back the linen to let the sun stream in at the final climax of the song.

Whenever I listen to this song, it is loud. Obnoxiously so. I may not be Spanish, but at that moment, I don’t know what I am.

I’ve embedded the song because there aren’t many quality versions on YouTube, and it’s not available on streaming (sorry).

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It's kinda strange that for most of you the weather is getting cooler, and it's only warming up here. Hopefully I can bring some sunlight and warmth wherever you are. Some unexpected songs in here this week - I've been into flamenco and rap over the last week, so that's what we've got on the menu! Drop a comment and say hello. Much love!

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Joni Mitchell - Hejira (1976)

Ok we have a little through-line between the last Permanent Collection post and this one, as well as a recent video of mine.

Through-line 1: on the last edition, I spoke about Santana, learning that virtuoso bass player Jaco Pastorius played on the track. He plays on this one too!

This is the title track of Joni’s eighth studio album Hejira. What I love about it is the John Martyn-esque swirling ambience. What I love about it is the subtle blending into jazz, then back to folk, then back to jazz. If you don’t concentrate too hard, her voice almost resembles a saxophone - with a similar melancholic bleat and breath. Jaco’s call and response bassline weaves between her vocal - as if they are coupling and decoupling throughout the almost seven-minute track.

Through-line 2: this video where I talk about melancholy millennial music - a music trend of the last 8 years or so that has emerged to signify a very important, very real music movement among women born before 1997.

Millennial melancholy music of Mitski, Phoebe Bridgers, Adrienne Lenker and more express a poetry and forlornness in ways that is so musically and lyrically advanced that I’m surprised they’re not more celebrated for the impact that they have on their fans - especially young gen-z women.

You can tell that many of these artists share a deep respect for Joni - in their delivery, in their patience, in their poetry. Honestly I still can’t believe that Joni exists on earth - a living legend!

To me, listening to this song reminds me of just how singular Joni is. And how there really isn’t any other comparison that comes close. Now hearing, dissecting and analysing this new wave of Joni disciples (of which there have been many MANY generations), it reminds me just how important she is and will continue to be.

Perhaps she’s the Jimi Hendrix of folk.
Perhaps she’s the Miles Davis of songwriting.
Perhaps she’s none of those. Perhaps she’s the one and only, Joni.

Hello hi how are you all? I'm quite fond of the selections in this episode I must say. Weather is nice outside, vibes are good inside. Tell me which song u faved!

Playlist: Spotify / Apple

YouTube

Podcast link: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/88…

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For those not understanding the Roman Empire reference - there has been a popular TikTok trend going around where partners ask their husbands/boyfriends how often they think about the Roman Empire - and to their surprise, their spouses confess that they think about the empire…quite a lot. Men and their imaginations!

To disappoint you, I can’t say I experience this exact brain exercise - civilisation, war and battle tactics aren’t exactly my love language. Music on the other hand…

So whilst I joked about Careless Whisper - it’s also kind of…true?

In this month’s newsletter, I will illustrate how mad I am, by breaking down exactly what I think about when I think about Careless Whisper. I apologise in advance.

Firstly, please familiarise yourself with the source text:

It’s THE song heard in every neighbourhood shopping centre at 2:50pm. It’s THE song that elucidates a feeling of over-the-top sexiness. It’s corn, it’s cheese, it’s all the yellow foods that aren’t quite meals, but not quite snacks.

But what lies beneath the surface of this quintessential pop song is the pursuit for perfection, and the essence of youthful naivete. It represents so much of the brilliance and chaos that is music and the music industry. Being someone that thinks about the industry often, my mind seems to wonder back to this song fairly often, and the endless stories behind it and within it, and how it is both sonically and historically rich. Let’s dig in.

1. Let’s start here: George wrote Careless Whisper when he was 17 (“Guilty feet have got no rhythm” - written at 17!). This is impactful to me as I often think and talk about whether it’s necessary to be quite young in order to be the most vulnerable and almost trite in your music expression - where the distance between thought and thinking is wide, where under-thinking wins and overthinking is yet to appear in an immature mind. Bandsplain’s Yasi Salek discussed this on one of my latest podcasts, much to the chagrin of my older audience. The concept she argued is that there’s a reason why, time and time again, you hear stories of transcendent artists being young, say 16-21 years of age. I don’t think you need to be young, but I do think youthfulness can extract a truth that no grown adult would have the bravery to say out loud

2. Wham! was signed off the back of the Careless Whisper demo and a couple other songs. Imagine being the A&R who heard it and called their boss to say - “ok so…we have one of the greatest songs ever written on our hands, and the group is unsigned…from Watford”. They probably played it off and said “yeah it’s ok…” to give themselves leverage when negotiating deal points

3. The initial demo is kind of lo-fi groovy? And a bit out of tune. Recorded with a drum machine, last minute and in one take, I love hearing early works in comparison to the final output - and how the essence was extracted, expanded and protected

4. The team was so assured of Careless Whisper’s hit potential that they:

   1. Sat on it for three years. They didn’t rush the release but instead were patient enough to release it when it sounded just right. The reason I think about this is that sometimes I ponder about whether a song is a true reflection of our time. Songs that “define” a year are often written many years prior. Of course, I understand a song can defines a collective experience once it hits the ears of the public, but I do think about music that “reflects the time we live in” and the fact that, well, Careless Whisper was a reflection of George Michael’s 1981, much less 1984

   2. Recorded and produced it twice:

      1. Originally Careless Whisper was produced by Jerry Wexler, who famously signed Led Zeppelin and recorded Aretha Franklin. Michael wasn’t satisfied with his production, so he canned it and re-recorded/produced it himself. Incredible conviction and confidence by a then twenty year old. Go listen to Wexler’s version here. It’s clear what’s missing: SOUL! It’s for all intents and purposes the same song, but allow me to give you more adjectives: THIN. FLAT. EMPTY. LIFELESS. Wexler you’re fired!

      2. The second (and final version) was recorded just weeks before it was set to be released. “Sod this. I'm going to go in and do it as if it had never been done before and see what happens“ recounted Michael. It takes a particular level of decisiveness to scrap everything and start again - in George we trust

      3. The bassline on the final recording was played by Deon Estus, Marvin Gaye’s live bass player. Of course it was!!!

      4. The final track’s live instrumentation was largely recorded in one take, almost like one big jam. You can clearly hear that they were all vibing off each other, which makes sense considering they all had played together as a live band prior to this recording

      5. The famous saxophone riff was an elusive unicorn - George cycled through the best of the best, firing each one until he landed on Steve Gregory - the NINTH player to attempt it. Sometimes I think about this story, and the pursuit of perfection. It’s not the melody that maketh the song, but the breath behind it

5. It’s credited as Wham! featuring George Michael in some territories and George Michael in others. There was concern about whether Careless Whisper would play well as a George Michael solo considering Wham! was the more known entity at the time. A small decision that left a tiny trail of confusion among fans

   

   

6. The fact that the song is five minutes is preposterous for a pop song. There’s also a 6:32 album version - just to be extra decadent. Imagine a five minute number one single now. Idle hands could never sit through the indulgent outro…

7. As such was the perfectionism, the music video was reshot across multiple countries. His sister was flown in from England to Miami to cut and style George’s hair for certain scenes, while other parts were shot and added later in London. I can’t say I think about the music video all that much - it’s lite-porno and surprisingly slapdash when you consider the lengths they took to perfect the song

   

   

8. George ended up hating the song, almost surprised at how people could like it:
   
   “…was not an integral part of my emotional development — it disappoints me that you can write a lyric very flippantly—and not a particularly good lyric—and it can mean so much to so many people. That's disillusioning for a writer” — George Michael, 1991
   
   I think what’s particularly interesting about this quote is that there are two George’s in this equation - the heart-on-sleeve seventeen year old imagining a love affair, and the older man, speaking about the track seven years later, wanting to curl up into a ball of cringe.
   
   I think it’s impossible for an artist to seperate themselves from the art, being the author of the work. I often think about how an artist can only really know their music when they make it, and after that, it’s no longer theirs, but ours, forever

9. So much was it no longer George’s upon release, hilariously Brooke Shields thought the song was written about her

10. It has one billion plays on YouTube, making it one of the most viewed music videos of all time (well…one of 400-odd but still). Much of this is due to the ubiquity of the song through time, but also its uncanny ability to be rediscovered via memes

    1. SexySaxMan’s calling card is Careless Whisper - a viral YouTube sensation who blared the song’s sax solo in as many public places as possible

    2. Careless Whisper is the soundtrack to sexy parody advertisements. Much like the Girl From Ipanema is to go-to elevator music soundtrack. I sometimes think about whether the song’s publishers over-sold the rights to the song and recontextualised it to its detriment - making it the anthem to epitomise 80’s sleaze. Although, to be fair, it surely helped it in its forty years of relevance

    3. The bridge is now very famously TikTokified by a bunch of viral videos - evoking everything from seduction to pain, regret, drama with a good slice of raclette-oozed cheese

11. And finally, indulge me as I pore over all of the song specifics that are like glinting jewels on a crown. While the above 1-10 points are mental reference points that I think about often, the one and true reason why this newsletter exists is the amount of satisfaction I get out of all the tiny elements in the song - I’m not ashamed to confess it

    1. The tambourine: I think about how the song would NOT be the same without the tambourine. It would severely lack sparkle and is one of those elements that does a lot with a little

    2. I think about the tom tom sound sometimes. It kinda goes “thooong”. Not “thong” but “th-ooong”. The first time you properly hear it is at 1:19. It decays and leaves you winded

    3. The introduction of the Spanish guitar at 1:20 gives it a Latin feel that keeps the ear interested, and to be honest is a nice introduction and a precursor to the Spanish-guitar takeover of 90’s RnB

    4. Keep an ear out for the bassline. It’s simple but does just enough to keep it interesting and not generic. It constantly goes on and off the beat. It adds flourishes and then extracts itself before you’ve noticed that it’s trying. He is Marvin’s live bass player after all. He is Deon Estus

    5. The middle eight (2:45) is one of the greatest middle eight’s ever written. It is introduced with a deliciously 80’s Phil Collins-esque drum fill, followed by a couple of bold synth hits. Normally, a synth out of nowhere would feel out of place, but they rolled out the layering of the song so well that it builds upon the foundation without over-egging it. Not to mention the “but now who’s gonna dance with me” falsetto to end the bridge - it’s all too painful

    6. The fill and drum two-shot that occurs from 4:12-4:15 is my favourite part of the song. It only happens once but adds a beautiful full stop on the song. It signifies the start of the breakdown and the end of George’s lament. You will always catch me air-drumming to this part

    7. Right near the end (4:40), a choir synth is introduced more prominently, oddly giving it this Pet Shop Boys sounding outro. I really feel like the production team were scared of losing a listener’s interest, so they just threw it in and ramped up the volume at the end. It doesn’t really make sense, but it makes perfect sense

    8. The snare/tom/kick fill at 4:12 gives it this very jam-band “live show” feel to it. As mentioned above, it was very much a “jam” in the studio, and melts our ears even more. In my mind’s eye, I imagine George slowly walking to the side of the stage, only lit from behind, as he slinks to the beat as he gives his band their moment to bask in the limelight

So there you go. You thought I was joking when I said it was my Roman Empire. If I was in a room playing this with you, I’d undoubtedly pause, rewind, replay parts…all for you to yell at me and say “CAN WE JUST HEAR THE SONG PLEASE?”

If you know me well enough, I often think about things on a micro and macro level - the nuances that make something truly special, and the macro decisions that goes into ensuring that a song of such brilliance was treated with the utmost care and patience. The song is cheesy, the song is soulful, the song is decadent, the song is timeless. I think the Romans would have liked it.

This is the first time I've had to "edit" an episode, because I zoned out and forgot that the song was ending so I had panicked dead air that I had to cut out LOOOL. See if you can catch w…

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020 - Santana - Aqua Marine (1979)

Question for you: did Matchbox 20 and Carlos Santana’s Smooth ruin the Santana brand for a whole generation?

My answer to you: kind of? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind the song! But I bet if I rounded up friends from my generation and I asked them to name a Santana song - Smooth would be the ONLY answer. I guarantee it. We all know what that Supernatural CD cover looks like. All of our dads had it. Don’t mind Santana releasing 26 studio albums, 8 live albums, 61 singles, and 23 compilation albums. SMOOTH!

Aqua Marine comes off his 1979 album Marathon, Santana’s 11th studio album. In terms of success, it peaked at number 5 on the French album charts. If that means anything?

Of the billions of Santana songs out there, this one’s my pick. It’s atmospheric. It’s almost ambient. It sounds GREAT on good speakers. It’s basically a song designed to lead you down a groovy and welcoming path, only to be thwacked in the face by a clatter of an endlessly satisfying snare drum.

I’d like to pretend I just “know things”, but I must tell you this story as I learn it: the bassline has an incredibly plucky groove to it. It pops, it talks to you. It writhes and slithers. It gets your neck moving. As I am listening to the song (I always listen to the song as I write each newsletter), I thought to myself “man…the bass player really does do a great imitation of Jaco Pastorius. It turns out…it was the real Jaco!!! Who only played on one song on the album - Aqua Marine!!!! No wonder it’s my favourite Santana song.

You see - Pastorius was one of my two bass playing idols (James Jamerson being the other) as a fledgling bass player, so to learn this was a moment of supreme chuffedness. Among bass players, Jaco is THE guy. The deftness of his playing has never and can never be replicated. Ask Thundercat, he’d agree. I am so stoked to know he played on this song. 0.3% of you will care, but it’s a mighty fun fact to me.

Jaco aside, this song is a masterclass in interplay and flow. A stellar example of virtuosity within the confines of an instrumental song (a song type that often falls into the “background music” category). There’s no gristle in this song, it’s lean. The shaker is confident. The bass harmonics are so so sweet. The guitar, mesmerising. The drums, restrained until they kick you in the butt. The whistle, ascendant.

I’ve chewed your ear off haven’t I. Ok, on your way, go listen to Smooth.

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THIS one was fun. Because it really represents a gateway to so many other genres for me. I can only be grateful to the producers and diggers from pulling up some of these gems and reimagining them. Can you imagine the positive economic impact hip hop has had by turning on generations of ppl to music from the past? Wild.

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019 - Asa-Chang & Junray- Hana (2001)

This song. Ugh. I’m also glad for this series because I get to catalogue the songs that just…that just are everything to me.

ASA-CHANG, a Japanese percussionist started ASA-CHANG & Junray in 1998, comprised at that time of three members, himself, the now quite well known tabla player U-Zhaan and programmer and guitarist Hidehiko Urayama.

Hidehiko never performed with the duo, but instead provided the programming for the synthesiser called Jun-Ray Tronics, basically an early vocaloid box that contains a variety of different voices that are trigged by the sounds of their organic percussion. (If I’m not mistaken, Sakamoto contributed a voice to this box) With each hit of the tabla, a new syllable is output from its inbuilt speaker. You can watch it in action live here.

While we’re speaking about tabla, you should watch this video, just cos it’s interesting.

@davidasherbrownmusicianThe full interview is now on YouTube! Check out my talk with @neelamjitmusic on my YouTube channel: DavidAsherBrown. Link in bio. #tabla #indianclassicalmusic #hindustanimusic

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Anywho, onto the song. Firstly, it samples the string introduction to Sade’s Pearls. Hypnotic and cinematic in its own right. Also, it’s Sade.

Overlaid over the top of the sample is a tabla performance by U-zhaan and the Jun-Ray Tronic box, which digitally unfurls a poem about a flower in bloom. As I’m sure you’re well aware, I am not able to speak or understand Japanese, so while I’m sure the poem is beautiful, it isn’t the main attraction for me.

I love this song because it’s one of a kind. Hypnotic, robotic, odd, but beautiful. The use of the Sade sample as well as an increasingly fervent Jun-Ray Tronics vocal delivery helps this flower bloom with a beautiful intensity.

It’s the fact that it’s not quite vocoder, not quite synthetic that makes this track a singular entity, and something that gives me hope for the future of music…all while coming out 24 years ago.