More dub techno, bummer news, and a special interview with ‘nohup’, who will join myself and Xminus1 for a late night warehouse party in Minneapolis this Saturday - get tickets to steeped here.

MUSIC

Matryoshka - Blasé Saint

Manchester-based Sferic is an unmissable label for anyone who cares about dub techno adjacent ambient, and their latest release from Seattle-based Matryoshka has quickly earned hype for vaporous, moody beats that hit on everything from Malibu and Antonio Badalamenti to Shinichi Atobe and Burial.

Tom Carruthers aka Static Flow - Static Flow

Tom Carruthers’ dedication to bleep techno and 90’s house runs too deep and true to be dismissed as mere nostalgia. Both his solo output and curation of his Non-Stop Tracks label are prolific to the point of overwhelm, but I always check them out for fear of missing the bangers.

This Static Flow LP is maybe my favorite yet, adding sampled breaks to his hardware setup for an exploration of Joey Beltram’s early 90’s sound that I will probably never get sick of hearing.

Samson A.K. - Heavy Birds Drop

After a string of dark, pounding long-form cassette releases, Samson A.K. finally released a record with actual track divisions (making for much easier DJing). Heavy, dub-infected hardware techno for fans of Fret and JK Flesh—and apparently more on the way soon.

READING

Earlier this month, director Paul Thomas Anderson and his musical collaborator, Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, demanded their music from the Phantom Thread soundtrack be removed from the Melania movie.

Amazon MGM paid $40M for the rights to distribute Melania, plus $35M to market it in theaters, and the movie has bombed with critics and at the box office.

Around the same time, Jeff Bezos cut enough staff at the The Washington Post to essentially kill it, including laying off journalists embedded in war zones. He claimed it was about data, when really having an award-winning journalistic institution simply exist is not in his self-interest. Yes, the paper was losing money, but to say Bezos could afford to keep it afloat is an understatement.

Just for fun, here’s an incredible visual representation of Bezos’ wealth (which is outdated—his net worth is ~$100B greater now).

INTERVIEW WITH ‘NOHUP’

‘nohup’ is busy. Bobby Azarbayejani is a DJ, producer, multimedia artist, and tool builder living in Seattle, WA. In addition to playing a steady stream of gigs, they run the illegal afters tracks label and co-founded the Ground Hum music festival.

Bobby is hitting Minneapolis this Saturday at steeped, a new late night warehouse party, playing alongside myself and Xminus1 (Willy). They were gracious enough to answer a few questions for us about art, building, and the PNW.

In addition to DJing and producing, you’ve developed a reputation as a tool builder, creating things like Bandcamp Tempo Adjust [THANK YOU!] and publicly troubleshooting CDJ-3000 issues. How does building tools shape the way you DJ? And does DJing ever push you to build something new?

Both my DJing and the way I build tools come from the same question:  “I have an idea… can I make it work?”. I spent years wondering if something like Bandcamp Tempo Adjust could exist. For a while, I had my own ways of testing out tracks at different BPMs through the browser console and some command line scripts, but one night I said “I’m going to spend a couple hours to see if I can make this thing”, and it worked! Similarly with DJing, I often will come into a set or a mix session with “I want to get from here to here, can I?” It’s less about the challenge and more about just being curious. Can I do it?

Beyond that, I think both music, tools, and knowledge are things that are best shared. While I made Bandcamp Tempo Adjust for myself, and most of my mixes start as things that I want to listen to, it feels important to make them available to others.

You often pair music promo posts with drink reviews. Where did that format come from? What have you learned about sharing taste online that way?

I’ve been posting drink reviews since at least 2018, just as a way to be funny online. The “drink reviewer” character is this weird niche influencer parody. I like inventing recurring segments, catchphrases and hyper-specific things that I care about, and eventually I felt like it would be funny to start putting in “ads” into the posts by promoting my own shows. What I’ve learned? That people eventually pay attention to you if you keep doing the same stupid bit for a while.

What feels distinct about Seattle or the Pacific Northwest right now that an outsider might miss?

Sometimes Seattle feels so far away from everything, which has bred a small, dedicated scene with tight connections. It’s the only way it can survive. On top of that, I think COVID (and now Trump Season 2, I guess) had an outsized impact on cross-pollination between PNW scenes. In terms of major cities, it’s just Seattle, Portland and Vancouver up here, and for a couple years Vancouver was just completely cut off. Going to Osmosis In The Trees the last two years has been a real bright spot. The lineup has been great and has brought together the Portland and Seattle scenes in a way that I haven’t seen in a while.

What has your attention right now? A record, an idea, a film, something else. Why?

My attention feels very split these days. I’m paying attention to what’s happening in this country, what’s happening in my ancestral country of Iran, all while working and planning for events like Ground Hum and the one in Minneapolis this Saturday. It can be hard to make sense of it all at the same time. I’ve been moved by the bravery, strength, and resilience of people in Minneapolis, around the USA, and in Iran. It inspires me to become a stronger person.

Also, on a lighter note, I’ve been obsessed with Alysa Liu’s figure skating performances at the Olympics! I’ll be honest - I have never been a sports person. But watching this young person go up there and perform her art with such effortlessness, joy and grace brought a tear to my eye.

MORE

Almost forgot — listen back to my latest show for Noods Radio, a slice of high-intensity club gear (and perhaps a preview for Saturday).