Wallfacer

THE MOMENT BEHIND THE MUSIC

“You can spend an entire day moving and still feel like you have absolutely no idea where you are going.”

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T H E J O U R N A L

This wasn’t something I thought I would hear again, not really.

I was supposed to play an 60 minute radio set. At least that was the plan anyway. I'd spent time putting something together; had the tracks ready and had been looking forward to it.

There was a bit more pressure with this one as well, because unlike any guest mixes I’ve done before, this was going to be a LIVE broadcast. I'd never actually done that before. Normally, for a guest mix I'd record something and send it over to be played at a specific time, but this time I had to make sure everything was connected, working and ready to go at the right time.

I'd tested it all beforehand and knew what I was supposed to be doing, but testing something and actually doing it under pressure are two very different things. So I was probably more anxious than usual, not just about playing the music but also about making sure the bloody technology worked and that at the last minute the whole thing didn’t blow up before I'd even started.

As it turned out, none of that mattered because the whole thing got fucked up anyway. The producer had got the running order wrong, and the DJ who was supposed to play after me ended up going on during my slot. Then the next DJ kicked off because he wanted to play straight after him, so he ended up taking the following slot, which would have been mine instead. There was a resident DJ on at 1am, and had a 2 hour set, so just like that, I was off the lineup.

I'd been looking forward to playing and then, just like that, I wasn't…

Annoyingly, there wasn't really anyone I could be properly angry with either. It was a genuine mistake. I was annoyed, obviously, but shit happens.

I guess I could have made a fuss about it, but what was the point? Clearly the other DJ knew what to do, or perhaps realised the opportunity to get in first and not get sidelined. I don’t really know. Like I said, shit happens….

I said I'd do another slot another time and left it there.

Except I didn't really leave it there.

I sat there stewing for a while, whilst the other DJ took over. It was about midnight when I disconnected, giving up on the idea that something might change. I was sat in front of the decks anyway at this point and just thought “fuck it”, why not just play anyway?

I binned off the set I was going to play, as by this point the opening track I had just made me miserable. Who knows if that set will come back again… maybe it will when it doesn’t bring back that feeling of rejection.

Anyway, with no plan as such I started pulling out some harder progressive and techno tracks, which wasn't really aligned to what I was meant to be playing, but this music didn’t aggravate me.

I wasn't thinking about making a mix either. I just wanted to play something loud. I had this idea in my head about playing the set I'd prepared for and the music I'd been looking forward to hearing out loud, and suddenly there was nowhere for any of it to go.

So I just started putting other records on.

At first it was all over the place. A bit of techno, some progressive house, different tempos, things that sounded like they might work and then realising they didn’t - least not in the way I wanted to hear them. I'd put something on in my headphones, listen for a bit, decide I wasn't feeling it and start looking for something else. It was probably more of a warm-up than anything, just me trying to get into that headspace where I stop thinking about what I should play and start finding out what I actually want to play.

After I found my rhythm and found a sound and an energy I was looking for I hit record. Often when I am just playing, I will hit record, as you never know where its going to go. I reckon I was playing around for about 45 mins before I found something and hit record.

This was very much a case of let's see what happens and where this goes.

As I found my rhythm and started to connect with the pace of it, suddenly I was on the show in my mind. Even though there was no audience to reach. This wasn’t about anyone else now, this was about me.

The transitions stretched out and the whole thing started to slow down in a way that wasn't really about tempo. I wasn't rushing to get to the next track anymore.

And I liked it. I think I needed it.

I'd been stewing on what had happened, trying not to be pissed off about it while obviously being pissed off about it. There was that familiar bit underneath it too, the part that starts asking whether someone has decided you're not quite good enough, or whether someone else was simply more deserving of the opportunity, or whether you'd somehow been overlooked without anyone actually saying so.

I know that's not what happened. But knowing that doesn't necessarily stop my brain from going there. Self sabotage and self deprecation is something I am a master at.

The longer I played, though, the less interested I became in the show and what happened. The music was just moving and I started moving with it.

I was cueing things up in my headphones without really knowing where they were going to take me. Some worked and some didn't. There were moments where I thought, fuck, that's good, and others where I nearly just hit stop and switched it all off.

The thing I became locked on to was that there was no audience to worry about, no producer, no running order, no hour to fill and no reason to make any of it work for anybody other than me.

I could just play.

I only realised how long I'd been doing it when I looked at the time and saw that I'd been playing for about 2 hours. I was just in flow, so just carried on.

I was properly in it. Not trying to prove anything, not trying to make a point, just following whatever seemed right in that moment. One track would leave something behind and I'd go looking for the next thing that made sense with it. Sometimes that was obvious and sometimes it took a while - but the digging is sometimes the best bit - especially live (or somewhat live).

By the time I finished it was around 2:30am in the morning - and I was alright.

Not euphoric. Not suddenly convinced that everything had worked out for the best. Just alright. The funny thing was that I didn't really care that nobody had heard it.

In fact, I think that was part of why I liked it. It satisfied me, and I had a great time doing it. I shut down on a high and that was that.

Fast forward a few weeks later, I got an email from the same producer asking if I wanted to join another event. They were offering me another opportunity to do the same thing again, probably even the same set I had prepared.

Reading it brought the whole thing back again and I realised I was still annoyed about it. Not properly angry or anything, more that I could remember how shit it felt feeling rejected. I noticed more that I'd obviously filed it away somewhere and thought I was done with it, only to discover that apparently I wasn't.

I knew it hadn't been deliberate, nobody had sat there and decided I shouldn't play. I'd been caught in someone else's mistake, and if I'd been the person who accidentally ended up taking somebody else's slot I probably would have felt awkward about it for five minutes and then carried on with my life anyway.

It’s probably what I had done too, just without the win.

So I went back and found the recording I had made.

Originally I'd thought I'd just put it on SoundCloud as a mix. It wasn't a Lost Keys chapter, not like the others. It wasn't really supposed to be anything. I'd recorded it because I happened to be playing something I was enjoying. That was it.

I listened back to it properly and immediately felt something. There were tracks in there I genuinely didn't remember playing. There were transitions that surprised me as well.

And the biggest thing I noticed was that the whole thing sounded different from the set I'd prepared for the radio originally. That set had been thought about, this one hadn't. I'd sat down intending to play for a bit and somehow ended up with an hour and a half of music that sounded like it had meaning and purpose.

That was the bit that stayed with me.

Because somewhere in those ninety minutes I'd gone from being pissed off about something I couldn't control to doing exactly what I'd wanted to do anyway.

I wanted to play music. So I did.

I didn't need the radio show to give me permission to do it. I didn't need a slot. I didn't need anyone listening either, I didn't even need anyone to know I'd done it.

Fuck it, I just did it anyway.

The strange thing is that the set I'd originally prepared for the radio doesn't really exist anymore in the same way. I've pulled it apart since, and when I listened back to it afterwards I couldn't find much in it. The songs were still there, obviously, but whatever I'd been feeling when I put it together had gone (or perhaps was tarnished?).

It felt a bit empty. That’s what I notice most about these chapters, the moments shape the music and what we can feel.

I've since told myself that means it must have been rubbish. That maybe the universe did me a favor, but that’s too clean and convenient. Maybe that's just hindsight doing what hindsight does, making everything that happened afterwards feel like it was somehow supposed to happen. I don't know.

What I do know is that if I'd played that set, I'd probably remember the night very differently and have a different relationship with the music now.

Instead I've got this. A mix I wasn't supposed to record, playing music I wasn't supposed to be playing, at a time when nobody was supposed to be listening. And it took me a few weeks after to realise why I kept coming back to it, to dip in to that feeling.

It wasn't because it was technically better than the set I'd prepared. I'm not even sure it was. It was because there was nothing in it that needed anyone else's approval.

I'd lost the thing I'd been looking forward to, got pissed off about it, and then, rather than sitting there replaying the whole thing in my head, I'd gone and done the thing anyway.

Not the radio version of it. Just another version of something. Something born out of a moment that on reflection, now, seemed worth preserving.

Weeks later, listening back to that simple recording at 02:30 in the morning, I realised I'd probably enjoyed it more because nobody had asked me to do it.

Sometimes you get the slot. Sometimes you don’t.

And sometimes you're standing in a room alone in the early hours with a set still rolling, headphones on, playing records to absolutely nobody, thinking this is brilliant.

And that’s it.

This wasn’t something I thought I would hear again. But now I have, it felt more important to preserve it for what it was.