Music Not Diving with Scuba – Détails, épisodes et analyse

The potential of NFTs to save musicians was always pretty tenuous, and the more excitable proponents of the whole thing always sounded a bit too much like they were either trying to convince themselves about it. Or maybe that they were just scamming.

Our guest this week is deep in the world of digital art, but doesn't make any bold claims to be even linking it in much of a way to his first area of creative interest which was, of course, music.

Agoria is an important name in the history of the French scene, with a long career releasing records on the full spectrum of labels, throwing parties (including the key festival Nuits Sonores), and DJing all over the world. He's also a thoroughly nice chap who I've had the pleasuring of hanging out with a playing a good few b2b sets with over the years.

We discuss the whole web3 thing, his involvement in the digital art scene more generally, the Paris olympics, meeting President Macron, the Presidential art collection, the future of dance music, and a lot more besides.

I loved this conversation and you're going to too!

If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features the show without ads, regular bonus podcasts, and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else.

You can also make a one-off donation to the podcast using a card, with Paypal, or your Ethereum wallet! Head over to scubaofficial.io/support.

Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server... but anyone can join the conversation in the public channels.

Listen to the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2020, our guest this week was named an Artist in Residence at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Thus we are finally able to continue the theme established on episode 84 with Matthew Dear, a line of enquiry which I know many of you were keen to see more fully interrogated on the podcast.

Daedelus has been making music since the 90s, releasing albums (on labels including Brainfeeder and Ninja Tune) almost every year this century, and performing with such virtuosity that they are now a professor of electronic music performance at Berklee's Electronic Production and Design Department.

So we had much to discuss during this conversation, including the nature of extra terrestrial communication, government efforts to support the creativity, intellectual property and sampling, the making of albums, and the views and expectations of the new generation of musicians.

This is a good one...

If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features the show without ads, regular bonus podcasts, and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else.

You can also make a one-off donation to the podcast using a card, with Paypal, or your Ethereum wallet! Head over to scubaofficial.io/support.

Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server... but anyone can join the conversation in the public channels.

Listen to the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Are we partying like it's 1999? I mean what it was actually like in 99, not how Prince imagined it might be back in 1982.

Millennium eve was supposed to be the best thing ever. I was beside myself with excitement for months beforehand, possibly years. But when push came to shove, my group of friends didn't even bother going to a rave and spent an underwhelming evening drinking warm champagne on Brighton Beach before attending a number of deeply boring house parties.

The subsequent inquest carried out in the pages of Mixmag, DJ Mag, and the rest suggested that our experience wasn't unusual. Promoters lost unfathomable amounts of money that night and the overall impression was that an enormous bubble had prematurely burst with the least fanfare possible.

The current landscape lacks a similar finishing line, but the bug-eyed faux enthusiasm and lip-smacking commercialism which seems to define everything in the dance scene right now definitely has a similar feel to the end of the 90s. But what, if anything, is going to let the air out this time? 1999 was also the time that our guest this week, Steve Bug, and some of the Superstition Records gang from Hamburg started Poker Flat Recordings, one of the labels that would define the minimal sound that emerged from the wreckage of Millennium Eve.

Steve has been pretty outspoken in his interviews of the last few years on above topics, so of course I wanted to get him on the podcast to talk about it. This conversation dovetails nicely with last week's episode with Radio Slave, in which I noted that 'if something is shit, then you should say it's shit, and this [the current dance scene] is shit'.

There is a reasonable degree of constructive comment in this episode though, as well as the doom. I think there is anyway!

If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features the show without ads, regular bonus podcasts, and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else.

You can also make a one-off donation to the podcast using a card, with Paypal, or your Ethereum wallet! Head over to scubaofficial.io/support.

Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server... but anyone can join the conversation in the public channels.

Listen to the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Better late than never! We had all sorts of problems with getting the podcast out this week, not helped by a trip to ADE in Amsterdam to record an episode with Ellen Allien which (all things going well) will be on your feed next week.

But right now on the show we have a very interesting and important person in the underground music scene of the UK - Elijah.

You may remember his work in the grime scene with Skilliam, you may remember his label, Butterz, if you're in the industry you may know him as an artist manager. But most likely you'll know his Yellow Squares project which has recently brought him a lot of attention as he leads a broad discussion of how the industry works, and how artists should conduct their careers.

So given our mission on this podcast, the man is an ideal guest and you are going to get a lot out of this conversation. We cover a range of topics including the cancellation of shows, transparency and the idea of making your income public, as well as getting into the history of the grime scene too.

An awesome episode which I think was worth the wait.

You can check his 'Close The App, Make The Thing' lecture here.

Support the show on Patreon! We'd be honoured and extremely grateful for your contribution to developing the show. Plus there's a private area...

...in the Hotflush Discord Server

Listen to all the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

For more links and other info visit the official Scuba website

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when you discover a new form of music being made thousands of miles away, but there’s nowhere to dance to it in your city? Or even your country?

If you’re Dave Q, you go right ahead and put on a party, which is what he did when he held the first Dub War event in New York City during the summer of 2005. 

That makes him an extremely important person in the development of bass music in North America, and while we heard a lot about this from Joe Nice, one of the resident DJs at Dub War, it was Dave’s relationship with the music that really made this happen. 

So what we have here is a crucial addition to the story of Dubstep. We talk about all that of course, in addition to the challenge of juggling it all with another career, pilgrimages to DMZ in London, and the effects of 9/11 on the music scene in New York. 

After an 8k mile round trip to Infrasound Equinox Festival in Minnesota last weekend, I am feeling pretty fried. To the extent that I actually get the name of the festival wrong in the intro to this week's show... but that's what touring does to you ! Great to meet so many nice people, loved the vibes. Mental note to stay a bit longer next time...

Support the show on Patreon! We'd be honoured and extremely grateful for your contribution to developing the show. Plus there's a private area...

...in the Hotflush Discord Server

Listen to all the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

For more links and other info visit the official Scuba website

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The feedback to Episode 26 of the show with MJ Cole was overwhelming. But we came away from that episode without the real insider story of the UK Garage scene being told - what we got instead was the MJ Cole story, which was amazing in itself, but missing some of the key details as to how this unique genre of Dance Music unfolded.

This week we welcome one of the absolute best people around to fill in those gaps and really dig into the development of UKG, and that man is none other than DJ Spoony.

As part of the Dreem Teem (with Timmi Magic and Mikee B) he presented the key UK Garage show on BBC Radio 1, was resident at arguably the most important UK Garage night in Twice As Nice, and was a general ambassador for a sound that took over the UK charts and radio waves in the late 90s and early 2000s.

So we get the full Garage story here, as well as discussing the effect of institutional racism on the UK music scene, his early years as a DJ pre-UKG, and his other career in football broadcasting.

I had high expectations for this episode but I think it exceeded them... you're gonna love this.

Support the show on Patreon! We'd be honoured and extremely grateful for your contribution to developing the show. Plus there's a private area...

...in the Hotflush Discord Server

Listen to all the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

For more links and other info visit the official Scuba website

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can a DJ influence government policy? Sunil Sharpe has certainly tried, and through various campaigns going back to the mid 2000s his voice in the development of nightlife policy in Ireland has been a significant one.

That makes him a great guest for the show and we dig into some of the machinations of policy-making, as well as the more directly music-related issues of DJing with vinyl, crowd behaviour, the changing nature of how electronic is viewed, and much else besides.

Sunil is a man who likes to talk and this was a highly enjoyable conversation.

After the conversation I also give a rundown of my thoughts on the techno twitter viral event of last week... you know the one :D

Support the show on Patreon! We'd be honoured and extremely grateful for your contribution to developing the show. Plus there's a private area...

...in the Hotflush Discord Server

Listen to all the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

For more links and other info visit the official Scuba website

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Groupthink is everywhere, but rarely found in a more pronounced form these days than in the dance scene.

Patrice Bäumel is not a fan of this phenomenon and, to his credit, he is willing to challenge received wisdom and orthodoxy. That approach to life makes him an ideal guest for this show and it was a pleasure to dig into some thorny topics with him over the course of a two hour conversation.

In addition to the topic of groupthink itself, we discussed the definitions of freedom and art, community living at Burning Man, and the legendary Amsterdam club known as Trouw.

I was very much looking forward to this episode, and I think we managed to keep a musical grounding to a discussion which covered many areas of culture, politics, and even some economics.

Here's the KLF book by John Higgs that I reference.

Support the show on Patreon! We'd be honoured and extremely grateful for your contribution to developing the show. Plus there's a private area...

...in the Hotflush Discord Server

Listen to all the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

For more links and other info visit the official Scuba website

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Releasing your own music can be liberating, but it also involves challenges. How keen are you on self-promotion? Well you better get used to it if you're self-releasing.

Steffi is a long running resident of Berghain/Panorama Bar, and an alumnus of their label, Ostgut Ton. For her forthcoming album, The Red Hunter, she has taken over those responsibilities with a new imprint called Candy Mountain.

We discuss all that at length, plus taking the opportunity to dig into her background in the Netherlands, what it means to be underground, the challenges of production, and the possible future paths of the dance scene.

This was a conversation I have been waiting for since we launched the pod, and it did not disappoint. Steffi is great and you will love this episode.

Support the show on Patreon! We'd be honoured and extremely grateful for your contribution to developing the show. Plus there's a private area...

...in the Hotflush Discord Server

Listen to all the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

For more links and other info visit the official Scuba website

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week I'm taking the opportunity to evaluate what we've been doing on the show during the 19 weeks since I last did a solo pod. That also ties in neatly with a weekend I just spent in Berlin where we held a Hotflush party at Æden, and also collabed with HÖR on sets from me, Anna Kost, Roska, and Closet Yi.

Support the show on Patreon! We'd be honoured and extremely grateful for your contribution to developing the show. Plus there's a private area...

...in the Hotflush Discord Server

Listen to all the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

For more links and other info visit the official Scuba website

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.