Episode 6: “MUCH OF TEXTO” feat. M.E.S.H. *FULL EPISODE ON PATREON*

When it's like a more niche genre or something like that, the drama is like more esoteric somehow. You know what I mean? What's esoteric drama? How does that mean? Well, it's just more confusing. It's more like mucho texto. Like, you know that meme of Yoda wearing a sombrero and it says, mucho texto. Like if someone posts on Instagram like tons and tons of text and you're just like sliding through. And you just reply mucho text. Let's go, platform episode seven. Manager of environmental safety and health. Me enjoy sex have. Me eat so horny. Music equals shredding heavy. Morpheus entering super hell. Mystic entity sabotaging hymens. Memes exist, so hallelujah. Hmm. Es super horchata. My English sucks, hombre. Milf extermination, so horrific. Man exclusive spaces, huzzah. We're talking to Mesh. on CloudFarm and these are all things that he himself has said the acronym stands for. Do you want to clarify that just for the record? You forgot My Extremely Succulent Hog. Oh yeah, that's it. My Extremely Succulent Hog. To quote you. Yeah. No, I stand by all of that. What's the question? What does MESH stand for? Aside from all of those things. You know, it's just like one of these long boring stories, you know. It's like a why did you move to Berlin kind of question. No offense. Follow up. Yeah. Don't get ahead of yourself. No. Well, originally it was just mesh with no dots. So it's like an SEO thing? Yeah, I had the MySpace page, myspace.com slash mesh with no dots. That's how it all started. And then, yeah, so I wanted, I always like the idea of an artist that takes their artist name from like a song by a different artist, you know, blonde redhead, that kind of thing.

This was, mind you, this was like 2007 or 8 or something like that. And yeah, there's that compilation, what's it called? Techno Beat. Oh my god, I can't believe I'm forgetting this right now. But the song is Meet Every Situation Head On by The Grid. Yeah, but it's listed on Discogs as M-E-S-H. M-E-S-H. It's an artist with one song. That's why I mesh parentheses too on Discogs. Noted. Wow, you're clearing up some deep music. Deep ass lore. This has been something for you. Okay. And I'm expecting a lot of soy face. And I know you're well acquainted with soy face. I interviewed you in 2015. Does that ring a bell? For what? For a tiny Dutch magazine called... I'm probably going to have to bleep that out because I don't want it to come back to me. Okay. Does that ring a bell? Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. Was it like a formative moment for you? I don't remember if it was or not. Dude, it was a crazy expose. You laid it all on the line. What did I say? Just some of the craziest slurs I've ever encountered. Was it an email chain? Was it an email chain? What do you mean? Well, like, what format was the interview? The format was, I think we were talking on, it might literally have been Skype. It might have been, like, the last, like, dying embers of Skype. Oh, okay. You guys were camera off. Oh, shit, so you met face-to-face? No, no, no, this was, like, well, I mean, yeah, kind of, like, on, like, proto-zoom or whatever. Huh. And I read it back, like, today. It's so bad. How did we do? You did great.

You held it down as best as you could. You're exposed to an overzealous, kind of like tryhard music nerd who was inserting multi-syllabic words where monosyllabic words would have sufficed. I think you held it down just great. Oh, that's nice of you. I'm sure you did well, though. I'm mainly peeved that it doesn't immediately come back to you. Sorry about that. 2015 was a big year. It was a big year. Pityous gate. You've kind of gone a little bit dead musically. What's happening, man? Yeah, that's a very good question. Yeah, I didn't really jump back into it post-COVID. I just had this desire not to. I was just kind of bored of everybody that I knew. And that's why you're in London. Maybe, I don't know. So COVID happened and I had a major health issue. And so I was, I was out of my sort of normal life for a long time. And, um, I just had no desire to like, um, you know, like what I was doing before COVID and it seems so cheesy to like bifurcate time with this like COVID thing, but like it kind of works for me. Cause that's when the kind of like the sizzle of my freshness was sort of already like on its, do sizzles wane? Like the sizzle was on the wane, you know? So it was like, it kind of coincided, you know, of like. well, that's the time after your initial sort of like critical thing as an underground musician that you have to either start singing into your laptop or doing performance art or something like that. And I don't know, like I just didn't, I didn't have a plan because I was just always making music and I was just like, there was just these weird things that happened in the mid 2010s where it kind of like other people heard it. So yeah, I just didn't. have the desire to dive back into it and i was doing other things and um yeah but now this year i've been kind of like having like 60 desire to like make music again so i've been doing that a little bit but i don't even know how i want to like release that you're in the studio today you said right uh yesterday yesterday yeah can you give us like a little acapella preview um no i would i mean the preview or

You know, like, I'm not singing. People have been begging me, but I'm not singing. I do have a couple, like, weird, because I like to do... Rap? To make, like, physical modeling, like, guitar synth patches. So, like, I'll, like, design, like, cool, like, what sounds cool to me. Like, guitar sounds just by, you know, with comb filters and stuff, like, making, like, really elaborate, like, acoustic guitar sounding patches. So, like, I have a couple little ditties that are kind of, they kind of sound like this kind of... I don't know, this kind of goth rock kind of thing. I was like, if only I was that person that would want to actually sing over it, then I could really reinvent myself. Who would you have in mind to sing over it, if not you? I think what they really need is a spoken word or a deep baritone. I used to really like this band Red Lori, Yellow Lori. That's a hard name to say. they're like a british british goth band from like the late 80s um but um you could like cue in one of the songs But this is kind of like almost like singing, talking baritone. The classic goth baritone. Yeah. That's what that particular clutch of tracks needs, but I'm not going to do it. You should get Dom to do it. Yeah? I don't have a rich baritone. Oh, you do. Oh, you do. Come on. MK would have the best goth voice. We're some of the most creamily vocaled heads on the scene. Yeah. And we have range as well. It's not just spoken. Wait, Dom, are you not the one in Bad Sip that has the lower voice? Yeah, I am. Yeah, exactly. I feel like my thing, not to make it about me, but my thing is kind of like not being able to do it properly. I think that's what it needs. Well, come on by. I'm not going to do that. Come on by. I don't even know what a comb filter is. I can't be fucking up. I don't even know what a guitar is. That's my responsibility. Yeah. The comb filters.

You said Clutch of Tracks. What about Tracks of Clutch? You know the southern rock band Clutch? I don't actually. Are you serious? Yeah. That's okay. I don't know a lot of music stuff. What's your relationship to Rocking Island and Jack Daniels type culture? Oh, okay. like there's this version I can't string this together into like a joke or an anecdote but when I think of like you know that music that they have on reality shows in the US about people that like live in the swamp or something but it's kind of like but then the theme song is like it's like a show about like it'll be like undercover CEO but like a spinoff or something like that and the music is like has this kind of like foot stomping exactly like that lick is like essential for that and I always since i'm from southern california like the kind of the image i have in my head is like it's after work and you're going to your friend's backyard party and there's like a fire pit because it's a big fire pit culture and it's just like doing something crazy in slow motion with a fire pit whether it's like kicking something in or just kind of like throwing another log on it's like after you've like remodeled the house to flip it or something like that and then you're pouring jd on the fire Yeah, or like pretending you're about to. Yeah, of course. No one's got the stones to do it. That's how I relate to that kind of rocker kind of energy. It's like the SoCal version. So you don't fuck with it, in short? No, I'm not against it. What are you against? Musically. That's too broad. Politically. I think that's even broader. Depends on your politics. Thanks. The Argentinian dude looks like he would listen to that Swamp Rock stuff. He's into like anime OSTs and stuff.

Yeah, because he's a Reddit ANCAP guy. Yeah. Have you seen his costume? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about his dogs? Have you heard about his dogs? Yeah, each one's named after... It's funny because I just read this. Each one of his dogs is named after a different neoliberal or anarcho-capitalist economist. So it's like Milton, you know, Ludwig. And then one of them, it's just named Robert. And I just think it's so funny to call your dog Robert, like, period. It's like calling your dog Steve or something. That's my dad's name. Yeah. Steve. Steve and Robert. Yeah. We have a good time. The heads know this. The heads know. The heads know. Wait, what's the... How's this OST shit coming out? An anime OST. So he's like listening. I can imagine like Evangelion or something. Maybe. His taste is like basic. Oh, okay. Oh, maybe you can illuminate us. Are you an anime guy? Not really. It's just like whatever, like Bersert, like Cowboy Bebop. Just kind of like the... The classics. The classics, whatever. Pass me one of those, will you? Still on my ass up. We were talking about Robert Kennedy on a pod recently because we don't know anything about him. Maybe you're the guy to illuminate things for us slightly more. I don't know. You started talking about him and then was unable to expand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not going to say it again. Oh, because we were talking about Curb. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's her face is dating Robert Kennedy? Yeah, Cheryl, Cheryl, Cheryl. Horrible comment. That wasn't horrible. I stand by that. What are you talking about? She just has like a fallacial face. This is borderline science. You can't put that in two episodes. You're right, you're right. James, do you care to expand upon Robert Kennedy? I associate the RFK thing because when you grow up in Southern California, it's like he's the kind of person that all the moms... would be like posting on Facebook even before his like current incarnation as whatever he is. So it's like, you know, whether you're concerned about vaccines and autism, you're concerned about what's going into the water supply, all these different things. So like that was my association with him before. Okay. And now he's sort of like encompassed every possible ideology or idea or something. Oh, okay. So he's real broad.

Well, I haven't really followed it that close. I was kind of hoping you would have. It just seems like he's like, you know, I don't have a strong opinion about RFK Jr. How fire pit adjacent is he culturally? Ideologically? Well, a fire pit guy, this is so specific and like geocultural, but like a fire pit guy who's not really, he doesn't really drink. And he's sort of, like, a Puritan in some ways. He is interested in, like, the RFK phenomenon. And he will send you articles about, like, you know, the white helmets in Syria or Al-Qaeda or something. Or just that kind of thing, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, the fire pit guy, like, the SoCal Central Coast, actually, version of the rocker fire pit guy knows about RFK Jr. and wants to tell you about it, I guess. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm trying to think if we have an English equivalent. Yeah, I am not extrapolating any of this whatsoever. It's kind of like Russell Brand. Well, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Were you a fire pit guy? Still are? I like fire pits. I have a fire phobia, though, because I'm scared of fires. When I leave the house, I unplug things. I don't like when wires touch carpets. So this is hell for you. Yeah. I hate it, yeah. You know, when you grew up in California, a lot of your houses burned down that you lived in before. Oh, really? Well, just like, yeah, like, um, you know, where are you from in the States? I'm not from America. I'm half Dutch. I've been doing it. Oh, but you have an American accent. Okay. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about that. Yeah. Um, no, like how stuff burns down a lot in California. I have a picture of when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor, a house that we used to live in. burned down in one of the wildfires and there's a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger walking through the charred ruins of like a house that I lived in in fourth grade. It was in the newspaper. I feel like we had our big fire, got it out of the way, and we haven't really had any since, except for Grenfell. The London fire. Yeah, the Great Fire. I thought you were talking about Grenfell. No, no, no, no, no. That's an anomaly. Yeah. What's your Grenfell stance, good or bad? Come on.

Ambiguous. Interesting. Playing both sides of the Grenfell issue. Have you ever self-immolated? What's a cause you'd self-immolate for? None. Not a single one. Have you ever shelf-immolated? Shelf-immolated? Is that like a German toilet joke? No, just like... I want to hear what you think. What would the German toilet joke be? German toilets have shelves and the poo-poo goes on the shelf and you inspect it. I guess you could set it on fire. The Netherlands as well. I think it's more civilized. You have a more tangible sense of your own yield. It's quite humbling in a way. But no, that's not what I was referring to. Okay. That's good. You're like shelving a pill. No, I mean just like setting just a fucking bookcase. Have you ever done that? No. Did you think he meant shelf-like? I have no idea what the fuck you mean. I don't want to call you out on it. I feel like that's bad vibes. Shelfing is like shoving something up your ass. So if you shelf a pill. Oh yeah, or boofing. Yeah, that's true, that's true. But both stand, both stand. You said bloody in a pretty authentic English-ass way before we were recording. How was your ongoing assimilation? Yeah, it's been going good, I think. I was just thinking before, did we ever talk about Chelmsford Manor Boys? Because I always force British people to acknowledge it. No, I have no idea what this is. We'll have to listen to it afterwards. I'm not going to explain what it is. The listeners should just Google it. Chelmsford Manor Boys. They were like a UK rap also known as Grime Duo from Chelmsford from the mid-2000s. And they have a great record that I forget who released it. But it's just like I consider it one of the funniest things that's ever been recorded.

so I went out into town and I got absolutely bothered and I went back to my place and I was sleeping with someone and I woke up the next morning with a banging headache and a sore ass I looked across and there was a man and he was going my name is George, how do you do? Did you enjoy it last night? Did you enjoy the script? In high school, I was like all on like the electronic music message boards. Right. So I was like all on like the... No, I was like on Wadham and the other one, Acceltronica. Like all the IDM boards. What's that? That was after, that's like the blog house one, right? This was like 2003, 2004. so people that like you know it's like which boards of Canada album do you like to masturbate to and it's like some guy will write three pages about like when he listens to whatever song he's like he imagines he's on another planet like and he's like seeing his mom who's dead and he's like getting a blowjob from someone that's not his mom you know like that was the vibe of like the kind of the IDM forums of like the early 2000s so anyway so I met the Chelmsford Manor Boys on one of these forums in the 2000s when I was in high school because they needed web hosting for their first tracks. And I was renting a server space. So I hosted their first tracks. Oh, fuck. Yeah. And then eventually, maybe it was Reflex that released the actual CD. Oh, wow. It was either Reflex or some other. They did do some grime records, kind of 0405. So it could well be. Again, listeners will have to get up on Discogs and find out. So you haven't rekindled with the Chelmsford Banner Boys since you got over here? No, it's been about two decades. But I just respect their work a lot. And going back to the question, I was acculturated in some certain British things pretty early on. And I just carried it with me. You know, I watched...

Also, through IDM message boards, I found out about Nathan Barley when it was new in the UK. And I had someone in the UK burn me DVDs to send to California. So I was having screening parties of Nathan Barley in California when I was 14 or 15. That's so good. That's still one of the best. I need to revisit it. Yeah, it's really, really good. What boards of Canada would you masturbate to? But you should ask Rob after. Rob has a top five already. Long prepared. I'm actually not a big Boards of Canada guy. You've been saving it up because you're doing the triple N. Oh yeah, we'll get there. I think Geogaddy is like probably, I mean, Boards of Canada is one of the least erotic, some of the least erotic music of all time. I think so, yeah. But I feel like Geogaddy is even relative to them. Unerotic. I think listening to any music whilst you touch yourself is like fucked up. That is true. That is true. Although there are people who are, I guess there are lists, they have to be sort of like literal audiophiles. Napalm death? Napalm ass. Napalm ass. Well, that's just palm death. True. Yeah. I don't know. What are you saying, James? About which album? Sure, Geogadi. If you're going to hold me on it. Hold your ransom to it. So what were your feelings on Blockhouse? If you feel like you were saying after your time? Yeah, you know, there's something in my destiny as a human. I always come near things when they're happening, but I'm not super involved. So I felt like when I had my years living in New York when I was at uni... Those were the blog house years. Right, right, right. And I felt blog house adjacent, but I didn't go to any parties or anything. I just played Counter-Strike at home. But I was making kind of like crazy Fruity Loops kind of, you know, French touch kind of Electra House kind of stuff at that time. Okay. So it would have been like 2007-8. And none of that stuff's resurfaced yet. If you keep scrolling down on my SoundCloud, I left one of them that I uploaded in 2008 or 2009 up. A little Easter egg. Yeah.

Damn, what a failure on our part to not have done that. I listened to individuals today. Now I'm understanding the IDM message boards reference. Yeah, I definitely posted that on there. Is that a Deleuze reference? No. No. Surely it's funny if he just says no and we move on. Okay, well I don't know anything about Deleuze. Me neither. Dude, we were talking to Barrett. And he started veering way too close to a bunch of really, really esoteric philosophy. Myself and Rob were kind of shitting ourselves, hoping he would just sort of relinquish. We tried really hard to steer past. I think for the most part, we did pretty well. Yeah, I like getting a bit of that in there as well, because it's probably one of the few times it's going to appear on the pod. I suppose. I don't know. Like theory stuff. I mean, Dom got a crazy screenshot, the RA thing. Yeah, yeah, there's like an RA feature, and one of the pictures is like your bookshelf at the time. Oh, yeah, I was mortified when they did that. Yeah, because now you just wouldn't get away with that bookshelf, because it's like Fang Lumina, Cyclonopedia, and then... I wanted to just like shelf combust or whatever when that picture came out. It's like the picture of the inside of my computer, and then it's like me in basketball shorts on the windows. And then like books. um because i didn't have any gear and like at that time that was when people were like the whole gear thing like if you're like a producer you had to have like vintage gear and like a little cactus and all this stuff i guess that's still a thing now i guess you're either into gear or books i guess so yeah too expensive to do both yeah judge truly is truly is i kind of don't agree with your earlier premise already um being kind of like current thing adjacent but never at the thick of it Like you were there like 20, the sort of like height, not the height, the initial sort of like, hey, they have like pan, the yarn and stuff. Does that not qualify? I guess it depends on what you do with it. Like if you find yourself next to that, you know, white heat and you're just sort of like, I'm going to like parlay this into becoming this, that or the other versus like being around for a little while and then doing anything.

Which sounds really depressing. Yeah, you sound jaded, dude. No, no, no. It's not like that. It's more like the self-deprecating thing. I'm just like, you know. What if it was shelf-deprecating? That'd be weird. No, I see your point. But, like, how did you... I mean, it's like a really broad question. Like, at least for me, that time was really... Like, I was... Still, I guess, like a level of sort of like youthful naivete, like everything was really, really exciting. Everything and a lot of that music. This is around the time of Scythians, which was around the time that I initially talked to. I talked to you for the first time, like piteous gay era. But Scythians at the time was like mind blowing to me. Like I have really specific memories of being like oppressively high, like on a tram, like in. um rotterdam listening to that ep and having my mind just kind of like progressively kind of like crumble a little bit as i as i kind of like listen to it so for me at the time it was like genuinely like really sort of like paradigm shifting um but i feel like if you're at the thick of it that can be a little bit hard to appreciate like did it did it feel in any way close to what i'm describing for you Just to challenge you on the jadedness accusations. I didn't say that. It's like a way of talking. I've had so many experiences over the years where people set you up to say really inflated things about the things that you do. My tendency, at least, is to sort of like, oh, well, you know, I was just having a good, you know, this was just like...

I was trying to make a shelf joke, but I couldn't get there. It was just shelf help at the time. But no, like, yeah, when I made Scythians, I felt like I was on another planet. Like I was, you know, I was really like, I was there, you know, like I was really like, I really believe, and I still like love that record as someone that made it. And I still am really like chuffed that I made that record. Other records too. I'm just used to sort of doing this deflection game of being like, so, you know, your music is de-territorialized, whatever. People just put words in your mouth and they sort of lead you to whatever the current thing is in terms of what music discourse is. And you just get into this discourse machine. Especially for underground music. You're not earning money, so you have to farm clout. like this different kind of clout. You have to be like, I'm like this theorist of sound and I'm doing this, that and the other and here's my mission statement for my, you know, here's my artist statement that reads like gallery wall text for my four track EP. Why do you hate Lee Gamble? Hey. I love Lee Gamble. Whoa. Where did that come from? No, Lee Gamble's goaded. He's goaded. Yeah. Very lovely paintings too. if i put if i put that all out of my head and stop like being this like reaction mode like no like i i was like in a really particular moment in my life and my my trajectory as an artist and like there was like real things that i felt that i was doing there like i i love that i did that basically you know like i i'm like i'm like um i'm like jaded slash very very not jaded like i think like music is the most important more important than life itself. But also, like, I don't really listen to much music, and most music I just hate. You know what I mean? What do you really gamble? Well, I think... Were you, like, conscious? Because, like, to me, like, Pai Chisuke, Synthians, and your second album were all, like, quite, like, groundbreaking. And again, I don't mean that in, like, an inflated sense, but in terms of they really showed for me, like, a way that electronic music...

it felt like electronic music was still pushing forward in a way that to me now it doesn't so much. And I guess, was that something you were feeling at the time? Like you said, you felt like you're on another planet. Does that then kind of carry on or at a certain point, does it become your life that people are responding to it in this way where they're kind of, like you say, they're applying all these heady theoretical concepts and expecting that to resonate with you? Yeah, it's... Can you reformulate the question? Because this is tough stuff for me. Yeah, no, no, that's fine. Can you refactor it, as we say in the valley? Can you bring it from zero to one? At a certain point, did you feel like you were kind of... So you make Synthians and you say you really felt like you were on another planet. At a certain point, do you then... come back down to earth and kind of keep on progressing forward with music or did you remain at that point and that's what took you to making the others that you made after? So there's a difference between like making and listening to music sort of in the moment with all the factors that are weighing on you and all these different things and then there's music, the thinking music is sort of like there's the archive, there's the Akashic record of all sounds ever made and you're putting your music into this archive and so it's all like... temporally situated and it's all historicized in a certain way so it's easy for me to look back and be like oh I was messing around just doing this and that but then at the time when I think back it's like yeah there were like certain latent things about making music on the computer that I feel like weren't reflected in the music I was hearing at the time and I felt like I was I don't know like I was I always thought of it as like DAW music like not computer music, not electronic music, not hardware music, whatever, but it's music that's about interacting with a DAW. And the discourse around electronic music at that time, and it's easy to forget about what the discourse is at any given moment. Because you look back at a record that was made however many years ago, and then you're seeing it among 50 different records from a span of years around that. So it's hard to see where there was that moment where someone really was kind of twisting something.

or changing something. But yeah, at that time, I really, I did feel like when I was making those records, I was being honest about the way that I was making music and listening to music. And it felt really natural to me. Like I was in a feedback loop with the screen of the DAW. And I think a lot of music that came out around that time was like, you know, even the, even the way the ARCA was producing, it was like working with DAWs in that way. I'm just like. not trying to make it sound like this other thing, not trying to have this kind of fake vintage feel to things. I think that's exactly. But we take that for granted, I guess now, which we should because it's just sort of like, it's like a normal thing to do. I think that kind of the, is it, wait, did you say Janus or Janus? I said Janus. I said Janus. I'm going to say Janus. I'm going to say Janus. It doesn't matter, man. It's in the correct way. One thing with Janice looking back on it is I think it was the first time after being really obsessed with Night Slug when I was a bit younger that there was another crew that were layering a lot of different genres on top of one another in a way that felt very novel. And I think it's interesting that you kind of talk about music discourse and us taking things for granted because I think that approach now is everywhere in kind of electronic music and kind of call it the underground, call it what you want. And I guess I just wondered, again, did it feel particularly novel what you guys were doing at the time with Janice? And do you see the echoes of that and what's going on now with the music that you do listen to? I know you're saying you're not listening to that much. Yeah. And, you know, it's always a mixed bag. Like if I think about what it was like, just since you're specifically asking about like nightlife and club music, like that side of it. Like, you know, I was I've been living in Berlin for four or five years before I started releasing on Pan. And going out in Berlin, you'd hear the best club music in the world, whether it was coming from the UK or it was coming from Germany or from wherever. But you weren't hearing... It was very weird. You'd have the house floor and the techno floor. Or be like the techno floor and the disco and house floor. But there wasn't... I don't know, it'd be very weird for a techno DJ to play for his last tune.

like some reggae song or something like that it wouldn't be that weird if it was like a dub techno party or something but what i mean is like there were there are all these like weird categories in people's minds and it was all just dudes with like v-necks and just sort of like it wasn't all like that sorry to the fam whatever no um what i'm what i mean is just like if you don't want a v-neck fuck you it's on the record to quote james just now they're they're coming back i just watched a paul rudd movie and he looked really great in it what was the movie wanderlust I'm really into Judd Apatow movies. There are all these weird delineations between things. This is another thing where I get annoyed when people seize on that and they're like, oh, we're mixing everything and everything's being... That still happens. You can laugh that people put up a big wall between drama, bass, and jungle. it's good that when that wall was there that just meant that like people were intensifying these like different strains of different sounds and it's okay to have rules if you're like loose with the rules you know what i mean so now you have this like counter reaction to the recreation within moderation well you said that not me um no but i just like the idea that like yeah i don't know i i used to like that you could go out and sort of like there'd be a night devoted to like a certain sound collection of labels or genres or something like that that felt like because so much of the history of dance music is these like micro mutations within one kind of path you know what I mean and then it's exciting that they've done this they've swung the hi-hats or they've done these different things and like that's what it goes into this like I can't stand Brian Eno but like the Brian Eno seniors idea you know what I mean and then suddenly once everything becomes like You know, I remember like for like five or six years, every time someone would get booked at Bearcine or Panorama Bar and they would play something like, like, oh, I played a Ciara remix at Panorama Bar. Like, they're going to kill me now. You know, it's like nobody cares anymore. Nobody's mad. But also like I used to like going to Bearcine or Panorama Bar before I really knew anybody. And like you would go upstairs, like downstairs would be like 118 BPM minimal techno.

that was just like resonating that huge room for 16 hours you go upstairs to panorama bar and it would be like you know like a like a someone playing disco for two hours and it was amazing the sound was like a little bit tinny and kind of like mid-rangey and like the contrast from the downstairs to the upstairs and i guess it's still like that at club knocks like on saturday nights but like i'm not so impressed when people are like i just like did this I put a little bit of this a little bit of that so what are you gonna do with me now you know like I'm not I don't care like either do that or don't do that but like it's not like you're you know the superhero because you're the first person to play two genres in the span of an hour not to be boring but obviously like Berg's kind of an exception but like in terms of London they kind of aren't enough venues like any venue that opens kind of like dedicated to a thing fails right like it kind of you kind of have to have like these eclectic nights to exist a little bit is it i mean i think like 15 years like it used to be the opposite you know you're trying to do it like conceptually and now it's like you're kind of forced into a corner a little bit yeah i i mean but i still feel like people there's sort of like a it's almost like a crutch from when like i guess like discourse like enacts itself when sort of, like, journalists feel obligated to sort of, like, if not praise, at least sort of, like, note the fact that people are kind of, like, transgressively eclectic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know how that translates. I mean, even on, like, a commercial level, like, when I was, like, 18, you know, you'd go on, I'd go on RA, like, not knowing anything about any of the venues in London, and it'd be, like, garage night, D&B night, you know? And you don't even get that anymore, even on, like, a kind of commercial freshers level. I think you get it on a kind of like big, you know, like people coming from like satellite towns for like a Sunday brunch kind of vibe, but not for like a Friday night at a 500 cap club. I think the one exception for that is Armour Piano. Yeah, that's about it. That's like, you know, they're doing these enormous raves out in Romford. I'm all for it. Yeah, it's fantastic, man. I refuse to let it get played out. Do you mean like at those events?

they would stick to the genre. Yeah. It's much closer to one. I love that idea because like, there's something about that particular sound that's about dynamics where if you try to bash other sounds into that sound, because the way those tracks are produced, there's so much kind of like, I don't know. It's like this kind of gossamer thin kind of mixed down where like, there's like all the elements just like, they're so, um, precious not to overtalk it, but like, you'd feel weird smashing a garage tune into one of those tracks. You know what I mean? It's almost like they delineated their own space by mixing things differently or having a different kind of dynamic relationship with sound. Yeah. Well, it's about slow blends as well. Not on the piano. Some of those tracks are what? I miss slow blends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the song's designed for that, just to be blended in, blended out really slowly, really gradually. Hell yeah. Can you pass one of those stillers? Absolutely. I was actually like, so like last week, or was it two weeks ago? When was the glove? Was that last week? Last week. Last week. Me and Rob played a show and it was like the most, it was like the first time for probably like ever that I've, it was like the most sort of like focused kind of set, like set that I've ever sort of like DJed. Like prior, like I've always had this. Paid off, man. Say again? Paid off. I think so, yeah. I've always had this kind of impulse to try to just cram the sort of breadth of the stuff that I like into the span of an hour, like 45 minutes or whatever. And this is the first time I try to force myself to be a little bit disciplined. And I felt like it would be interesting if we got a bunch of people that we know. If we did a techno night, but from people who aren't necessarily from a techno-ish background, I thought they could make for something quite interesting. But it's like, it's interesting. I've come to this like point in my own sort of relationship to like club, like nightlife or whatever, where weirdly enough I've come like full circle and I'm like more drawn to something resembling a genre night than I am. This kind of like hodgepodge type thing that's taken the front seat the last like 10 years or something. It just keeps going. And it's like, you can call it a trend, but it's like, if the trend is just everything.

I think we're just stuck with everything. It's like a trend that's a specific sound. It's not like there's a million DJs that are as good as Total Freedom or something like that. It's just the way things are now. Far from it. Far from it. But it's just hard to get the focus back on that scene thing. I'm being too cynical because there are new sounds that pop up and they get worked on by people in different places and they communicate like that. But DJ-wise, I don't know. I don't remember the last time I was in a club somewhere where people were doing long transitions and building up a steady groove. Which makes you sound like such a boomer, but like, I think the groove is in the heart, you know? And it's like, you need a groove. You need time to do that though. I think an hour set. I guess in the UK you have short sets here, right? Is that not the case? I guess like Berlin probably less so. Berlin you kind of like, I just remember starting out and getting used to being able to do like three hours if necessary. Really? Just like having lots of stuff, you know? Even like early on? Yeah, because you, you know, because things start early and they end, you know, two days later. So it's like people expect you to kind of bring enough stuff that you can kind of build something up and then take it down over the course of three hours, basically. The Germans also take, like, they take clubbing seriously, particularly in sort of, like, Berlin. I feel like from what I've seen, from what I've been in my exposure to, like, the Berlin kind of, like, club, whatever, like, culture is, like, somewhat limited. I really like it, though, but I always get a sense that, like...

the sort of culture there and like the DJs and the audience have this sort of like disciplined approach. Like it's really, they'll sort of like, they allow these things to sort of like, they allow the night to kind of like unfold in a way that I'm really, maybe it's just because there's this sort of like marathon mindset, but I don't know too much about. Yeah, no, there is that for sure. Was it hard to stay like, to not succumb to just like hedonism? I'm not the type, so it's easy for me to not... I'm disgusted by people having too much fun. No threat here. I have that fear. I really like Berlin in the couple times that I've been. And I just get the sense that it would completely consume me. I just don't have that. But what about Methyimbus? What's that about? Well, is Imbus the same word in Dutch? No. And Imbus is like a fast food restaurant. And meth is meth? Yeah, it's just one of those sets of words that just stick in your head. Now, just imagine this meth-y Imbus. But it's a particular Berlin scene of the fluorescent lights and stuff. It's obviously a British version of that. What's your stance on meth? Cool. On meth? Yeah. You know, when I first started, it was interesting when I went to Ukraine for the first time in 2016. It was all speed. I guess across Eastern Europe, because there wasn't like a weed culture, it seemed like, and there wasn't like other kind of party drugs and stuff like that. Dude, they need weed now more than ever. This is my call. We need to airdrop a bunch of fucking loud, and I'm telling you, things will resolve themselves within fucking four hours. But in Eastern Europe, it's mainly uppers, like speed and stuff like that. Well, this is the problem. It's evident. How did that manifest? What was your exposure to the Ukraine scene like? Yeah, I mean... Why were you there? I was playing this party schema, which is like their kind of... Yeah, a big rib there. But yeah, everyone puts on sunglasses, which I found really charming.

So all these 19-year-olds, like an ocean of shirtless 19-year-old guys with like Oakley's on. Oakley's as well. Well, just like sport sunglasses. It's like everything that you want from... Are you at all aware of the kind of like Memphis rap-influenced Ukrainian beat scene? No, I only knew about the Berlin horror rap Memphis connection. Is there a Berlin... angle there too in the late 2000s early 2010s when I was trying to learn German when I first moved there I was listening to a bunch of there was like this micro genre in Berlin of horror rap where they'd like of like rapping about being like a crazy serial killer and stuff like that but they have all these like Memphis type beats and I think yeah there's this rapper Block Monster How's that spelled? Is that spelled kind of gangsta? B-L-O-K-K-M-O-N-S-T-A. Block Monster. But he has this 3-6 Mafia verse that he paid for. I don't know who it was. Wait, as in he got 3-6 on a track? I might be getting the story wrong because I was listening to this in 2010 or something. But that sound was big in Berlin. Not really big in Berlin, actually. But it wasn't part of commercial Deutsch rap. It was the Berlin horror rap. And there was this girl, Dr. Jekyll. She was like a Vietnamese-German girl rapper. And she kind of rapped like this. House of... thousand uh corpses whoa so she'd like rap about like haunted houses and stuff like that yeah she was kind of psycho psycho style yeah psycho style you need to get her on your goth rock track i know right yeah yeah how far did you get with learning german uh decently far over many years you know it kind of my level like would rise and then plateau and then fall and then rise and plateau and fall where were you amongst your peers kind of like expats in berlin i'm always curious well it's different when you're like

When you've been there a long time, most of the people that you're around are people that have also been there a long time. But if you were going to go out to some event, then people don't speak German. Right, okay. But people that go there and maybe they're studying or something, they come from a non-EU country, which means they have to find work unless they're independently wealthy, which many of them are. So yeah, it's a big mix. But many people don't speak that much at all. So what's the sort of, who's the wealthiest music person? Who's the poorest? Who's the poorest? Yeah. You know, it's not polite to ask such questions. Not of me, but I wouldn't ask. This is a rude podcast. Not you, but I wouldn't ask my fellow producers and artistes people. Okay. Why do you hate Lee Gamble, man? I love Lee Gamble. Is it because he's poor or rich? I love Lee Gamble. Which one is it? I love Lee Gamble. There's no way he's rich. No, Lee Gamble's so real. I don't know why. He's awesome. Lee Gamble is like arbitrarily graphic towards him. Is he from Birmingham or something? Yeah, he's from Birmingham. Midlands, yeah. I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry, Lee Gamble. Please don't cancel your subscription. You and Lee Gamble? No, I want to take out Tim. I think he'd have you. Don't say that on the podcast, dude. Sorry. What were you doing on Thursday? Okay, yeah. We'll hash that out. We'll have a fight. We'll make it like verbal. We'll make it verbal. Verbal sparring. Non-exclusive spaces. Oh, sorry. Man-exclusive spaces. Huzzah. Mulf extermination. So horrific. My English sucks, hombre. Which of those three is closest to the essence of mesh? Probably man-exclusive spaces. Man-exclusive. Huzzah. Mesh is an anti-milf project. Hashtag gamers rise. Gamers freaking rise. Do FIFA heads qualify as gamers? No. What the hell? You're projecting a powerful... I'm not sure. Every FIFA? That's such a broad generalization. I've never played FIFA before. Have you ever got an offer to do a video game soundtrack? No. That really surprises me. Many things surprise me over the course of this career. Are you waiting in the wings for what?

You know, maybe I'll do it. What's on your kind of manifestation board? My manifestation board? Yeah. Earn enough money to live in London. To all of us, bro. No, we got you. We're paying for this. I thought so, yeah, but I didn't want to ask. We got pee in London for you, brother. Don't worry about that. If you had to get one of your tunes on the upcoming GDA6. On the upcoming what? GTA 6. GTA 6. What's it going to be? Which one of my tunes? There's just not a funny answer. Do slapstick. Pretend you're falling over as you're answering something. You know, maybe something like Interdictor. Nice. Night driving. We actually have the Rockstar plug. Oh, yeah. TBD. Where's GTA 6 going to be like, you know, based on? Kharkiv, I hope. We'll see. So you don't know? You don't know? No, no, no. I can't. I'd rather keep it under wraps. This is for the Patreon. Do you love daring to ricochet between bawdy top 40 edits and frenetic rhythmic heaters? Was this like a Guardian article or something? Just answer the question. Is this fact? Is this fader? You're cynically deflecting once again. The question is straightforward. Do you love daring to ricochet between bawdy, top 40 edits, and frenetic rhythmic heaters? Bawdy? Bawdy. Like with a W? Yeah. B-A-W-D-Y. It's like a pirate word. I love doing that because who sets the rules? We set the rules as the youth of tomorrow. That's real as fuck, man. Oh, my God. The Youth of Tomorrow. Episode title. Episode title, dude. Salud. Can we go pee-pee? Yeah, yeah. No, that's a good point. We're 45 minutes, so... That's the SoundCloud half. Okay, excellent. Beautiful, beautiful. Dude, I have to piss. I mean, I know I said this like... Yeah, you said this at the... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's because you're smashing brew. Should we... Can I have bum a cig? Absolutely. Fuck, yes. Can I have bum a cig? Absolutely.

Just don't say anything to take to take with it off the record. Let's talk about Roy Stewart But they've never been about yo, I splashed niggas yo in and out Cloud is killing our people Cloud is killing our people Cloud is killing our people Cloud is killing our people They move like the groupies, them Sending shots or snap But in real life don't use their skank