Apple Pips

As if Appleblim isn't instrumental enough in today's "dubstep" scene by being a regular at the FWD>> night at Plastic People in London, having mixed the forthcoming Dubstep Allstars vol 6 compilation for Tempa, and being at the helm of one of the most interesting labels around at the moment (Skull Disco, with Shackleton), his freshest idea is Apple Pips. A cool little label that should be making serious waves, and i'm really delighted to have done the first one! "All i have is memories" and "Suburbia" will be out next month, the artwork looks great and i'm once again a happy man to be involved in this. Out to Appleblim!

m.

update time

working hard on new music, will put some clips on myspace very soon. In the meantime, you can find 3024-001 on www.bleep.com and www.juno.co.uk as 320kbps downloads! :)

recent top ten:

1. portable - locate (sud electronic)
2. guillaume & the coutu dumonts - les gans philip sherbourne mix (musique risquee)
3. martyn & marcus intalex - after seven (revolve:r)
4. shut up and dance - epileptic martyns no strobe mix (shut up and dance records)
5. pepe bradock - intriguing feathered creature (atavisme)
6. darkstar - need you (hyperdub)
7. kode 9 - konfusion dub mix (hyperdub)
8. luke hess - believe and receive shed dub mix (kontra-musik)
9. prosumer - makes me wanna dance (ostgut ton)
10. dabrye - game over flying lotus remix (ghostly international)

Broken Heart remix

Out soon on Hessle Audio 004 : TRG - Broken Heart (Martyn's DCM mix) // TRG - Put you Down (Ramadanman remix). If there will be no Hungarian train strikes, devaluation of the Swedish Krone, massive wind storms in Laos and Vietnam, this should be out on April 7th 2008.

Death

With most of my friends being somewhere in their mid-20s or early-30s, pretty much the same discussion announces upcoming birthdays : are we getting old? When are we getting too old to do what we want to do in life, and are we once again a step closer to death? Now i've never been afraid of death - it's simply what follows after life, and perhaps there's even many things to do after death. But regardless of that, if you just look at life ending with death, death should really be an incentive to leave your mark on the world while you're alive. Now I was watching an interview on TV the other day with famous dutch writer J. Bernlef (pic) whose main themes have always been aging and death. He said that death is really the main reason for all art to exist. If we wouldn't die at some point, there would be no reason to preserve your creativity in an artwork. So is death our subconscious reason for making as much music as we can, playing it out to as many people as possible? Maybe so.. This idea appeals to me.

This is your brain on music

I must admit that books about music and science are not my primary interest, for the simple fact that I consider music to be an art form and overanalyzing it takes away the mystique and beauty of it for me. Still, I picked up Daniel J. Levitin's "This is your brain on music" and within a few hours of reading I was compelled and needed to finish it. Starting off with quite a bit of music theory, which I am not really schooled in so I discovered some new things, but gradually progressing to connections between listening to and playing music and neuroscience. Levitin explains that music uses many different parts of the brain: (contrary to the popular "left and right" brain half theory), when reading notes, when dancing, when emotions are addressed, your sense of well being, your sexuality even. The author is obviously a scientist but also a music lover and a former musician and producer, and this is the key to why this book can have scientific weight without destroying the beauty of the subject. Any musician or music lover will enjoy this book and will still be able to open up to music and love it like he/she did before.