Thoughts and ideas of a dyslexic designer/developer
I saw this quote and thought it was perfect fuel/fodder for why the human values research is so massively important.
Only 10,000 copies can be seen as poor sales (attention metric) but the impact on music culture (human values) was huge.
Somewhat as a forerunner to the peace of mind in Brussels mix. The Helsinki drop out mix is also a bit slower but a lot more punchy with harder tunes.
Recorded while sat in the city centre of Helsinki, watching people go by. Enjoy!
Recorded in Brussels while taking the Eurostar, while thinking about mental awareness week at work. Nicely relaxing with a slight edge.
After a long weekend in Belgium, of course I got some time with the pacemaker device. I themed the mix after the 3 cities we visited. All recorded with the Pacemaker device during a delayed flight back.
Updated….
As you may have noticed I use Mixcloud for uploading my DJ/Pacemaker device mixes. It works quite well because they upload the whole track with a few restrictions and you can listen to the lot anytime. I use to upload them to soundcloud but that didn’t work out too well.
Mixcloud has been pretty good to me but recently I noticed some changes coming into effect.
Some changes are coming to Mixcloud’s free playback experience. As a valued creator of the Mixcloud community, I’d like to personally notify you in advance about why we’re doing this.
We need to make some changes in order to keep running a legal platform in line with our licensing agreements, and a platform that is truly sustainable for the long term. Please read this open letter from myself and my co-founders to understand why and how these changes contribute to building a fair and sustainable streaming model that supports artists. I’ve summarized this for you below:
What’s changing?
Free listeners will only be able to seek forwards while listening to a show.
Free listeners will be able to listen to the same show maximum 3 times in a rolling two-week window.
Free listeners will not be able to listen to shows that feature more than 4 tracks by the same artist or more than 3 tracks from an album.
There more but its clear the pressure is on. Its nothing personal about mixcloud, they have to make money and its pretty fair. But I can’t help but wondering about dataportability, because although I’m less concerned as I have all the mixes complete with track-listings and mix art on my machines backed up (The only thing I would like is the tags and some of the timings which I may not have directly).
I’m wondering where I would go if I did move on?
The copyright filter would kill uploading to youtube and archive.org. I wonder if theres a decent alternative which is part of the dweb? The closest I can see is peertube, but its focused on video. To be fair I have enough bandwidth to host my own mixes on a instance of peertube…. Maybe something for a rainy weekend?
Its finally came, the moon50festival to mark our relationship with the moon and the 50 years since we visited the moon for the very first time. I have been involved with the festival from a far and Livia added me as a digital advisor to the festival a while ago. Out of the whole host of different events was the big one, Maverick women and the moon, advertised as A night of talks and performances with a keynote by Margaret Atwood.
The journey for me and my partner to get there was quite trip, but we managed to get to Greenwich University about 5mins before the start.
It was packed full of people which was fantastic to see on a hot evening of a sold out event in London. The best way to describe the evening was eclectic with everything from comedy to opera. The programming was spot on and kept the energy up through-out the whole evening.
To start with was someone I had not seen in decades. Helen Lederer’s moon monologues: Menzies, Menopause and Mayhem.
She was very funny and was great starter for the evening to come. Along her comedy piece she touched on many subjects including gender diversity in the showbiz world and the effect of the lunar cycle on women.
Next was a talk about how Chinese culture think about the moon by Angela Chan and how does these works of science fiction persist in a global climate? Really interesting thought-provoking stuff.
This was followed by a screening of a short film called Moxn (pronounced Moon) and Q&A. A beautifully shot video exploring gender and ethnic diversity wrapped up in a poem. Something for the Encounters short film festival I certainly think.
There was a welcomed break giving us enough time to go get some proper hot food, as our trip from Manchester was pretty non-stop and didn’t include a sit down meal. Remembering Greenwich from over 10 years ago, we settled into Noodle time for a meal and discussion about the evening so far.
When we got back there was the main billing/keynote for the evening. Margaret Atwood on the Moon and Magic. The atmosphere was thick with anticipation and Margaret now in her golden years didn’t let disappoint. She was funny, poignant and just magical. It was a absolute pleasure sitting in the 2nd row watching her talk. She was fantastic and received a bit of standing clap at the end. There was a Q&A which followed afterwards but over stretched its time but in her answers, you could tell how super switched on Margaret was and how deeply she thought about the world. She reminded me of Janet Murray who wrote Hamlet on the Holodeck, who happened to see last year at ICIDS in Dublin.
After Margaret, some music in the form of a Opera to seal the amazing evening. The only shame was people leaving in between rather than staying for closing. But regardless the Opera finished the moon festival event off in fine style.
The event mainly run, created and hosting women was great and well worth travelling from Manchester for. So happy to see all the people at the event and if things work out as well with the other events, I expect next year there will be another moon festival regardless of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.
Excellent night and well worth attending and experiencing!
Massive thanks to the organisers and everyone behind this event and all the events under the Moon Festival. It was great!
Another strange mix of trance from across the spectrum of trance. Recorded from Skopje (SKP) to Berlin (SXF) recently, I tried to pick a few different tunes but also double down on the obvious as I do currently love that tune. Sound levels are not idea along with some of the mixes but a good mix generally.
I have another mix from Skopje to come but that might take some time to upload. Till then sitback, ensure your seat belts are fasten and enjoy the smooth Skopje jetstream.
Another series of trips means another series of new mixes on my pacemaker device. This one was done one evening in Skopje, Macedonia. Slightly cut short by having to get somewhere for dinner but its a different kind of mix with a number of ones I’ve played over the years.
Enjoy!
On the first night of the holiday in Barcelona, we were hit by something of a biblical thunderstorm. It was super humid, so its hardly surprising.
Experiencing almost biblical thunderstorms in Barcelona tonight. It's quite incredible how regular the lightening is and dense the rain fall
— Ian Forrester | cubicgarden@mastodon@cloud (@cubicgarden) September 6, 2018
There is a video but it was so rainy you can’t really see much, so got the Pacemaker out and started mixing late at night. The mix was much longer but I had to cut it back due to some very dodgy mixing as I likely started to fall a sleep.
Another Pacemaker device mix from Finland, this time a lot longer and a lot less polished but its got a certain charm which I quite enjoy. Note the Helsinki scorching remixes, as it would be rude not to play it in Helsinki. Theres quite a few classics in this mix and they still sound good.
Enjoy!