Hello, hi, how r u?
I hope you're well. I'm all good, but I'm also very late.
In the last draft of this letter (unfinished, written three weeks ago), I wrote about being two weeks late, but now I'm sat looking at the calendar and figuring it out, this letter is actually two months overdue. I'm very sorry, and for what it's worth, I've missed you dearly. To make up for it - and before I get into why this I'm so late - I've got a bumper TL;DR Section, and an absolutely killer mixtape this week.
So, the official story of my lateness is that āI've been busyā. As the world slowly opens back up, work travel bans have been lifted, and so life has become pre-2020 levels of hectic again. I'm a glutton for it, and I enjoy those levels of hectic. It gives me a lot of time in transit to listen to music, and my shopping habits broaden because I find new spots to dig in new cities. In the last two months Iāve even had a dance or two while Iāve been away.
But the actual reason (because as those of you that have been around since the the before times will know, travel never used to disrupt service) is rhythm. More specifically, I lost my rhythm.
I think it was Mala that once said the most important thing to pay attention to in dubstep was the space between the sounds. The anti-matter to the atomic bass-weight. Similarly (and maybe more famously) the same has been said about jazz - we're encouraged to pay attention to what happens between the notes as much as the notes themselves. I think, in a few years, when I look back at Love Will Save The Day, the gaps in service here will tell a story too (if only to me). Up until 2020, there had been hardly any disruption to my rhythm. From the very beginning, I knew that once this had got going, and started growing, consistency was important. But in 2020, I found my āsongsā becoming punctuated by more than just dramatic pauses. Now there are a whole bunch of obvious reasons for this (as well as some less obvious ones too, which I've told you about before), but at the heart of it all, I realised I have a core need for rhythm.
More often that not, I've got a slightly unwieldy amount of energy, and combined with a slightly(!) obsessive mind, it means I need a sense of rhythm to propel me forwards and stop my mind firing into 360 degrees of digressions, while I stand stationary in the middle. Rhythm is the train track that helps my mind focus, and keeps my energy and obsessiveness in check. Without the track, I can feel lost, and a little rudderless. Over the last two years I feel like my rhythm has been thrown off track more than a few times. Getting it back - I've now realised - is about finding a way to express everything that's running through my head.
Much like the rhythm section in a band, keeping my mind on track is about keeping the balance of inputs and outputs in equilibrium. When the inputs drop, I read more, chat more, listen more. When the outputs drop, I write more, create more, and even start to make music more.
This is a very long way of trying to explain the weird malaise I've been in over the last two months - it's nothing bad, it's just a case of broken rhythm, but I thought you deserved an explanation.
Anyway, I think it's back now, so onwards!
I think youāre going to love the mixtape this week. Itās called Jazz in my mind, techno in my body, and I hope you get why. It couldāve easily been called Jazz-not-Jazz volume 3. It hopefully shows the connection between jazz and techno (and reiterates what I put forward a few months ago). Let me know what you think!
See you on the dance floor,
Jed x
PS. If you're new here thenĀ this is howĀ it works.Ā Hereās what youāve missed so far.Ā
TL;DR Section šŖ
Watchā¦
This Don Cherry documentary
Listenā¦
Gilles Peterson playing from Sounds Of The Universe, celebrating 50 years of the Technics 1200
This guest series from John Peelās record room
Supportā¦
If you're a working class creative and doing alright, then chuck a couple of quid to the Working Class Creative Database fund
On that, there's also a new book on the lockdown diaries of the Working Class Collective - a few last copies left here
Send Love Will Save The Day to a friend :-)
Readā¦
This incredibly beautiful piece from Jude Rogers on the power of music, memory, and our senses (beware, I cried)
Another incredible essay, this time from bell hooks, and focused on love
Some excellent thoughts on culture here from Dylan Viner and Matt Klein
An excellent essay from Charles Olisanekwu on the influence that this tiny island has had on music around the world
Marcus Moore's essay on finding his place as an insider and contributor to culture, after feeling like a commentator for many years is excellent
The ever-excellent Ted Gioia on protest music
Just read / just readingā¦
Just read
AiWeiWeiās 1000 Years Of Joys and Sorrows (excellent biography and counter culture history of China)
Laurent Fintoniās Bedroom Beats & B-Sides (made me buy an MPC and schooled me on the links between Dilla and AFX)
Vibrate Higher by Talib Kweli (incredible counter-history of hip hop)
Coltrane by Ben Ratliff (good primer)
Just reading
Inner City Pressure, by Dan Hancox
Sonic Warfare, by Steve Goodman (aka Kode9)
I'm also going to read The Dawn Of Everything, after reading this review
Old notes home š
ā¦on the future
ā¦on culture
Rebuilding culture: fixing the asymmetry of art, culture, and commerceĀ
A response to the argument that culture is boring these days
ā¦on music
ā¦on mental health
The tracklist š¶
Jamire Williams - Pause in His Presence
Auntie Flo - Peace Bells
Daniel Maunick - Arraia
Anteloper - Fossil Record
Koichi Sakai - Wono (Yoruba Soul mix)
Budi Und Gumbls - Tanz Der Korperlinge (Lions Drums mix)
Mustang - Drum Drumz
Afefe Iku - MagicWave
KaySoul - East Meets Soul
Fort Romeau - Untitled IV
Space Dimension Controller - Mansion ā96
Japanese Telecom - Virtual Origami 2
Kenny Larkin - Funk In Space
efdemin - Entropie
Peder Mannerfelt - Year of the Rats
Al Wootton - Doxa
Modeselektor - Movement
Paul St. Hilaire - Skank Dub
ABSL & Simo Cell - Put Less
Xyla - Cold
North Phase - Electronic Funk
Griz-O - Tabou remix
Hodge & Simo Cell - A Bon
Scruscru - Rain In A Bamboo Groove
Francisco Mora Catlett - Electric Worlds
Niagara - Orion
Portable - The Simulacrum
Mayurashka - Miyabi Noboru
Bendik Giske - Void
Fort Romeau - Porta Coeli