Ewan Pearson. Enthusiasm...

20.4.2009

Just when you least expect it (and me even less - I'm at my most hectic and stressy for some months - and that's saying something) here's a new Enthusiasm. It's been a while, for which - as always - I apologise, but you can only be in so many places at once, darn it.

1. Cortney Tidwell - Boys [City Slang]

So over the moon to be able to talk about the new Cortney Tidwell album in public, now that promo rounds have begun. I've been privy to most of this in its gestation and it's a beautiful set of songs, sung / played / produced immaculately by Cort and her regular collaborators - her husband Todd Tidwell, Ryan Norris, Scott Martin and Lambchop / Silver Jews' guitar ace William Tyler. From the 1-chord noise-rock of "17 Horses" to tender spaced-out dream-pop/country/electronica (there's no simple generic categorising here I'm afraid peeps) of "Sun and Moon", "Oh China", "Oslo", "Bad News" etc. etc. this is a breathtaking record from a woman with a genuinely life-improving voice. Hyperbole? Erm, no actually. I've lived with this record for going on 18 months and my love shows no sign of faltering - it's just getting deeper and more nuanced. Your turn...

2. Various - Culprit EP 001 [Culprit]

Fresh from LA's Droog party crew, a super-strong contemporary house EP. The stand-out here is Jamie Jones and Lee Foss' 'Heads' (lots of other new stuff they've done together is already cluttering my CD wallet), but Foss' 'Solo' is also a killer. Immaculate fresh-funk grooves with plenty of tweaky sonic interest that do everything required to rock the floor.

3. Cobblestone Jazz - Traffic Jam [Wagon Repair]

A funk break, some occasional chromatic ascending jazz chords, and a heavy italo-ish bassline that just won't quit add up to make a Carl Craig-esque super-musical yet totally dancefloor bomb. Another instant classic up there with "India In Me" and "Peace Offering / Dump Truck".

4. Osborne - Wait A Minute (Arto Mwambe remix) [Ghostly/ Spectral]

Frankfurt's finest coming on in a deep detroit disco style, this reminds me of Lindstrom in his Slow Supreme guise - before any of you knew who he was...! ;) (I'm a old wanker, sorry).

5. St. Vincent - Actor Out Of Work [4AD]

"Marry Me" was easily one of my favourite records of 2007; art-rock that was supremely melodic, technically immaculate (both in the playing and the production) and chock-full of personality whilst being blissfully free of kooky indie-chick irritancy. Annie Clark already seems to have bettered it on the two tracks from the new album "Actor" that I've heard. Can't wait for the rest.

6. It's A Fine Line - various

Happily, the past 18 months or so has seen Ivan Smagghe back making a flurry of records again after his departure from Black Strobe; with Danton Eeprom as La Horse, with Roman Flügel in some as-yet-unnamed combination and above all with Tim Paris, fellow Parisian ex-pat in London (and production ace in his own right). "Hen's Bells" was one of my DJ staples of 2008 alongside their astonishing re-edit "Woman" for Nathan WIlkin's History Clock label and their remix of "Let's Go Outside" for Soma. Their forthcoming stuff is wonkier and more singular; remixes of Burger and Voigt's "Wand Aus Klang" for Kompakt (me and the boy Usher have a long dubby psychedelic Partial Arts remix of this in the bag too), production on the forthcoming Battant LP and originals "Never Go With A Hippie To A Second Place" (already my favourite track title of 2009) and "Grease", fuse analogue industrial funk, no-wave, psych, rockabilly and techno like no-one else at the moment.

7. School of Seven Bells - Alpinisms [Ghostly]

I've fallen in love - and hard - with the School of Seven Bells and their kraut-madrigal-shoegaze wonderment. And there are no lyrics about knights wearing crystal armour etc. the likes of which are putting me right off the new Bat For Lashes record, frankly.

8. Lost Valentinos - Cities of Gold [etcetc]

OK, forgive the torrent of self-promotion that's about to unfold but it's been a while, and I've been working quite hard. And on good good stuff that the parties in question ought to be well-proud of. First up, Lost Valentinos' debut album (all of the tracks either produced or mixed by yours truly) is finally finished and it's a really rich and characterful set of songs that nimbly straddle various modes of indie and electronic pop without following any paint-by-numbers stereotypes (like so many woefully unimaginative bands at the moment). Songs stuffed with lyrics about the new world and the high-seas, summery afro-delirium, baggy manc grooves and dreamy pop, as much characterised by wheezing harmoniums and psychedelic guitars as by over-driven MS20 synth riffs. And stuffed full of singles too - "The Bismarck", "Serio", "Midnights", "Nightmoves", "A Common Thief" - this is a supremely confident debut album that's already getting hammered on Aussie radio and will be elsewhere soon. Hurrah!

9. Delphic - Counterpoint [R&S]

Finished off / mixed by yours truly, here's Manchester's best new band in years' first single. Following the city's most joyous and ecstatic traditions & in thrall but not beholden to the best of New Order, Orbital and more, with credible hook-laded songs by the dozen. I'm really excited to be in the producer's chair for the album. Soon come. Goosebumps, goosebumps...

10. Junior Boys - Hazel / Jon Hopkins - Light Through The Veins (Ewan Pearson remixes) [Domino]

A double-header of me remixing Domino acts. Jon Hopkins is 15 minutes of Kompakt-ish blissful neo-trance. The Junior Boys is the lead-track from their new album "Begone Dull Care". I did the final mix on their album version and then remixed it too in a deep-but-large vocal house style. There's a Wild Pitch-ish dub too for those of you who don't care for vocals (weirdos...).

11. Current highlights from the Pearson DJ "box" (er, wallet)

Mugwump "Mindflexes", DJ Hell, "The Angst", Blagger "Strange Behaviour" DJ Koze remix, Holgar Zislke "Mes Yeux", Different Gear "One Thing More", Iron Curtis "Pumping Velvet", Neville Watson "Full Flight", Audio Soul Project "Reality Check" Vincenzo remix, George Issakidis and Speedy J "Sculpture", Ricky L "Automatic", Gonno "I Don't Need Competition".

Groove Column: On not meeting Leonard Cohen (December 2008)

I am standing in the lobby of Brussels’ Royal Windsor Hotel when the lift-doors swish open and out walks Leonard Cohen. As he stands but three metres from me, quietly dapper in his tweed cap and hockey jacket, I fight an internal battle with myself - fan vs. over-polite Englishman - over whether to risk disturbing him by telling him how much I enjoyed his live show earlier this summer.

Why the caution? Well, fame used to be the unfortunate by-product of being successful or good at something, not an end in itself. No matter how much you love what they do artists deserve a bit of peace when they’re not working. Occasionally being recognized for or complimented on your work is of course nice and unproblematic. But if it happens day-in and day-out it must get waring surely?

Moreover, we are advised never to meet our heroes, for they will only disappoint us. We will see that they have feet of clay, or bad skin, or halitosis and no manners. In actual fact we are more likely to end up disappointed in ourselves. When one of my all-time pop heroes visited the club I was resident at in London, I was so nervous I hid in the dressing room until he left. Wus. Three years later I was introduced to him at an EMI Christmas party, my cowardice overpowered by champagne. He was a little haughty and my nervousness returned three-fold. I babbled incoherently, annoying him and embarrassing myself. Good work, Pearson.

Even if the person in question is lovely, you can still bugger things up. I was sitting in a pub with Tracey Thorn when a random bloke came up to her to say hello. He then made the fatal error of trying to start a conversation. Desperate for something - anything - to say he blurted out “you know if you think about it, you’re responsible for Dido aren’t you?” At which point, the usually very polite bedsit-disco queen swore in dismay and he ran for the door. Three words: Curb Your Enthusiasm.

To hell with it, I think. Leonard is by all accounts a gracious and charming man. I will offer a brief sentence of thanks and be on my way. I turn from the reception desk, heart in mouth, only to see Mr Cohen disappear out of the door, off to what I hope is a quiet, unmolested lunch.

Groove Column: On Sleevenotes (October 2008)

So I’'m on the internet trying to discover which tracks on the new Bloc Party and Primal Scream albums were produced by my buddy Paul Epworth. And I can'’t, anywhere. Not on iTunes. Not on the bands’' websites. I just want to hear what Paul did, but I have no way of knowing except by ringing him or going to the shops and buying the CD which would ruin the point of the exercise and - wait a minute - the Bloc Party is download-only anyhow. Bugger. The download era has left the people behind the music - players, engineers, the backroom boys and girls - less visible than ever. Overworked, underpaid and now largely anonymous. This information could easily be encoded into every MP3 but most come without any kind of electronic booklet or credits at all. Compare movies where every single person who even wandered past the film studio gets their moment of glory at the close. As physical formats disappear, no academic, historian or nerdy fan will be able know where music was made, who banged what, who thanked whom, who designed the - now virtual - sleeve. “So what?” I hear you ask. Well, one of the slightly pathetic reasons why people make stuff is the hope that it will remain after they'’re gone, and in a tentative way, them with it. I’'m trusting the sum of my working life to evolving digital formats, hoping they can replicate themselves in an uncertain future, little packets of musical DNA leaping from fragile hard-disk platter to fragile hard-disk platter. Maybe the ease by which digital files can be copied means that some of them have a chance of surviving. But realistically, we can’'t be certain that anything humans make these days is going to last more than a few decades, apart from toxins and landfill. So instead I buy William Basinski’'s “"Disintegration Loops"”, an amazing suite of ambient records made from 25-year-old tape-loops discovered in a Brooklyn cupboard, that started to slough off their oxide coating as soon as they were played back, and were quickly re-recorded even as they fell apart. The music degrades and crumbles before our ears; art for our evanescent digital age, born of our hopes for posterity even as it demonstrates how foolish they are.

Groove Column: On collective joy (August 2008)

So I kind of hate people. Well, that’s not strictly true. I hate about 95% of people. OK, hate’s too strong a verb. Dislike. Am impatient with. Have no time for. Not that I’m a bigot - I don’t dislike according to race, creed or sexuality. I’m an equal-opportunity misanthrope.

I like the idea of “the people”. Politically, I am of the left. I believe in high tax, in looking after those that can’t help themselves, in the principles of democracy. It’s just that in practice people suck. It’s not their fault. Nature and nurture conspired to make them mostly useless. As long as we can agree to give each other a wide berth, we can all get along just fine.

My anti-social tendencies make collective joy difficult. I love the movies but merrily I wish all kinds of cancerous misfortune on idiots that crunch their popcorn too loudly and talk through the film. Why didn’t I stay home with a DVD? I wanted to kill a couple who talked all the way through a Radiohead gig in Dublin last month. Why weren’t they standing rapt, in silent communion? (I’m allowed to sing along at the top of my voice of course, but I don’t want to hear you do it: you can’t sing in tune.) I love folk music - traditionally the music of the people - as long as it’s played by talented professionals. Amateurs in Arran sweaters keep your mouths shut.

There is one cultural form which other people can’t spoil - quite the opposite; they are essential to the whole enterprise. Dancing. At its best en masse, with acid house people learned how to dance together in a new way, each respecting each other’s space and it’s not an exaggeration to say that I learned how to love other people by going to nightclubs.

In Dortmund on Saturday I tested my love to the limit by seeing how I managed with 1.4 million of them. Cooler-than-thou friends had raised their eyebrows when I told them I was going to Love Parade, and to be honest I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to like it. But after ten minutes of watching crazy people dressed as nuns, or as gorillas or in the most appalling sportswear, dancing tirelessly, having the time of their lives, their enthusiasm undampened by the rain pummeling their heads, I had a massive grin on my face. Ridiculous but lovely. Sometimes people are great.

Groove Column: On speaking the language (June 2008)

So I started Sprachschule again. While other DJs were drinking their mini-bars I sat in my hotel this weekend learning which prepositions are followed by the dative and which the accusative. I enjoyed it. But then, I am a nerd. I should have jumped at the chance to go back to school months ago. Why didn’t I?

My usual answer to that question is to reel off a list of excuses about traveling and working a lot. I rarely admit the real reason that underpins most English-speaking peoples’ linguaphobia: fear. Britain’s colonial past made English the must-have language of the Western world, and continues to let native speakers strut around as if we owned the place. Berlin’s Anglophone DJs and musicians are just the latest in a long line. But we harbour secret feelings of terror and inferiority when we hear just how well everyone else can speak our language too.

There are other reasons for my reticence. I’ve spent my whole life avoiding things I’m not good at and trying to learn a language from scratch means giving up being subtle, intelligent or interesting to appear instead both stupid and boring, at least for a while. Wittgenstein said “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world”. At the moment my world is very cramped and comes to a stop just past the dry-cleaners.

I feel slightly guilty admitting this, but there are also pleasures in ignorance, in not speaking the language. Taxi rides free of the burden of conversation; peace in a room full of chatter; media-babble becomes so much white noise; the news and its woes fall on others’ ears. If you can’t turn the world off exactly, you can turn it down a little.

But you cut yourself off from much life and joy too. In a taxi to London’s City Airport yesterday my Bengali driver startled me by asking in perfect German how long I’d lived in Berlin. “Vier Jahren” I replied and the rest of the journey we talked about his former life in Frankfurt and his new one in England, partly in German and partly in English. Two immigrants chatting about their new homes in the language of both. Looks like I’ve already started talking to taxi drivers again after all. I rather liked it.

Groove Column: On music and memory (April 2008)

In the UK there is a radio show called ‘Guilty Pleasures’, devoted to playing the tracks the you secretly like but are too embarrassed to admit to liking. It’s a way of ironising a love of pop that some people seem to want to renounce as they get older, for hipsters to tacitly admit that the music which burrows its way into one’s head - the greatest word in German is orvorm - which soundtracks the triumphs and disasters of our existence (and gives us more unalloyed joy in the process) is more often Barry White or Fleetwood Mac than it is Sonic Youth or Arthur Russell.

Me, I’m all too happy to admit that the works of Britney Spears or Michael Jackson have given me more pure pleasure than Panda Bear or Minilogue ever will. Like many of us, I have measured out my life in dubious pop records. The first single I ever bought was not 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' or 'I Feel Love'. It was Ray Parker Junior’s theme from 'Ghostbusters'. I learned to play the piano with the help of Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits songbook (I can be persuaded to give you my version 'Just The Way You Are' if you ply me with enough booze). The biggest reaction to any record I can remember as a DJ was when I dropped Rod Stewart’s 'Do You Think I’m Sexy' at a wedding on a beach in Spain. Magic.

Pop music - usually at its cheesiest and least cool - is one of the most powerful means by which we form and cement memory.  Why is it that I can quote very little of any of the books I studied at University, but I can finish the lyric of Vanilla Ice’s 'Rollin' In My 5.0' - a record I  do not own - without even thinking twice?  More potent than Proust’s madeleine it can take you back, instantly, to any number of moments from your past. Play me Bryan Adams 'Run To You' and I am a small child on holiday, driving around Wales with my Mum and Dad, all of us singing our lungs out and as happy as I think I will ever get. Play me Status Quo’s frankly appalling 'Sweet Caroline' and I am at a school disco vying with my friend Dean for the attentions of the cutest girl in my class.

Two weeks ago, I was at the funeral of my Grandma. As the eulogies were spoken, on a loop in my head were the old film comedians Laurel and Hardy singing 'The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia', which was one of the few records my grandparents owned and one which had my sister and I and them laughing like drains every time we played it. At the reception afterwards my dad asked me if there was anything I wanted to take from the house to remember her by. I smiled and shook my head. Laurel and Hardy will do me just fine.

(published April 2008)

Groove Column: On ears (February 2008)

It's early on a dirty Monday morning in Prenzluerberg, just me and my laptop; I can hear the January rain fall inexorably outside my bedroom window and the tippy-tap of my neighbour's high-heels as she wanders off to work. I can also hear a constant high-pitched whine, a fizziness which has set-up camp permanently in my head. I'm used to it now and I only really notice it first thing in the morning and when I go to bed. My tinnitus.

It's a dirty little secret amongst DJs but I know very few who have not got some kind of permanent problem with their hearing. In the past year two friends have had episodes which have threatened their job altogether - emergency trips to audiologists and periods of enforced rest. I know DJs that can't get to sleep at night without the television or dishwasher on to distract them from the constant whine.

Hearing damage comes in three flavours; tinnitus, the ringing in your ears that you get after a loud concert or club night, except it never goes away. Hyperacusis, where loud noises and sudden changes in volume become very painful. And hearing loss, where you become deaf to certain frequencies, like your grandma except 40 years too soon. Once you've damaged your ears there's very little you can do about it apart from try and take it a bit easier and prevent the damage from getting worse.

I’ve been using earplugs for several years and I’m lucky in that I have no hearing loss, but last year I had an episode of hyperacusis after a couple of drunken gigs where i really blasted my ears and didn’t wear my plugs. The next two months were miserable; car brakes squealing, the banging of plates, even the rattle of my flat keys really hurt. For someone whose other job is sitting in studios listening to electric guitars and cymbals being hit it terrified me. I thought my career as a producer was over.

It’s better again now, thank goodness, but I’m ‘fessing up to all this just to say if you’re spending lots of time (as you should be!) in loud clubs listening to deaf DJs playing great music, think about your ears from time to time. All clubs are loud enough to damage your hearing if you’re not careful. Buy and take plugs with you and make sure you wear them at least some of the time: there are cheap and effective wax and foam ones as well as amazing ones which are custom-moulded to the shape of your ear and actually often make the music in a too-loud club sound better. Give yourselves a rest at regular intervals. Let’s be careful out there.

(published February 2008)

Groove Column: The Supreme Overlord of Dance Decrees... (December 2007)

So, I have elected myself Supreme Overlord of dance music for 2008. Well, benevolent dictator, at least. Here are my decrees:

1. All producers will take a vow of chastity for the first half of the year. Have six months off. Learn to paint or to knit. Take up bird watching. Do some voluntary work in an old people’s home. Make yourselves useful.

2. Further to decree 1, all producers will count the number of remixes completed and records released in 2007 and release a third as many in 2008. Work harder than you did last year, but throw away everything you think is not genuinely going to add something to the world.

3. No releases will be allowed that are generated entirely by laptop or plug-in. All records should contain at least one certified example of someone hitting something real with a stick, yelling into a microphone, wrapping strings around an object and strumming them. That kind of thing. Documentary proof, photos etc, will be required.

4. Vinyl promo is henceforth banned.

5. At least 500 copies of every release must be pressed on vinyl, preferably in an attractive colour sleeve (remember, you learned to paint at the start of the year).

6. Said vinyl will be made available to record shops 14 DAYS before any electronic download release is permitted.

7. No digital download service will be granted ANY preferential treatment, lead-in times, rights or exclusivity in distribution over any other. Further they will mandatorily provide all downloads at no less than 320mbit MP3, AIFF or WAV.

8. EPs are henceforth banned. Two tracks per single release and no more will be permitted.

9. No house or techno record shall exceed 122BPM in tempo, and, further, every other release must contain at least one track that is 118BPM or slower. There will be no exceptions.

10. All DJs will undertake to change tempo at least once and play at least 3 vocal tracks or disco records in every two hour set of music.

11. DJs will undertake to be courteous and name any track they are playing to any member of the public that wants to know.

12. The public will refrain from asking the DJ to play harder / faster / better or “a request for my friend, as it’s her birthday”.

13. The superimposition of live percussion (comprising congas, bongos, timbales etc.) or saxophone over DJ sets is punishable by death.

(published December 2007)

Groove Column: On Gathering Ye Rosebuds While Ye May... (October 2007)

A note on this one; when it was comissioned it looked as though Bar 25 in Berlin was to close at the end of the season in 2007, to make way for the re-development of the last bit of land bordering the Spree that's not currently occupied by flats and offices. It has since been given a reprieve of at least one year, but the overall sentiment of the piece ("grab it while you can, folks") is still pertinent.

ewan
x

On gathering ye rosebuds, while ye may.

Soon Berlin's Bar 25 closes its anonymous little door for the last time. "So what?" you may shrug. In a city which boasts so many clubs, so many options, there is always another party.

Yes, but. In blessed but blasé Berlin it’s important to acknowledge the loss of something really special. For those of us with an unreasonable love for house and techno Bar 25 has become a second home. Wooden cabins nestling in trees overlooking the Spree, crammed with people dancing to amazing sets from local heroes or unannounced superstars: clubbing doesn’t get much more homely. Before you know it Sunday has given way to Monday or Tuesday.

As frequent-flying Auslanders like me know all too well, Berlin’s dance freaks are the luckiest in the world. Places like 25 and Club Des Visionaires are unheard of elsewhere. Relaxed attitudes to licensing and opportunities for around-the-clock clubbing aren't shared by any other city I’ve visited. DJing last week in Belfast the bar shut at half 1 and the place started to empty. I was told it was a great night, but that’s just how it is.

And things are getting tougher. There’s been a clampdown in Spain this year, and the ultra-strict enforcement of New York’s cabaret laws mean that if you dance in a bar that plays music you’ll be asked to leave. Whilst clubbing is more and more popular throughout the world, the opportunities for spontaneous or extended fun outside regular hours have never been fewer. Which makes the closure of somewhere like Bar 25 all the sadder.

Not long after I moved here, and in pretend shock and amusement at a culture that was so shameless about not knowing when to stop, I made a flippant comment on film that has followed me round ever since. I'm taking it back.

Forget home. Stay out for as long as you can, while you can. Do it, before you can't do it any more. Before it becomes inappropriate. Before the demands of family or work become too pressing (because, necessarily, they will). And most importantly, before the powers that be decide that you should be doing something quieter and more healthy, preferably where they can see you. Before all the spaces like 25 are bought up, sold off, closed down, removed for ever and this city becomes just like every other.

For it'll all be gone sooner than you think, and you not so long after.

(published October 2007)

Groove Column: On MP3 blogging (August 2007)

Hi folks,

last summer Heiko Hoffman the editor of Groove magazine asked me to write a bi-monthly guest column. The brief was only that it shouldn't be about records particularly and should instead be more observational / thoughtful. "Four hundred words, every two months, it won't take very much time at all" he said. "A piece of piss", I thought, my ego glowing smugly.

Actually, coming up with something that isn't either dull and worthy or blindly self-regarding DJ twaddle ("so there I was with Richie in Miami, darling...") is quite hard (and keeping it down to such a short length whilst maintaining a proper argument even harder). But some people have kindly said they enjoy reading them so I thought I would post my original English versions here too (before publication they are expertly translated into German by the lovely Heiko).

The first five are coming over the next few days, and then I'll post new ones every two months as they appear in Groove. Keen-eyed readers will notice the first one covers some familiar ground...

cheers m'dears,
ewan
x

Groove Column: On MP3 blogging.

I became really excited when music blogging first started. The passion, the bile, the ranting arguments between bloggers and the sheer hyperbole reminded me of the NME in the 80s, when I fell in love with reading and writing about pop.

Occasionally the NME included a vinyl EP with rare tracks and outtakes from its favourite bands on the cover. These days many highly-esteemed blogs include download links to the tracks they write about. MP3 blogs make me feel very uncomfortable indeed and their popularity says so much about our kid-in-a-candy-store culture, and the crises in music as a profession at the moment. I have three objections; one ethical, one practical and one romantic.

The first is very basic: giving away things that don't belong to you is wrong. Now I know that blogs have become a promotional tool for some bands and record labels, but part of me screams out that we’re adding to the development of a culture in no one thinks that musicians should be paid for what they do - it should just be a gift to society. After all we enjoy our job; how dare we ask to make a living from it as well?

Then there is the bottom line. Most people in dance music are aiming to sell a small amount of a specialist product; a blogger giving away mp3s of that great new single will take away a large percentage of sales. It’s happening now. Record sales have plummeted and it’s largely due to piracy. I’m lucky to have another life as a DJ. But for producers that don't DJ, or people who have spent years trying to run independent labels it's the most difficult time ever and it's just getting worse.

The third reason is romantic; part of me thinks that if the writing on a blog is good enough you don't have to have the music there to back it up. The NME stopped giving away vinyl singles after a couple of weeks - I kept buying it. If you have bribe people to come to your page with sweets you aren’t a good enough writer. If you have to play the damn track rather than evoke it or describe it so that people want to go out and hear it then what are you doing writing a blog in the first place?

If you're a music blogger and you care about music then write about it. If you have to give examples then stream it lo-res and tell people where they can go and buy it. Great music writing should excite the reader enough into going and searching for the music themselves, hunt that record, go to that gig. And maybe even paying for some of it too.

(published August 2007)