Why does every song need a context when so many are works of art wence stood alone?
Sure, over the last thirty years there’s been house, techno, drum & bass tracks that are accomplished productions and solid sounds, but purely filler. And many work well, join a dot, create the context, shape the journey, but alone they’re lost.
What I’m talking about is good music, really good music. Songs you remember, songs that inspire, songs that change your life. Still I feel the compulsion to write a story with them.
A good mix is often called a journey. Maybe this is a little cliched now but if you are a true lover of music and a DJ that’s fortunate enough to be allowed to curate your own sound, then every needle drop a new journey begins.
Personally – and this may be every record buyer ever – I hear a sound, a paragraph in the story not yet written, and I must have! And the constant strive can be to find a narrative to slip this plot twist into.
Every vinyl DJ, has their record room/shelves/basement/loft/out house (dis-) organised into stacks of ‘chapters’*. Each of those chapters containing numerous paragraphs just waiting to be arranged into a coherent trip, aural, metaphorical.
*And since first writing this I've now added Rekordbox playlists!
Others – and I know many – just haven’t re-filed their last set!
As usual maybe I’m flexing the grey matter too deeply on this? What is true however is that if a sound resonates with me, on the wants list it goes, as one day – the day that never comes for a collector/sharer of music – the manuscript will be finished.