𝔄𝔩𝔩 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔏𝔦𝔱𝔱𝔩𝔢 𝔅𝔦𝔱𝔰 ℑ𝔫 𝔗𝔥𝔢 ℭ𝔞𝔯𝔭𝔢𝔱

Today, dear reader, I am half blind again.

I don’t own any spectacles right now, and I ran out of contact lenses, and the hurricane delayed delivery of new ones, and in my exhaustion after last night’s impromptu midnight live set, I forgot to preserve the last pair of daily disposables I had, so now I am without lenses, and the whole world is a gaussian BLUR which is very trippy.

My uncle first noticed I was half blind when I was around my son’s age, because I couldn’t make out sign posts. They took me for an eye test and confirmed, yes, he’s half blind, and fixed me up with a pair of thick-lensed goggles with a fluorescent yellow elasticated strap attached to them to save them from smashing when they’d inevitably slip off of my little-kid nose. Kids at school mocked my new visage with gleeful savagery, and overnight I was transformed into a “speccy twat”, but I didn’t care too much immediately, as I was exploring my new world.

When I first put the glasses on it was a revelation which I remember clearly to this day. The soft, blurred world I assumed was the sum of reality gave way to a new, hyper-real, almost grotesquely detailed actuality, and nothing was ever the same.  “I can see!” I exclaimed! “I can seeall the little bits in the carpet!”

It was like when Dorothy got to Oz. I knew for certain now what I’d long suspected - the world as it was presented to me was not the world as it was. And as I explored this new terrain, I had a sneaking suspicion that there were levels beyond this, that would be opened up to me if only I could find the right glasses. Less than a decade later I ate some fungus that grew round the back of the science block in my school and discovered my suspicions to be correct. “I can see!” I exclaimed. “I can seeall the little bits in the air!” 

Without my corrective lenses, it turns out I can see bits in the air again. It’s like there’s a gaussian blur on everything, with a heavy film grain on top of that. I think this is why we prefer the look of movies from before the digital age. In their distorted imperfection, they’re a closer representation of that which really is. 

That’s why I put vinyl crackle and tape hiss and field recordings all over my music, and drench my videos in analogue distortion and grain. My aesthetic is partly me trying to recreate the glimpses of the true nature of reality I’ve been privy to in my short life... and what I remember from elsewhere.

Right now, every day, unprecedented numbers of people wake up into hyper-real, grotesquely detailed new worlds, radically different to those they had contentedly existed in for decades. This is the age of discovery. It is shocking to some, but not me. I am accustomed to this place. I have lived here all my life.

𝔚𝔥𝔞𝔱'𝔰 𝔓𝔬𝔰𝔰𝔦𝔟𝔩𝔢 ℑ𝔫 𝔞 𝔐𝔬𝔫𝔱𝔥? 𝔬𝔯 ℌ𝔬𝔴 ℑ 𝔄𝔠𝔠𝔦𝔡𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔶 𝔖𝔱𝔞𝔯𝔱𝔢𝔡 ℭ𝔯𝔬𝔰𝔰𝔉𝔦𝔱 𝔄𝔫𝔡 𝔏𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔢𝔡 𝔗𝔬 ℌ𝔞𝔫𝔤 𝔒𝔫 𝔗𝔬 𝔐𝔶 𝔏𝔲𝔫𝔠𝔥

Just over a month ago I had no idea what CrossFit was, but the coffee shop I frequent here in Playa del Carmen is next door to a gym, and there’s only so long you can sit there sipping fine beverages watching people grunt and sweat themselves into a state of euphoria before you have to join in.

I thought I’d get a personal trainer and learn how to do deadlifts or something. So I wandered in, and spoke to a gentleman with a not dissimilar mode of follical arrangement to my own - bleached on top, dark beard plus classic strong-man twirled mustachios - and he didn’t speak much English, and I spoke less Spanish, but regardless, we discovered we were both DJs, and we arranged for me to attend a CrossFit class the next day, and I’ve been going 5 days a week without fail ever since.

Like I said, I had no idea what CrossFit WAS. Turns out not actually exercise at all, but instead a live simulation of an hour long extreme fight or flight episode. And so on my first day I managed to get through maybe two thirds of it before having to run outside and stop myself from vomiting all over the place. “Well,” I thought “now I know what CrossFit is”. And I came back the next day, and paced myself a little better, and managed to make it all the way to the end without having to run outside and decorate the calle with my insides.

I’ve mentioned before that one thing that amazes is me is that, after weeks and weeks of bafflingly elaborate fight or flight simulations, our instructor Jago never seemed to repeat himself once. Each day was a new surprise, and I have remained in a state of constant shock, awe, delight and mild terror to this very day. Indeed, this very day, halfway through week 5, was the first day I think something was repeated. 

Jago is away right now. So another of the gym’s instructors,  friendly bearded muscle-man Alan, is having his jolly way with us, which is a little different, and often comes to a crescendo with us engaging in something quite physically extreme whilst Eric Prydz’ OPUS blasts through the gym. This is a song I am used to hearing at midnight, maybe on New Year’s Eve, perhaps in one of my own DJ sets, and whist I was used to being sweaty when I heard it previously, these days I am practically liquid, and I now thoroughly associate it with transcending my mentally-imposed physical limitations.

Today was no exception in that regard - we started with 75 sit ups, worked up to 5 sets of weight-increasing 5 rep deadlifts (which I had never done before and fucking LOVED)… and then came something I’D SEEN BEFORE. Right back at the beginning, Jago had had us do these medicine ball-lobbing squat exercises - squat, launch the ball the wall as high and hard as one can, catch the ball as one depends into another squat, repeat. 10 of those, then 10 burpees, then 20 of those, 10 burpees, 30 of those etc all the way to 50. Last time I did that, I got up to 20, then had to go outside and hang on to my lunch for dear life.

Today, I fucking smashed right through it. Grinning like a mad person the whole time. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t EASY - there was plenty of arguing with the Inner Bitch, plenty of pushing through that Governor, that 40%, to the Other Side, where all the extra energy is stashed... But I didn’t have to go outside and be sick. 

I SMASHED RIGHT THROUGH IT. 

And afterwards, I realized why I’d been grinning so hard. 

After doing this 5 days a week for a month, showing up, not knowing what I was supposed to do, or how to do it even when I was told... but always paying attention, and doing my best... 

...after showing up 5 days a week for over month, a thing that I simply COULD NOT DO… 

I now could do.

That’s it.

That’s all it takes.

Will.

Effort.

Humility.

Consistency.

In one month, I went from nearly throwing up after 40 minutes, to smashing through the thing that had seemed utterly impossible to me.

What’s possible in another month?

What’s possible in a year?

I am awash with joy and gratitude to have the opportunity to find out.

I first noticed the current incarnation of the Mind Virus infest comic books in late 2012. It was sudden, and ferocious, and shocking to those that could see what was happening. Almost all of them stayed utterly silent, in fear, hoping it would pass, and that they’d be left alone.

“First they came for the squirrels, and I said nothing, for I was not a squirrel, etc”

Frank Miller, author of The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City, Daredevil, and so many more god-tier, undisputedly classic works, had been booked to headline a British comic convention this year, but was removed after someone said his very presence made them feel uNSafE because they didn't like a comic he made.

We’re now at the stage of the game where the power-mad narcissistic cry bullies are so feared that they’re able to unpersonactual geniuses - people that created things of worth and value and beauty, whose influence literally changed the world - as easily as a fat toddler might crush an ant.

This image is from an anti-censorship ad drawn by Frank Miller in the long long ago of the nineteen nineties, when people who considered themselves liberal might not agree with what you said, but they’d damn sure fight to the death for you right to say it! As opposed to the horrorful mass of tarantulas we see today who might not agree with what you say, but they’d damn sure do everything they could to drive you to suicide as punishment for your wrongthink.

It's an illustration of just how quickly things can change, almost unrecognizably. But some things are constant. Bullies lose, propaganda is always forgotten, and true art always remains.

People will still be reading Frank Miller’s work when this weird and creepy moment in history is looked back upon with shudders and bafflement... that a small mob of spiteful, bitter, miserable, vengeful, weak, pathetic little insects was allowed to wreak such havoc for so long, will seem like utter madness. Because it is utter madness.

Frank Miller and his generation saw this plague coming. And most of them said nothing, hoping it would pass, and leave them be. But such a thing does not pass. It grows stronger and more grotesque and vengeful and murderous with with every scalp its allowed. 

And it only stops when you say you’ve had enough.

𝔐𝔞𝔨𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔄𝔪𝔞𝔷𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔄𝔩𝔟𝔲𝔪𝔰 ℑ𝔫 𝔄𝔦𝔯 𝔅&𝔅𝔰 ℑ𝔰 𝔈𝔫𝔱𝔦𝔯𝔢𝔩𝔶 𝔓𝔬𝔰𝔰𝔦𝔟𝔩𝔢

Buenos dias from Playa Del Carmen!

Good news!

I finished the new album on Tuesday at 3:30 am.

AT LAST!

 

It has been an Homerian undertaking indeed, as it's the first full album I've recorded since leaving my studio in Texas. I started working on this album in our first Air BnB in Cancun, and finished it in the far more salubrious surroundings of our second, here in Playa Del Carmen, where I am blessed with functioning internet, and excellent coffee!!

 

Making albums in AirBnBs is harder than making albums in fully equipped studios, for many reasons. I don't have studio monitors, so instead I work in headphones, and my laptop cannot handle anything close to the level of musical complexity my super computer back in the studio can manage. All in all, things are taking me 5 to 10 times as long to do in this set up than they would in the studio, and there are a lot of things I simply CANNOT DO...

 

The good thing, as always, is that limitation breeds innovation, and I've developed some new techniques to counteract some of these issues, which have lead to some amazing new music that simply would not have existed in any other scenario.

 

Indeed, that I can make music here AT ALL is a bloody miracle. And that it's ended up being some of the best music I've ever made is a testament to the power of Hyper-productivity X Zone-inhabitation X Bloody-minded-refusal-to-give-up-ever-no-matter-the-circumstance.

 

It astonishes me every day what can be accomplished here in the future, and I am giddy with gratitude... that is when I'm not cursing at the laptop for not being able to handle my Spectorian levels of ambition at all times. I oscillate wildly between these two places, and that seems to be about right to me.

 

We have come so far, but we have so much further to go. The things we are gonna see in our lifetime will transcend Arthurian notions of the scope of Magic. 

 

¡Qué tiempo para estar vivo!

 

¡Ama a ti y a tu familia!

AKIRA 

Don Studios Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, July 2021

CrossFit was really something last night. My tolerance has definitely increased substantially - I didn’t feel like vomiting once! I think I might have sweated more than I have ever sweated in my life and at one point I was just straight lying on the floor in a small lake of sweat, flapping my legs about in a vain attempt to achieve the particular exercise we were on, and my blessed instructor noted with interest that I looked like an actual fish out of actual water, which was pretty funny, and I sort of gurgled, “PESCADO! AGUA!” at him, as those were two words from his sentence I knew in Spanish, and I was borderline tripping out from the extremity of the situation.

He’s incredibly supportive and motivating, this fellow. He fists bumps me and calls me “mayte”, because I’m British, and he likes the UK, and he makes sure to check in on me regularly. I think he’s genuinely fascinated that I am so uneducated in matters physical, yet so enthusiastic. I really must be quite the sight, in the context of a room full of what mostly look like characters from fantasy novels about people who ride dragons and use swords as toothpicks. And I am very happy about that. I am grateful and excited to be here.

At one point in the proceedings, we we're doing some ALL OUT GO FUCKING MENTAL thing on the power bikes, with two minute rests, and he came over and told me how everything is all in the mind, and how next time I was going unlock 110%, like he was some angelic Mexican David Goggins, and by fucking jove he was right, that next round I dug deeper than I knew existed, and racked up the requisite calories in half the time of the previous attempt, and after that I could barely walk, so it was a good job the next exercise involved lying down, and it was a bad job it involved doing some mental sideways scissor sit up thing that absolutely fucking wrecked me, to the point of pure transcendent hilarity - have you ever been so physically past your limit and in such agony and simultaneously overwhelmed with joy to have been pushing yourself into such a place that you just straight up laugh your ass off like a crazy person, as the sweat pours off your face like a small waterfall?

Then, clap clap, and it's over. I am destroyed, and deeply grateful for it being over, yet somehow bereft. I have a big grin on my face the whole way home. “¡Hola perro!” I say to the stray dogs as I pass. So many dogs in Mexico. Wandering, free.

A few hours later, I am full of energy, and can’t wait to get back after it. It’s 11pm now, and I’m working on the new album. Working on a laptop that keeps crapping out in an AirB&B without any speakers is frustrating when you’d gotten used to a supercomputer and a sound-treated studio, but like the physical thing, you just have to push through to the other side, and when you get there it’s glorious. I bop my head happily. Mosquitoes nibble at my ankles. I decide not to be annoyed by them. They are tiny and they will die soon. I have so much more life to live. And life is good.
https://youtu.be/t0bp4eVEiCw

Almost all of my videos get claimed on Youtube. Occasionally legitimately - I’ve sample a visual or a sound - usually illegitimately - I have done no such thing but someone is going to claim it anyway.

 

A 2 hour long video will often get claimed because someone says 3 seconds of it is theirs. They will then take the revenue for the whole video, for their claimed 3 seconds, which is usually entirely erroneous. Then you have to appeal the claim, and the person who MADE THE CLAIM is the one that gets to decide if they are correct or not. 99 times out a 100 they say they’re correct, no matter what evidence you offer. The only thing you can do about it at that point is take them to court. Who has the time and resources to take people to court every week?

 

One time I made a music video for a song entirely written and produced by me with no samples in it, featuring only footage from our honeymoon, and Sony claimed it, and refused to release the claim.

 

Last week The Best of Meaningwave Disc 1 video was claimed because someone had used some sounds from The Akira The Don Lofi Hip Hop sample pack, that I created, in one of their songs, and I had also used in some of my own music. 

(That's a very popular sample pack as it was the FIRST lofi hip-hop sample pack on a major sample pack platform. There are literally thousands now, but since that was the first it gets used a lot.)

 

If you don’t know what a sample pack is, that’s when someone makes a bunch of sounds and loops and makes them available to people to use in their own music, usually either copyright free, or with master clearance guaranteed (that means you can release it). They became a godsend to producers who were unable to afford or deal with the tortuous process of clearing samples from music released by major labels, which can take years and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

 

Sadly, sample packs are creating treacherous territory in this current Youtube Wild West where any fool can claim anything and they get to decided if they’re legit. I had an issue last year wherein some absolute scumbag (or team of scumbags) was downloading sample packs, and cobbling bits of them together at random - a hi-hat loop paired with a piano loop, for example, completely out of time and key with each other - then uploading them to DSPs (streaming platforms) as “songs”, then claiming anyone’s music that used the same legally obtained samples.

 

A really big YouTube account was going to share one of our songs that fell victim to this practice, and had their video claimed by the scumbags, so they removed our music, and we lost the opportunity to reach a new audience of millions as a result.

 

Nowadays, if I ever use a sample from a sample pack, I will have it replayed, to try and avoid this sort of thing. But as I said, it doesn’t make much difference - record labels and Youtube money collecting companies are out there claiming things they have literally no legitimate claim over whatsoever, and getting away with it, because the system is entirely broken.  And I have a number of songs from my back catalogue that have samples from sample packs in them. Samples from MY OWN sample packs, even, lol.

 

So The Best Of Meaningwave Vol. 1 Disc 1 got claimed, for having sounds from MY OWN sample packs in it. Previously that's happened and the clamant has upheld the claim - like I said, they get to decide if they're legitimate in their claim or not, its a hilarious system. I am used to this now. I used to get upset, now I do not. It's in the “things not in my control” basket, and those things don’t get to touch me, bubba.

 

BUT! SHOCK! AMAZEMENT!

 

On this most rare and auspicious of occasions, the claimant saw the error of their claim, and release-ed it! INCREDIBLE!

 

So we must celebrate and be joyful  Not because of the ad-revenue, which will amount to a couple of dollars, but because of the PRINCIPLE… The SMALL VICTORY PRINCIPLE… Today, we are victorious, brothers and sisters, and we must always celebrate our victories, no matter how small. For those celebrations please the gods, who will look upon us more favorably as a result, and cast further small victories in our direction, an those will stack up, like drops of water eventually become some sot of an ocean, and the tsunami of glory become AN INEVITABILITY.

 

Thank you to everyone that supports this adventure. Without you we’d be at the mercy of these swine. As it is, they provide a steady backdrop of mild drama, and occasional reasons to be thankful.

GODSPEED, GOD BLESS, AND LOVE TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY!