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Ewan Rill - Be Original

Here waiting for the tray and admiring the uniformity of the tracks and bumps. Reminds of the rhythm and pulse of the energy from a beat. It’s nice to be in sync with the wavelength, but not lost out of control with it.

Been listening to a lot of Progressive House recently and I wish I was into it sooner. DJing with some world class heavy hitters at Mago for 8-9 years was amazing. I really enjoy the feel of it despite it not being as “dancey” as funky house or soul/r’n’b (at least not in the same way).

However, as of this past year, I’ve been losing my mojo of DJing and mixing songs together. It’s become procedural instead of passionate. You put a song that you love on then feel the next song in conjunction with what the crowd feels or is going to go bananas over. I’ll blame the stress of work and being not as openly connected with people, but it’s the constant streaming and disposability of music which doesn’t help me sit down to truly listen and feel it. 8 years ago when I was rocking my iPod and went to the shops to buy cds, I invested a lot of time to choose carefully what I’d buy. That was worthwhile because I’d be investigating what’s out there and inadvertently what makes me feel.

The focus these days is on BPM, a genre or trying to get everything to please everyone. Doesn’t work or it won’t be successful. About 5-6 years ago I got into salsa and Latin music. That went down a treat. Seeing people get up to dance to the rhythm got me hungry for more. Dabbled in reggaeton but I just don’t feel the rhythm.

Keeping on the pulse with all the new equipment and gear for DJing coming out, it’s amazing how much you can do to a song with effects, chopping, changing and loops, etc. yet the old school method of two turntables and blending one to the other is simplistic and let’s the song speak for itself. That’s when you can feel it instead of overcomplicating it.

Gotta go back to the drawing board and just feel the music.