“Tute Bianche” EP on Tram Planet, designed by C. Parks Perdue.
i. Intro
Before we begin, please allow me to make a brief mention that Tram Planet label is currently taking preorders for my first vinyl release under the Auton alias. “Tute Bianche” is slated for release on 20.9.19 as an extremely limited 10″ lathe cut record + 3 color risograph cover designed by C. Parks Perdue + risographed 17×11 poster designed by myself and Matthew Goik . For the non-fetish-object-oriented, there is an infinite-edition losseless digital format available on 20.9.19 from the above link. Thank you for supporting independent, critical and DIY media in an age where few things in techno seem independent of / critical of / done outside of the leviathan.
I. Relocation
By now, most people who are probably reading this know that I have moved from Cleveland, Ohio, to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which is a good deal of why updates to this have been seemingly so sparse. It has taken nearly a month to get my feet back under me and – rest assured – I have achieved a level of working poverty, alienation and precarity similar to that which I had grown accustomed to in Cleveland, but I now have a small house in a wooded neighborhood with my partner, our three cats and (finally) my own home studio setup. I am spending most days very viscerally negotiating my desire to have groceries in the fridge with my desire to have a job that affords the weekends off to take on gigs out of town at the moment, and fear that – unless the situation changes – I may be largely unable to travel out of Pittsburgh for gigs until January 2020. However – I have secured time off enough to embark on a ten-day tour around the East coast and Midwest with dear friend Dungeon Acid from Copenhagen from Friday 19.10.19 to Saturday, 26.10.19. More info (tour flyer, full event listings, special tour media including posters and cassettes) will follow as soon as the final gigs are confirmed.
II. Delocation
Delocation is a term that has come about recently as millenials have found themselves (like the many urban residents they displaced before them) forced out of metropolitan centers by the housing crisis, by underemployment in cities and the atomization of the labor market into deepeningly-precarious gig economy bidding that makes the rosy dream of the metropolitan elite lifestyle a fantasy of those striving toward bourgeois existence without the generational wealth to actualize it. This condition of reality is no doubt wrought by the oligarchy of landowners, tech corporations, neighborhood development organizations and the capitalist class who have found within millenials yet another class of people who must act against their own interests to avoid falling behind in the cycle of artificially-manufactured precarity. Moving from Cleveland (which is rife with exploitation, alienation and subjugation of the working class to a frightening yet traditional and quotidian degree) to the tech-accelerationist capitalist playground of Pittsburgh has cast into relief the degree to which technocratic neoliberalism has failed the working class, deepened exploitation of workers and atomized communities out of existence. Despite the all-enveloping bubble it has been inflating – the technocratic robber barons and their class-conspirators will eventually leave the working class to reckon with the consequences of hyper-exploiting all of the resources and capital available to them.
How does this (or must this?) relate to techno?? Without assigning unneeded gravity to the concerns of the 300 or so DJs striving to earn a stable income off gigs over the rest of the global working class, I believe delocation is something we will begin to see as the structures of the “dance music industry” begin to contract inward as the conditions of capitalist accelerationism comes into increasingly sharper relief. We have already seen many precursors to this impending collapse – media outlets solidifying their position as organs of both industry tastemaking while also skimming off an integral infrastructure platform or selling a lifestyle brand that curates or facilitates nightlife, the recoiling of corporate patronage-sponsored alternative media as capitalism bares its teeth and removes the facade of serving the dissemination of a space for sonic and cultural progressivism, real-estate-magnate owned nightclubs having to choose between the low returns of their curatorial authencity or profit-seeking behavior as their crowds demand a more sanitized and bourgeois luxury nightclub experience, etc. All of these signal a point at which the bubble will burst – and so I ask, what infrastructure will you have to rely on in that hyper-oligarchic subcultural era?
III. Obfuscation
I am challenging myself to embrace a withdrawal from mainstream ideals, from casual accessibility, from easy categorization and brand-narrative synergy in favor of something enigmatic – something that ignites a feeling of excitement when discovered rather than the same paste fed to you by the algorithm. I am aiming create an infrastructure of skills, resources and networks that I can rely on as an independent artist now – while the seams are still holding together – before the bubble bursts. I am prioritizing DIY space, attitude and ingenuity in my artistic and community values in a way that is less sensitive to the ebb and flow of resource mobilization by the dance music mainstream. I am forcing myself to learn things or do things again that I haven’t done since my punk and noise days – booking extended driveable tours (rather than one-off weekend gigs), making merch by hand, dubbing and producing media, etc – things that the industry has often sought to delegitimize as not “proper” so as to sustain their own existence performing these functions for artists. I am challenging myself to start small and have goals that lie outside of the familiar path of all the right social media branding, mix podcast appearances, Boiler Room sessions, etc that plays into the perpetuation of an unsustainable artistic model. Finally, I am conditioning myself to understand that “success” in this artistic medium is something entirely bought and sold within that industry construct, and that by letting that definition of success define my own art I am robbing myself of a potential richness that exists outside of the usual “who played what, who gigged where, who released what” morass of competitive DJ culture. While none of this is meant for anyone else but myself, perhaps what I’ve said resonates to that nagging feeling of loss you have in the quiet moments of your pursuit of your DJ industry success story. Perhaps, then, it’s time to attempt to gain an understanding of exactly who you are and what you do – and more importantly, exactly who they are and what they want from you – and how those things are either going to be compatible yet unsustainable, or a happier and perhaps more fulfilling opposite.