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2023 RECAP MEGAPOST
🕑 Added 2023-12-20 02:25:44 +0000 UTCHi friends & fam
I’m sitting at a bar called Tin Cup near the Florida Everglades as I write this. My sister in law is having a Christmas party here instead of her house as it is pissing down rain outside. I don’t really have much in common with most of the people here and I’m a bit hung over and don’t feel like forcing conversation so I decided I’d take a moment to write down my thoughts as this year approaches its end and a new one begins.
➕NYE LA➕
The year kicked off with good friends at the 2nd ➕ party in LA on NYE. This night really solidified my belief in this crazy idea I had a couple months earlier of what a sick b2b2b2b2b party would look and sound like. I was blessed to share the moment with my some of my besties Jimmy Edgar, Bianca Oblivion, Jubilee, Nosaj Thing, Jacques Greene, and Edit.
Early Hours Mix
Right before the new year, I was asked by Apple Music to contribute a mix to their Early Hours series. The basic idea of it is for djs to put together a mix of songs they would listen to early in the morning. That could be translated as after a long night of clubbing or when you first wake up. I went the post-club route and decided to go with a more atmospheric jungle vibe. I reached out to twitter and asked for recs of new tunes in that vein as most of the tracks i had were from the 90s/early 2000s and I wanted to spice it up with some more modern takes on the sound. The responses were incredible and I ended up buying 100s of songs on bandcamp, only a handful of them made it in to the mix but I’m so happy to have been blessed with so many amazing recommendations! I kinda want to do a part 2 of the mix with the other songs, what do you think?
LISTEN TO THE FULL MIX HERE ON APPLE MUSIC
Also, I should mention that I made a rough jungle edit of Eyesdontlie for this mix but it ended up being a bit too high energy/dark for this mix and I couldn't find an appropriate moment to drop it. So here’s a wee download of the remix exclusive for Patreon :)
DOWNLOAD EYESDONTLIE JUNGLE EDIT HERE
Touring 2023
I played some truly AMAZING shows this year which were v exciting and full of diverse lineups. Some notable ones were opening for Of The Trees in Portland and LA (twice! more on that below), Elseworld at Elsewhere w/ Rosa Pistola, Las Vegas and Phoenix with Craze, 2 hour b2b with Praveen/Braille at the first Sepalcure show in years for the Hotflush 20th anniversary at Good Room Brooklyn, a dope LA warehouse party w/ the Minty Boi crew, two short EU tours where I played in Berlin and ADE with Holly as well as a couple of solo MD shows in Rome and Imanu’s stage at NOX on the Beach fest in NL (that ended up going bankrupt and not paying me oops), 2 super fun b2b gigs with Basscoast queen The Librarian and capped things off (before my upcoming new years run) with a wild ➕ b2b party in Chicago that went everywhere from ambient techno to ghetto house to footwork to jungle to Miami bass to dnb to rnb. What a ride!
(Orlando 360 Stage w/ Glitch Mob, Oakk and IT HZ)
One thing that I’m grateful for is the inclusion of the bass community, especially in the US. I have been getting booked at “bass” shows (dubstep, brostep, wub wubs you know) for years but had always felt like a fish out of water. While it has been fun to turn people on to different styles of music that could be considered bass-adjacent, my fragile little IDM soul can only take clearing dance floors so many times. However, with the rise in popularity of acts like GJones, Eprom, and Of The Trees it is clear that more experimental forms of bass music are becoming more widely accepted in the US. These artists didn’t have success overnight either, and their recent success has been the product of years of commitment to their sound and fostering a genuine community that appreciates what they do.
(Rome)
With these other artists creating more spaces for more adventurous forms of bass music, I’ve not only noticed a large uptick in bookings for these kinds of shows for myself, but also have experienced more freedom to do my thing than ever. Instead of clearing dance floors I’m seeing people lose their minds and a sea of smiles as I drop my own tunes, edits I’ve made, music from homies and tracks I’ve discovered along the way. I went from playing side stages at big festivals at shitty timeslots to main stage in between juggernaut acts during prime time hours. I’m truly grateful for the experience and after over 20 years of playing shows I feel like my time has come, especially in the states!
(Infrasound)
One thing that I’ve noticed this year is that I have two types of sets: Bass sets and Club sets. When I played on larger stages like festivals or concert halls I tend to lean to a lot of 140/174 bass oriented music (dubstep, rap/trap, drum n bass, halftime). This is mostly because of the types of bookings (bass festivals/stages/artists) but also when I play 1 hour sets (Which is typically the set length for these types of shows) I find that there is much more excitement with this type of music as it allows for me to play more songs in less time as long blends aren’t really necessary and tbh you don’t have time to do long extended mixes, in fact I tend to make shorter edits of songs that are already 3 or less minutes long! The other type of sets I would call “Club” sets. These tend to be a minimum of 90 minutes and sometimes 3 hours long (the longer the set the better!) and are typically in, well, clubs! This years club sets were played at Elsewhere, a LA warehouse party, Brooklyn Silo, Publicworks in SF, and The Rabbit Hole in New Orleans. A club set will include UKG, Ghettohouse, electro, rave/hardcore, breaks, juke, jungle and a dash of footwork. I usually dont plan these sets out but instead meticulously organize my rekordbox folders so that I can navigate all kinds of genres with ease while also making sure to play certain new tracks that I want to drop. I have equal amounts of fun doing both of these types of sets, but to be honest if it came down to it I’d rather play a 1 hour support set for Of The Trees at 10pm than a 3 hour club set from 2am-5am (being a dad and a 41 year old has its limitations lol).
(Wakaan Festival)
Speaking of Of The Trees (OTT!) I have to mention the LA show at The Regent. Stellar sets from Dara Genesis and The Librarian filled the room with good vibes. I start my set and play some rowdy 140 type bits for about 30 minutes. The whole room is going mental, the side of the stage has filled up with everyone from the backstage as everyone seems to be curious about a Machinedrum 140 set lol. I drop a dub of the forthcoming (at the time) Drone & Snowy belter “All I Know”. The room erupts as snowy’s first very comes in with his iconic “ai ai ai ai ai” adlibs. As I was considering a dramatic pullll upppp moment, ALL OF THE TIME LIGHTS GO OUT! The entire venue’s power shuts down. The music stops, the emergency lights turn on. A chorus of jeers echo through the historic building. I duck down behind the cdjs hoping it’s a breaker situation. 1 minute turns into 2. 2 turns into 5. Tyler (OTT) hops on stage and informs me that the entire block has lost power and this could potentially be the end of the night. He grabs a bullhorn and announces that everyone has to leave and they’d figure out how to reschedule another show. It was an epic moment and we did end up rescheduling a month later to another sold out Regent. I played an entirely new set and shut everything down except for the power this time (dad joke).
(SILO Brooklyn 360 Stage)
Oh and I cant forget to mention all of the incredible b2b sets with my Gen Z/Millennial cusp compadre Miguel aka beatsbyholly. The biggest one without a doubt was our set at Coachella. We played on the DoLab stage which is infamous for not paying artists and instead paying in exposure, which we could argue about for days, but needless to say this set was so much fun. The act before us had maybe 30-40 people watching them in a 8k capacity tent, so needless to say we were a bit nervous about going on. We decided to let go of our nerves and just have fun, which is typically my attitude these days no matter how many people are watching the show. I will say I somehow get more nervous in front of smaller crowds than larger ones. I guess it has something to do with my brain not being able to process the reactions of more than 100 people, I’m much more aware of how people are vibing to my music when there’s less people. Anyhow, 5 minutes before we were meant to go on literally 1000s of people started pouring in to the DoLab tent. We went from nervous about playing in front of a few people to being nervous about playing in front of tons, it was quite a rollercoaster of emotions. We had an incredible set and the crowd was loving it. Even Tinashe showed up and sent me some videos of her watching our set! I always have a blast when I go b2b with Holly and all of our sets were unique and super fulfilling. I’m sad that we don’t have any more sets in the books so far for 2024 but I’m sure some will pop up from time to time.
(Holly & Machinedrum b2b 天の川 release party LA)
I could go on for days on tales from the road from this year but I’m not sure y’all would read it all lol. Im happy that you’ve made it this far in my end year recap. I also hope that these kind of entries are entertaining enough for you. I really enjoy retelling events from the year and it makes me grateful about all of the experiences and I hope it gives you some insight into what MD life is like.
Here’s a download of 2 Holly x Machinedrum b2b sets :
天の川 Release Party in Los Angeles
SUPER SECRET PROJECT THAT I CAN'T REVEAL AT THIS MOMENT
It wouldn’t be right to properly do a recap of the year without mentioning that a majority of it was spent working on a huge project that I’m not really supposed to talk about just yet. Let’s just say that it starts with an A and ends with a M. I started working on this project on my birthday of this year. I’ll get more into the specific details of it at a later time, but yes a majority of my time from March until just a few weeks ago have been devoted to the creation and finalization of this project. It may be the best work I’ve ever made! I can’t wait to tell you more.
(Living room standing desk minimal studio setup at Joshua Tree Air bnb)
(Desert house vibes)
(Some real magic happened here)
(Can't wait to share!)
tstewart - buena remix ep
Last year I released the 2nd album under my alias “tstewart” called “elysian”. I hosted a remix competition (which many of you took part in!) for the lead single “buena”. There were an incredible amount of submissions and a tremendous amount of quality remixes, I was and still am blown away! The top 3 winning remixes were released officially on Mercury KX and we also streamed all the entries live on youtube.
As a special treat for patrons, here is a download of my top 10 favorite submissions including the top 3 winners.
DOWNLOAD THE TOP 10 BUENA REMIXES HERE
Remixes
The first half of this year I dropped 4 different remixes. Stylistically diverse in their own ways, I was asked to make remixes for Glen Check, Duñe, ††† and Imanu. The year started with my Shoegaze meets Hyperpop refix of South Korean Indie group Glen Check. Next up was my remix for the legendary ††† and their song “Day One” which is uncharacteristically posi-vibes for their songs, so I leaned more in to that and made a fun tropical sounding jungle remix, I ended up making a more DJ friendly edit with less vocals. Have a download of that below! Following Crosses, my remix for Imanu & Tudor’s “Haunt My Mind”. I really went in on this one, not that I dont on others, but this one really flowed out of me effortlessly. I’m such a huge fan of Imanu’s work and this was incredibly fun to remix. We have some more collabs in the pipeline, stay tuned for those :). Finally I closed my remixes out with my interpretation of alt-pop Duñe’s “I’d Better”. I love dropping the first half of this one in club sets while saving the 2nd halftime drop for bass sets.
Crosses - Day One (Machinedrum Remix) [DJ Edit]
天の川 EP
A big moment in 2023 was the release of the 天の川 EP with Holly. My young friend and FL Studio master Holly always impresses me with his sound design choices and ability to change up genres seamlessly. His adventurous nature reminds me of a young Trav and I think thats why we work so well together. I’ve become a bit rigid in my approach to making tracks and tend to overanalyze and at times work tracks to death whereas Miguel is able to write 10 tracks from start to finish in one day. I’ve learned a lot from him and you most likely have heard my sound design approach change in the past few years as a result. This EP was effortless to make, I started 3 ideas and he started 3 as well then we swapped them back and forth until the songs formed in front of our eyes/ears. Just to show you how far the idea transformed over time, here’s a download of the original V1 demo loop idea for Novaform I made last year (originally titled SPELUNK lol).
SPELUNK (AKA NOVAFORM) V1 DEMO DOWNLOAD
DJ Phil Remix
I finally found a way to drop this killer remix that DJ Phil made of my tune Wait 4 U from my album A View Of U, I had previously (and still am) rinsing the shit out of the remix at all of my shows, so it was really exciting to finally be able to share this one with the world. If you missed the drop, here’s the remix for your downloading pleasure.
MACHINEDRUM - WAIT 4 U (FEAT JESSE BOYKINS III) [DJ PHIL REMIX]
Tinashe - BB/ANG3L
One shocker for many was/is my involvement with Tinashe’s current music output. I had 3 productions on her latest Mini LP “BB/ANG3L”. She’s an incredibly talented artist and all of our sessions have been awe-inspiring, she’s so fast at putting together songs and typically gravitates toward my more leftfield and experimental tunes as opposed to anything even hinting at being genre-specific or remotely “safe” sounding. We have around 15 songs in the works and I cant wait to share these with you. Check her performance of our song “Gravity” that I co-produced with, yes you heard it right, Vladislav Delay (we have a few more collabs in the works!!) below as well as a more club-friendly mix of the song (drums more forward than the album cut).
Here’s Tinashe crushing the live version of Gravity :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ_iocEV5bU
Hör
While in Berlin over the summer I stopped by the infamous Hör studio to drop a set. Now while I said that I typically save my club sets for longer time slots, I felt doing a more club leaning set was appropriate for Hör and I freakin love doing these kind of sets. I navigated all kinds of genres (even managing to drop some Boards of Canada as well as Congo band Mbongwana Star amidst all kinds of electro, ukg, rave and juke. This one was a blast. Watch back here :
https://www.youtube.com/live/xm1mJeWjsy0?si=AhdRKA1Co_wWyT9S
4#TRAX EP
(4#TRAX LOGO DESIGNED BY IAN FROM DESIGNERS REPUBLIC!)
Part of the larger project that I worked on for the majority of the year, the first glimpse into my new sonic meanderings were manifested through my homage to channel trax on efnet: the 4#TRAX EP. Released at the end of October of this year, this 4 track EP was created by a hybrid of Ableton Live and the first music software that I ever truly resonated with, Impulse Tracker. Loads of sounds and sequences made on Impulse were then arranged and turned in to full songs with Ableton Live. I really dig this process and be sure to hear more of it in 2024 :).
Here are a few exclusive uncut BTS videos filmed on my Panasonic PV-L750 of some of the 4#TRAX sessions :
COMPO
As most of you already know, I launched the new COMPO beat battle competition series in November. We had an absolute bananas amount of submissions given the 2 hour time limit and so so so many insanely good submissions. We are slowly but surely working on a 30 minute recap of the 6 hour live stream, stay tuned for that. Make sure to join us on January 27th for COMPO_2!
Watch the stream back here :
https://youtube.com/live/W5T4RHKJvxg
Listen to the submissions here :
https://on.soundcloud.com/xPMR2
Join the discord if you haven’t already here :
Music discoveries of the year
Prepping for DJ sets leads to scouring the internet for new music. I’m also super fortunate to have a bunch of homies that run sick labels that are discovering new talent all the time. Here are some notable discoveries I’ve made this year (a few of them from 2022 as well):
WHYS
Chefboyarbeatz
Cesco
Killjoy
GLXY
CLB
NIK P
Ternion Sound
Prayer
Funk Assault
The Growth Eternal
Mark McGuire
Persher
Slauson Malone
Hannah Got Raps
The Passions
DJ Lostboi
MIKE
Ab-Soul
Mach-Hommy
MadeinTYO
Marlon Craft
Chase Fetti
Benny The Butcher
Larry June
Giovanni Venosta
Shane Tyler
Swim Mountain
Chris Weisman
Blake Mills
Meara O’Reilly
Wendell Harrison
KaioBarssalos
Tim Bernardes
The Caracal Project
Saka
Bussdown Tae & Milwaukee Rap in general
Oren Ambrachi
gladde paling
Shygirl
Milton Nascimento
The Sweet Enoughs
Gene Harris & The Three Sounds
John McGuire
Shed Theory
George Clanton
Frost Children
JELEEL!
Here’s a playlist of some fave tunes by the above artists : https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4Wwd3CJZ5jyblNQR6Zj2Gd?si=a0cf053460e64df1
(Young Trav in my first home studio in Orlando FL)
THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT THIS YEAR! I’m so happy to have unpaused the patreon and find ways to share my gratitude and things that are a bit harder to share with the general public in ways that don’t get lost to the algorithm, so stay tuned for more of this in 2024. I hope to catch you at one of my shows on my new year run: Dec 29th in Austin @ Summit Rooftop / Dec 30th in Brooklyn @ The Brooklyn Monarch (➕ b2b2b2b party!) / Dec 31st in Charlotte @ Blackbox Theatre w/ Eprom!!
Lmk if you’d like guest list asap and I’ll add your names :)
Peace and jah bless
T
Comments
aro
These posts are gold!! Thanks for taking time to share and for the exclusive drops
good read. thx for this and the tunes. its absurd to be paid in exposure when its clear thousands of ppl came to see you & Holly
