M&A #22: dj.jpeg

By Josh Dawson

dj.jpeg, aka the lovely Tom Andersson, is super unique in the little electronic music scene here. He's been a club night innovator, bringing wholesome gabber and tunes from PC Music to Cambridge, co-running last year's XD with another Milk & Alcohol feature, Hen (M&A #08). One of the biggest appeals of this mix, and dj.jpeg's sets in general, is the fact he just doesn't take it that seriously. While the straight-jacketed world of 'business techno' (lol) can be intoxicating, Tom takes us away from rules, away from usual sounds, onto an alternate plane where violins and the organ sing in harmony with synths, where gabber can form a reorienting oasis amongst ambience, and where the guitar riff from Mr. Brightside brings a tear to the eye. Genuinely moving stuff.

How did you record the mix?

On a Numark Mixtrack Platinum with Serato.

What were you trying to do with it?

I've been finding tracks with really gorgeous textures and incredible attention to detail in the sound design. I'm really drawn to the rich, ecological soundscapes in them. And although they come from quite disparate genres - like sombre ambient pieces and heavy club bangers - I feel like they all have something in common. Like a beautiful, messy, natural complexity. Like the sum of all processes that comprise a butterfly pollinating a flower. I wanted to see if they'd flow well when mushed together in a mix. I was also testing slightly more rogue mixing techniques, like really long transitions, or playing short samples of tracks while keeping another in the foreground. Near the end of the mix, I wanted to capture total chaos by making it really noisy - like the cacophony of hearing everything happening on the Earth at the same time.

So first of all, this mix is, in parts, pretty unforgiving. For the uninitiated, what is it about the ultra-high bpm, outrageously hard stuff that makes it attractive to you?

That's quite hard to answer! Mostly it's just my subjective taste. I guess I used to listen to a lot of techno. I inevitably got a bit bored of that after feeling that the techno crowd took themselves too seriously and that the music had stagnated. When I first started listening to hard dance music I was quickly drawn to how energetic and fun it is. Also, a lot of the producers and following identify as LGBT+, which makes the scene super wholesome (on top of the music being informed by the queer experience and being really amazing).

You swishy swash us between gorrrrgeous ambient landscapes and punchy, kicky, euphoric gabbery bits. These are pretty different areas of the ol’ music jungle. What brought them together for you here? When/how did you hear/get the inspiration to breed them like this? Other artists? Did you just know these would work together?

I've become really interested in non-linear mixes that meander between ambient and hard percussive sounds, and how they can mirror the non-linearity of being a conscious animal. I was inspired by Henry Page's mix for M&A last year - I loved all the unexpected transitions! Like cutting from the build up of a gabber drop to super soft ambient music, as if you've jumped from a noisy boat into the sea to find blue whales hovering beneath you. Something about those weird transitions puts me in quite a cathartic state of mind.

You hit us with some pretty $waggin classical samples throughout, pianos at the start, violins, organs, choirs. What is it that brought all that together? The epicness? The warmness (heat)? The velvety soft timbral blanketty goodness?

Mixes that are 100% electronic music-based can feel quite detached from reality, so I was keen to include some tracks with voice or classical instruments. Classical sounds make you more aware of the instrument as an object in space, or a non-human agent that we coevolve with in a system. I wanted to contrast those object-y classical sounds with the 21st century euphoria embedded in hard dance tracks. Sounds that were born and cultivated in club spaces are more oriented around dances of electrons in synthesisers and neurotransmitters in our brains. By having sounds from many different sources, I was hoping to give the mix a sort-of hyperobject state with tendrils that reach out and touch many different things in time and space.

And then, by contrast, there’s a huuuuuuuuge glitchiness over allllll of it. It kind of makes you feel like you’re in a romantic era period drama, with aliens attacking while the matrix cracks around us. How do you hear it? What does it bring for you? Is it something that goes through a lot of your influences?

I love how the little glitchy pieces in tracks with intricate sound design feel like they’re giving voices to the objects and actions in a complex, loosely connected network. They have this delicate balance of order and chaos. Like they’re light as a feather but also going on an endless kaleidoscopic fractal zoom. I’m always looking for ways to process and understand complexity - music is a fun way to do that!

The HARMONY boy THE HARMONY! It’s so heartbreaking, I was on the verge of tears when Mr Brightside’s lil riff came to remind us of a time when life was normal, when The Event hadn’t happened and our overlords were still 3 lightyears away. Did you deliberately go for a sound that was this emotional? Or is it something you are naturally drawn to in music? 

I’m so glad you liked it! I definitely wanted this mix to be really extra. I feel like all music is emotional, which is why I find it so distracting when I’m trying to concentrate on something else. I mainly just listen to ‘Blade Runner Ambient Deckard's Apartment Sound for 12 Hours’ these days.

Tell us about where we can hear this in our own lives. Give us some recommendations of labels/artists/DJs/nights/promoters (whatever you want) who are peddling this brand of dramatic, hysterical hyperbole!

Soundcloud’s recommendation algorithm. The labels Genome 6.66 Mbp and Eco Futurism Corporation. Evian Christ’s Trance Party in London on December 7th.

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?

Death metal and dubstep.

What’s the last song you listened to?

Rhythm of the Night by Corona.

Who is your favourite producer/performer at the moment?

Maybe E-Saggila or Varg.

What is your go to tune to bring a party up/banger?

Immaterial by SOPHIE every time!

What was the best party you’ve played?

I’ve only DJ’d at XD, the club night I ran with Henry last year, but playing at our final party in Fez was insanely wholesome and fun! It was bittersweet to embrace the end of something that brought me a lot of joy.

What’s coming up for you in the future?

I’m playing B2B with Henry at King’s Mingle on December 6th, but that should be super high energy and won’t be anywhere near as melodramatic as this mix.

You can hear this mix in full, lossless, .wav-y glory on dj.jpeg's own Soundcloud here. 

dj.jpeg’s Tracklist:

inchadney – Autumn Morning.wav

Nunu – XCV

Viancy’s Attic – God’s Favorite

tenderness – faded

ANIMA – Subtle, But Very Painful

7038634357 – Don’t You Recognize Me?

ssaliva x Julietta Ferrari – Moan

ju ca – Morphosis

jade fawn – embryo

Varg – Själagårdsgatan

dj shshunj – GRACE OMEGA (laced breakcore edit)

Oneohtrix Point Never – Nil Admirari

torus – venga

endworld1000000000 – HXC POWERLINE

LOFT – filton [ dissociative edit ]

Fausto Mercier – KNOWHOWTOKNOW (+ sample from Delete – Back In The Days)

grv5 x Ptwiggs – Without u

Avbvrn – Vmist (Emily Glass Petty Ice Angel Detour)

7038634357 – Sickle Sheen (Arms Open)

adammmmmmmmmmmm – grrrrrr…..

Benelux Energy - Ontegetekende Melodie

Echinacea – Immortal Machine

Dione – Beat is Pumpin

The Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Choir – Polegnala e Pschenitza

Spy – Bloodstrike

felicita – soft power II

Krampf – Inutile de Fuir OST 03

Fausto Mercier – FIRMEST FINE (Forces Remix)

Clair X – Re://

Neurocore – Minimal Hitech

Danny L Harle x Pawel Siwczak – Other Passaglia

jjjacob – Tribulation (Amygdala)

Yung Sherman – I D C (Evian Christ Remix)

Yikii & Dasychira – Laser Star (dj celes & Skyshaker El Parche Interlude)

my sword – fade away

E-Saggila – Glass Wing

trngs – S()LV3NT

Rosy Parlane – Part Three (+ samples from IVVVO – THIS IS DOG, WATER SPIRIT – LIBERATOR, Xanopticon – Ungrokd, LIL TEXAS – GO FAST (WATER SPIRIT EDIT), Hammer4Style – Requiem for a Dream Hardstyle Remix, and TNT – Teknogym 2k19)

Kevin Drumm – Hitting The Pavement

Bjork – The Gate (Space Candy Texture Bath Version)

John Object – Kiss (Live)