Tabula Rasa - new mix from Radio Clash Podcast: - London-based global music podcast feat. covers, mashups, remixes, and bootlegs since 2004.

Something I’ve been working on for a few weeks is a different kind of mix…I hate the words ‘downtempo’ or ‘chilled’ *shudder* but at some point I stripped all the uptempo tunes out of this mix, I wanted something deeper, something heavier, something that says ‘blank slate’ and new start – hence the name and the image. Something arising like a phoenix from the ruins of the Radio Clash podcast, and something I’d never do before – a mix on the nature of existence, mortality, alienation – the naked state of the world in 2015 without the shiny disco lights obscuring the truth.

It’s a psychedelic mix without much psych music, using parts of the Deus Ex Machina game soundtrack and the Wozard of Iz album, and goes from Arvo Pärt where the mix name comes from, to 70’s soul, acid house, mashups, psych and Moog, IDM, indie, post rock and 80’s new wave and soul. Trying to do something different here, it’s not your usual mix, either as a mix selling club culture (Music To Sell Alcohol usually), nor the usual noodling eclectic leftfield mix.

Most people won’t get it, nor like it, but that’s OK…one of the reasons I shut down the podcast, what made it not fun anymore was the audience, and the expectations from them (even unvoiced, there is a feeling you need to cater to what you think people might want to hear, however imaginary). The audience is the enemy of art, they don’t think so, but their very existence, even silently in the corner changes the whole nature of a piece of artwork for the artist. Schrödinger’s crowd. I suspect that’s why we value outsider and undiscovered artwork, stuff made for the artists themselves and no-one else, pure and untainted by that interaction…and so is this mix attempting to be.

This is the kind of mix I’d have made if it wasn’t for that voice in my head saying ‘that’s a bit self indulgent?’ ‘oh who will listen to that?’ ‘put some uptempo numbers so you don’t get people asking “Are you OK?”‘ ‘that’s a bit depressing’ etc. Screw that, it’s time to begin again, begin again. Or not, no promises this time. This may be the end, or the beginning, or both?

This is not a podcast nor mix, it’s a body journey… (125Mb, 1:37)

Images are both by Fernand Cuville, 1917 from Reims in France and I think both are Creative Commons – the top one is children playing quilles (skittles?) in the ruins, and the one below is a girl playing with a doll next to guns.