Four Things #34

Welcome to Four Things #34. Hope you are doing great. It’s been a little while since my last newsletter, and yes I realize 90% of all Substacks start this way. However, a friend of mine told me the other day that I have been ‘hard to miss’ between social media posts about my new project “Through Lines”, the workshops and events connected to it, guesting on Shawn Reynaldo’s First Floor, and touring in the EU and playing Movement Festival in Detroit. But it does feel good to be back on the Four Things beat, I like to treat this as my ‘open format publication’ where anything that’s worth reading, listening, watching can be shared.

I wanted to especially welcome my new readers, very happy to have you onboard. If you are enjoying Four Things, feel free to pass on the link to your friends, and check out my newsletter archive if you haven’t done so before. Feedback, topics or collaborative ideas are always welcome, hit me up! Wishing you love and health..

Martyn
June 3rd, 2024

---

FIRST THING: THROUGH LINES

“Through Lines” is a collection of classic tracks I made between 2005 and 2015, carefully recovered and remastered and released on 3024. Previously these tracks were only available across a scattering of different labels, and the set includes essential ‘Martyn Music’ tracks like “Vancouver”, “Mega Drive Generation” and the classic remix of “Broken Heart” by TRG.

This is however not just a collection of old stuff. I wanted to add new layers to my music as I feel the sounds from that era and the current electronic realm are very much connected, so much so that a lot of current music can directly be traced back to that 2005-2015 time period, which you could say is the beginning of the “Play Anything Era”. A period in UK (inspired) music where DJs and producers used a wide variety of music from different origins to approximate an idea of futuristic bass music, a time where ideas, genres, tempos and scenes seemed to rapidly merge and splinter off. To compliment the music I wrote nine essays about the era, its ideas, and why I feel it was important for today’s music and musicians, and turned that into a booklet beautifully designed by Jeroen Erosie and put together by Martijn Munsters at Space3.

Through Lines Essay Collection

Besides adding words to the music in the form of a booklet, another layer I wanted to add was that of community. Instead of waste energy promoting the record online, it felt more important to celebrate the music with ‘actual people’ and so I (with massive help from the team at 3024) organized small events over the past couple of months to share my enthusiasm about music in general and this release in particular. I did workshops in Vancouver (of course), Portland, LA and Manchester, an in-store turned mini party at South London record shop Planet Wax (with Patrice, Ehua b2b Softi, Odd Lust and Blood Trust), and an intimate Listening Session on a massive sound system in my hometown of Eindhoven in The Netherlands. The connection with people who are into this music as much as I have been is so energizing, so intense and gratifying, no algorithm can beat that!

You can listen to the release here, here or (if you have to) here. Shawn Reynaldo published one of the booklet’s essays in his newsletter First Floor. I also did a real fun interview with another great Substack called Flow State. Radio wise I went on Scratcha’s Friday morning show on NTS where we talked about both our music and also: jokes :) To round off this Thing here are a few videos from the events mentioned above.

A project about music and sharing it with people <3

---

SECOND THING: ASHES57 ABOUT OWNERSHIP

Proud to have a small contribution by one of our favorite artists operating in the music realm today; Delphine Ettinger aka Ashes57. We (3024) asked her to write a few paragraphs for a project we were working on. The project was eventually delayed but I thought I’d include her views on what ownership means for artists today:

“Ownership has become increasingly complex in this digital age. And it shouldn’t because all images online should have a clear digital watermark that anyone can access, but this is not the case on all platforms. I am the kind of artist who likes to share my work such as photos, videos and drawings and display it on as many media platforms as possible. When you paint in a public space, your work instantly engages viewers, encouraging them to interact with it. In doing so, you exercise a sense of control, possibly reclaiming lost space and adding your vision to a public place. It is inevitable that your work will impact others, even if only in a subliminal way. No artist develops an original idea in isolation; we all draw inspiration from somewhere. I like to think of my work as a seed I have planted, one that the wind will carry away to grow naturally elsewhere.

However, I also consider the challenges of recognition that arise. Moreover, the concept of sharing your work comes into play. We become more protective of ownership when trust is compromised.

The music industry has always tried to respect my work by crediting me, but this is not always the case in the commercial world. Feelings intensify when people attempt to profit from your work, or worse, simply copy it. But if we keep our integrity and put our soul into our work then we could claim ownership.“

Works by Ashes57

---

THIRD THING: FUTUROMANIA

Simon Reynolds’ new collection of essays about music and its relation to the future entitled “Futuromania”, is a bit of a mixed bag. The book is comprised of previously published and quite well known pieces (for Pitchfork, Resident Advisor and others) about Burial, Daft Punk, Kraftwerk, grime and footwork, as well as a coda called “Sonic Fiction” about the relationship between music and science fiction. I found the coda actually the most interesting piece in the book. It’s well-researched and makes an interesting point about the disconnect between sound and context, especially in science fiction soundtracks; how a current or even dated sounding piece of music can feel futuristic in the right setting (like the use of classical music in 2001 A Space Odyssey or the big band jazz soundtrack to Star Wars - A New Hope’s cantina scene), while music that sounds technically advanced leaves us almost unbothered for its reliance on old tropes. No matter how crazy advanced it can sound, ‘the drop’ in an EDM track will always be ‘the drop’.

On the other hand, some of the pieces in the collection dating back to the early 00s did not stand the test of time. Over the last 20 years, writing and thinking about music and subcultures has widened its scope to include on-the-ground viewpoints and more historical and socio-cultural context. Add to that the ‘reset’ of 2020/BLM and all of a sudden Reynolds’ piece about grime, painting the music as dark, violent hood music full of machismo and strictly from the ghetto feels jarring. It neglects the musicological heritage of grime, its roots in sound system culture and pirate radio or the strong sense of communal experience within the music ; subjects that writers like Dan Hancox, Danveer Singh Brar or Joe Muggs write much more elegantly about. Or in his investigative piece about female electronic producers he concludes that the use of their own voice as an instrument to accompany the synths could explain their ‘surge’, as he is unable to find any other common ground. Maybe all of them are just great musicians, no need to find common ground and ‘the surge’ actually indicates the moment the journalist started to pay attention? No one would ever contemplate writing an article like that about a disparate group of male producers. I’ve read a few interviews and reviews recently about Futuromania and it actually surprised me how uncritical the coverage was. If you publish a 2003 Pitchfork piece, we are allowed to ask the author whether he still stands by it, or not?

Simon Reynolds’ Futuromania

Simon Reynolds is a great and passionate observer and I actually do really enjoy some of his more descriptive writing. The piece about Burial and his investigation into the use of auto-tune especially show that he does know what he’s talking about, but it’s also hard to dismiss his tendency of building a theory around what could also just remain a series of interesting observations. The risk of uncritically looking for supporting evidence rather than keeping an open mind and continuous curiosity for nuance is great. Whether it’s the hardcore continuum, retromania or conceptronica; with the same vigor it lumps artists and musical genres together it simultaneously throws others not befitting the moniker by the wayside.

---

FOURTH THING: VERRACO

The Colombian Tratratrax label, affiliate Insurgentes and its related artists have been causing a storm over the last two years, But even though the narrative usually revolves around their output of irresistibly techy club and festival bangers, the label also proudly stands for autonomy and representing Latin American artistry. I’ve written about several Colombian artists in Four Things and equally as important as their musical innovations are their political and socio-cultural perspectives.

I asked Verraco from Tratratrax / Insurgentes about how important autonomy is for him and the label and he answered: “In the beginning, it meant self-organization and self-management, which were the only ways to break out of the Global South. I will never forget the words of Mike Banks in his RBMA talk when he said something like, "What do you want to go to Berlin for? Everything is already invented there. Do something in your homeland, work for your community."

”So Mike's words resonated with me a lot and helped me never want to send out a demo again and give me the push I needed to build labels with my friends that would serve as platforms not only for me but for a whole generation of artists in the region, who had a lot of talent but few opportunities. Today, looking back, beyond having solid labels paying good royalties to artists who have never received a single dollar for their music before, I think what it means to own our friends' music is that we have been able to go out, grow and claim an important seat at the table of the global circuit/scene."

Check out Verraco’s brand new single on Timedance and see you on the next Four Things!

---