20 Years: An EMC Reflection

Yep, it's been two decades since I started doing this, the soft launch of TranceCritic going down in December 2004. Sure, there were a couple fallow periods between then and now, including a sixteen month 'indefinite hiatus' while I got my personal shit together. If you carry on after though, we're forgiving of such discrepancies when it comes time to celebrate any anniversary milestones. If you want to call this such a milestone. I know, I know, humble to a fault. Still, it doesn't hurt to recap how we got here.

Back then, I knew I wanted to do some sort of music writing, especially after seeing so many music journalism websites pop up in the wake of Pitchfork's success. I didn't have the technical expertise or marketing prowess to go at it on my own, thus piggy-backed off another website looking to establish itself. A good start, for sure, though felt rather limited in what I wanted to cover. And I knew this would be the case should I apply to any other prominent website like Resident Advisor and the like. No, I wanted the freedom to write what I wanted to, strictly staying in the 'hobby-zone'. Sure, it would have been nice to get paid for my writing, but I already had a well-paying job, didn't need the extra cash. Ultimately, I believed retaining complete creative control of my content was more important and personally rewarding then applying my talent towards someone else's bottom line.

Once 'plug-and-play' blogging options became more common, it seemed like a good idea to set one up for myself should I decide to strike out on my own. Took me a while to figure out what I should do with it, but eventually did, and here we are now. That, and 1,000,000 views later!

Oh yeah, I passed that particular milestone this past month as well. Right, in this day and age of AI bots running rampant everywhere, that sort of engagement number isn't as impressive anymore. And believe me, I'm not so naive as to believe the ridiculous amount of 'engagement' this blog's been getting these past couple of years has nothing to do with the timing of Google launching is AI scraping programs across all its services, including Blogger. Its fine though, I've never let my efforts be predicated upon how many human eyeballs are here at any given time.

If anything, that whole 'industry' is what's given me the most pause when I reflect upon the past two decades. When I started, the best way to get your work out there was to go on web forums, become part of those communities, perhaps go viral among them. Social media outlets were very new concepts, places like Friendster and MySpace in their infancy. Even when sites like Facebook and Twitter expanded upon what social media could be, it still all felt rather insular, hardly more evolved than what a BBS board could generate in promotion.

Then that all changed in the 2010s, promoting your stuff on social media basically a must if you wanted any traction on your pet projects. Like, look at all these EYES congregated in this ONE spot! Don't you want THAT kind of attention? Dang, dawg, when you put it like that, how can I refuse? I bit the bullet, using them as advertised, and yeah, it got me a little more attention, but not substantially so. For a time, I wondered why, though deep down, I knew.

As became clear to everyone eventually, the way you get real attention on social media was through click-bait, preferably of the rage-inducing kind. And I... just wasn't willing to play that game. Oh, there's been plenty of times I was tempted to troll trancecrackers or techno snobs or dubstep dorks, but every time it came to hit 'Post', I stepped back, concluding it wasn't really worth my time and effort to engage with people online in such a manner. If I had anything contentious to say, I had my blog to say it, and that was enough. Let others find me rather than me impose myself upon their worlds.

I know, I know, what a Web 1.0 way of thinking, which is probably why I've enjoyed Mastodon as a social media site more than anything else now. Far as I'm concerned, Xitter is irrelevant to me, and now that Meta's also blocking outside links, Facebook's functionality is about at an end too - contact with non-local friends as about all that's left (plus random clips of cute animals/classic cartoons/nostalgia bait/rasslin' stories). BlueSky's interesting as a Xitter-Killer, but appears to be nothing more than what Twitter once was, which I never really liked much in the first place. Why would I want to go through that song and dance again? No, I'll stick with the Fediverse for now, where close-knit communities around specific interests form, rather than being lost among an over-crowded mess of humanity chasing influence and clout.

I guess that's it, then. Some of this reminiscence is undoubtedly repeated from previous 'milestone' posts, but I'm sure I've added a few more unique eyeballs since them. Again, it's remarkable I've kept at this for two decades now, a feat I honestly never thought possible. Come to think of it though, I had no idea what my life would look like twenty years hence. *glances about* Not that much different, come to think of it. Though I sure do have a shit-tonne more CDs surrounding me now!

ACE TRACKS: November - December 2023 ...and an EMC Update

Well, that was certainly a productive December on my end, especially that flurry towards the finish. Nicely made up for the lacklustre November (or as I liked to call it 'Mopevember'). There's just something about the block of 'B' albums that always inspires me to haul writer's ass. I'm serious! Two years ago, I had another productive month finishing off another bundle of 'B' albums. And earlier that year, another solid run of writing about, you guessed it, albums with titles starting with the letter 'B'. Man, if every album I forever did now was like that, I might even get back to my pre-Pandemic rate of output! Yeah, no, I wouldn't count on it.

Or maybe I just need a little recharge break? I've had lulls and inspiration blackouts, but I'm talking about a deliberate 'time-out' from writing new reviews. Haven't taken one of those since... um *checks* Holy cow, April 2018!? No wonder I'm feeling burnt-out.

That settles it. I'm kicking off 2024 with a month-long sabbatical. I'll still do my 'Sportsing Surveys' but methinks I'm well overdue for a mental recharge. Gotta' come up with fresh angles to cover all that goa trance in my 'To Review' pile, after all.

Speaking of, here's the ACE TRACKS from the last two months!


Full track list here.


MISSING ALBUMS:
Humanoid - Built By Humanoid
N:L:E - Botanical Adventures
N:L:E & Kiphi - Blurred Milkway
N:L:E - Bioluminescent Forest
N:L:E & Kiphi - Between Dreams And Reality
Distant System - Astral Map Error

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 12%
Percentage Of Rock: 10%
Percentage Of Psy Trance: 52%

Hey, look at that, a new category! Figured if I'm gonna' be reviewing that much goa going forward (and I apparently can't count on N:L:E to break up the monotony some), I should warn folks ahead of time.

Hoo boy, is it ever dominate in this playlist. Even at a 'mere' fifty percent of the 6.5 hour runtime, it sure feels like there's so damn much of it. You'll hear two, maybe three tracks of psy at a time, then a lone ambient or synthwave or hip-hop track will come in, then another run of three, maybe four psy trance cuts again. Considering I reviewed only eight items from Suntrip these past couple months, it sure does come off over-weighted. And I'm only showcasing the cream of the crop circles here!

Alright, I'm (mostly) peacing out for now. See y'all in February!

Best laid plans, gone awry: An EMC Update

I'm sort of at a loss for words right now. I had something in mind to write for this diary-blog update-athon post, but at the 11th hour, crummy news befell me. Not tragic or anything of the sort, just a sequence of events that put a damper on the whole day. The ULTIMATE Monday, if you will! Should I get into the weeds of it? Eh, probably shouldn't but to put it succinctly, due to scheduling conflicts, it appears I'll have to miss the Shambhala Music Festival this year.

And while that sucks, the real sucky part of it is, maybe it's for the best? I dunno', despite having one of the best line-ups I've ever seen them put on, I couldn't shake a vibe that something felt... off. Maybe things will go off without a hitch, and I'm just over-thinking things, but the sense I get is there's some major behind-the-scenes shake-ups going on at the little Salmo farm this year, and, well... Let's just say I don't want to go through similar issues as endured at another festival, a logistical nightmare for all involved. If nothing else, my bank account will be happier for skipping a summer.

No ACE TRACKS playlist this month. Though I do have one with sufficiant tracks in the works, it's almost all ambient music again, so I'm letting it sit another 30 days, hopefully with a bit more variety added by May's end. *glances at queue* A little more...

Jack Moss Presents: The Token Prog Discs

No blog post or ACE TRACKS playlist from me this time. Instead, my old writing partner Jack Moss came to me with the offer of an interesting concept that I couldn't refuse. I'll let him summarize from here...


Remember 2001? Nokia 3310s, PlayStation 2s, nary a superhero movie in sight and the last lingering hangover of relative sanity from the 1990s before freedom fries, global recessions and the general vortex of ever-accelerating doom we’ve been spiralling down ever since. Looking back, it feels like a year stuck in a holding pattern from the previous decade, not quite sure where we were going with this new millennium shit yet, and the same was true if you were a clubber. Electroclash was just starting to emerge from New York, Fabric released its very first mix CD and nu skool breaks was some sort of thing, but generally the scene was stuck in the same superclub mode that had dominated the ’98-2000 boom years.

And in the middle of all this, there was prog. A whole lotta prog. For whatever reason, prog reached its all time ascendance in this period. You couldn’t swing a cat in a record store without hitting a B-side prog remix, and the genre even achieved its one, and probably only, chart topping UK single with Rui Da Silva’s Touch Me. And whereas progressive house in its original early ‘90s incarnation had been a varied, playful thing full of sounds and steals from anything the ponytailed producers could shove into their primitive samplers, the second wave of prog was as proggily prog-prog as you could imagine, all moody basslines, heavy downpours of percussion and absolutely as little melody as possible.

But something fun did emerge from this unlikely dominion: the spectacle of DJs from over in glowstick trance land feeling the urge to jump aboard the bandwagon. And so for a year or so, it became obligatory for all the biggest trance DJs to devote disc one of their latest mix compilation to some dutiful prog dabbling before whipping out the supersaws on disc two.

And you know what? Unlike the decade’s later bandwagon hops of farty electro basslines appearing in absolutely everything everywhere, and Brit DJs pretending they liked minimal techno, there were some surprisingly good results from the cheesemonger DJs deliberately reigning in their flamboyant tendencies. It turns out some of these guys could play pretty well when they weren’t shovelling as many two minute breakdowns into a set as the Godskitchen laser array could handle. And with their natural trance tendencies always peeking through, some of them managed to be more entertaining than the actual prog DJs in this period. (Seriously, you try whistling anything on Digweed’s Los Angeles Global Underground).

So now, with 2001 a frankly terrifying twenty two years ago and counting, we’ll be journeying back through time to see which of the Big Five trance boys (Oakenfold, Tiesto, Armin, PVD and Ferry) hopped that bandwagon best! The rules are simple: the prog discs will be ranked according to their prog credentials, and we’ll poke our head briefly into the main room to scope CD2. So without further ado, join me for a deep dive into…

The Token Prog Discs.

So Long 2022, Oh Hi 2023

What a weird year that was.

It started out so simple, a carrying on of whatever 2021 was. Then ALL THAT happened, whatever you want to throw into your 'all that' bucket. Rergardless, as with much of online society, I couldn't help but get addicted to doomscrolling, to such a point I had to step back and reasses priorities. And wouldn't you know it, things turned out for the better, at least for yours truly. Kinda'. Okay, so updating and upgrading my life-balance made my personal debt worse, though not crippling so. If I need some quick scratch, I should just start taking paid positions at the festivals I volunteer at.

But yeah, it was nice to have things 'open' again this year (never mind if they 'should' have been yet, what with COVID still a thing, but eh, The Economy must grind on), including clubs, swimming pools and the like. Finding that motivation to get more physically active has certainly been a positive this past year, even if it kinda' cut into the amount of time I was willing to dedicate to this blog. Speaking of which, I s'pose 2022 will forever be remembered as the year I finally completed my initial project of listening to and reviewing Every. Single. Item. in my music collection, at least as it existed when I first relaunched way back in 2012. Crazy to think it's been a decade since then, eh?

Anything else? Oh, just switching music streaming services, switching social media services (or at least, weening off one), switching living environment (so many tapestries now. Just... so many). All in all, a remarkably busy year of change, mostly for the better. Some may call it 'mid-life crisis', but I prefer thinking of it as finally coming into one's own after nearly two decades of fumbling through adulthood. But as Neil Young once sang, "I still got a long way to go."

Oh yeah, and no ACE TRACKS list yet. Even though Speedy J has finally uploaded all his stuff to more streaming services, a small playlist of primarily his stuff would be overkill.

ACE TRACKS: October - November 2022

So this has been a month.

Never mind regular work being a total boondoggle, or the fact I damn near wrecked my left ankle twice in the span of a week, no I'm talking about the goings-on of Internetland, specifically That Bird Site. I can't say I've completely ditched it yet, but I'm finding fewer reasons to stick around at this point. My own usage of it felt more out of a sense of obligation, utilizing social media apps to help generate traffic for this blog, but looking over the stats, I can't say it ever yielded much. Yeah, occasionally one of the artists I reviewed might give a Tweet a bump, but those numbers honestly dwindled quite a bit over the years. It's almost as if folks just don't like using Twitter anymore, and those that do, do so out of sense of obligation, utilizing the social media app to help generate buzz about their content. Frankly, I get more of a traffic bump off of Facebook than I ever do Twitter.

Which is why I'd been contemplating making a switch for a while anyway, regardless of the Musky buyout. Once folks started pumping up Mastodon as an alternative, I decided to give it a try this month, see how it stacks. And frankly, it's been a better overall experience! With its dedicated server system, I don't feel like I'm just shouting into the void for attention, a keyword or hashtag maybe getting the attention of someone more Very Important than I. My direct engagement with folks there has been far higher than it ever was on Twitter. Yeah, it hasn't generated numbers directly to this blog, but that's expected when starting over again on another social media app, especially one with a significantly lower number of marketers and bots.

Thus most of my activities have transfered over to the ravenation.club server (because there were no other 'electronic music' ones). My 'Sportsting Surveys' are been posted there exclusively now, as the 500 character limit nicely fleshes out what thoughts I may have. I've also been re-sharing 10 Year Old reviews, for a time on both, but decided to keep that Mastodon exclusive as well. New reviews and Survey unrolls will still be shared on both, but that's about it. At this point, the only two things keeping me on Twitter is to keep tabs on the content creators that haven't jumped ship yet, and to keep my front-row seat of just how much of a flaming dumpster the Bird Site will actually become. I'm terrified, yet I can't look away...!

That sorted, here's the Ace Tracks for the past two months:


Full list here.


MISSING ALBUMS:
Mind Over MIDI - Outpost
Natural Life Essence - Organic Adventures
Iempamo - ...Now What?
Speedy J - Ni Go Snix
Rapoon - Navigating By Colour
FSOL - Music From Calendars
Encym - Music For Meditation
Peter Broderick - Music For A Sleeping Sculpture Of Peter Broderick

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 0%
Percentage Of Rock: 0% (KMFDM and DWtD aren't really 'rock' enough here for this category)
Most “WTF?” Track: Nothing really, tho' the obscene amount of Lucette Bourdin may have some scratching their heads.

Yeah, I didn't tally a total runtime up, but she's gotta' take up at least half of this playlist, probably more. Mind, I didn't include many of her extra-long pieces, only Dream Traveler (because dang, it's such a sublime slice of floaty ambience), but when you cover six album's worth of music out of twenty, it can't help but overwhelm everything else.

I know I've made some whiplashy playlists in the past, but between all the Lucette, and the... well, nearly everything else (save Dr. Alban), this playlist whiplashes hard indeed. I'm sure you could get some power naps in before another synthwave thrasher knocks you out of slumber.

Epic SAD Sessions During Extreme Weather Conditions

I've never hidden the fact that I get hit with Seasonal Affective Disorder this time of the year, which isn't that big a surprise. Many folks, especially those getting up in their years, feel the slowing of motivation as the days grow shorter and colder. Add in the fact my line of work tends to get most stressful in the month of October, and you can imagine my mental health takes a bit of a beating. This year, however, was something extra, and when I set aside some time off to recouperate, I was down hard. For half a week there, I could not find motivation to do anything, sleeping for 14 - 16 hours a day. If this is what those who suffer from extreme depression go through, you have my sympathies. I could not imagine dealing with such a state of self on the regular.

To be fair, part of this was on me. Work and seasonal change is one thing, but I've also been physically pushing myself pretty hard this past month too. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy with the results of falling down the Fitness Hole, but shedding 35lbs in a two-month timespan is gonna' put stress on your body. Dropping to a weight not had for fifteen years will be felt, no matter how well you take care of yourself. Matters also weren't helped that Vancouver went from warm summer weather to deep, chilly autumn in an instant, with me wearing clothes very unsuitable for outdoor activity in such a massive temperature drop. No wonder my poor body finally said "Enough's enough!"

Ironically (or not), going through such a hibernatic spell seems to have done me a lot of good. It's the start of November, and I honestly can't remember the last time I've mentally felt so fresh and vital on this date. Time well tell if its sustainable, but for once, I'm not quite so dreading dealing with the final months of the year. Will that translate to an uptick in blogging activity? Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves...

Get-ting Phy-si-cal, Phy-si-cal, oh baby! An EMC Update.

So I've fallen down the Fitness Hole.

It all started with getting a new phone, and as new phones are wont to do, proudly displaying its new features as you set it up. On a whim, I indulged the Health Tracker app, just to see how far pedometer technology had come - my first cell phone was a Sony Ericsson, see, bought almost specifically for that feature. Well, not only had 'step counting' tech massively advanced in those dozen years, but just about every other health and exercise tracking feature too. Why, by turning on my phone's GPS, I can even get accurate data for my regular constitutionals, factoring in elevations and everything (Vancouver 'tis a hilly place). Swimming! I go swimming, and this phone app even tracks calories burned during swim sessions! ...kinda'. Obviously you can't take the phone into the pool, so it just correlates an estimate based on the time of your session. If only there was some way to accurately track those.

"Why, of course there is!" says the charming individual lurking further down the Fitness Hole. "You've heard of FitBit, right?" Oh my, yes! Of course! I'll just get one of those little smart watches with all the tracking abilities included and- oh... oh my! Stats! Data! SWOLF scores!! Feed me more! More! MOAR!! Sleep tracker too? Ooh, what a nifty little feature. How do I sleep, I wonder? Eh, aren't I worried someone might steal that information and use it against me? Pft, you over-rate my importance.

Granted, I'm not fully immersed in this Fitness Hole. I really can't be bothered to track my calorie intake - figure if I'm burning 2000+ a day, I'm doing fine anyway. And I honestly kinda' cheaped out on the 'fitbit' for my wrist, settling on an economy model that probably isn't 100% accurate on everything (what device even is tho'?). Like, I already spend heavy on good headphones, I'm not yet ready to do the same on fitness trackers. I've seen how hardcore some get with their fitness regiments, going so far as to track amino acid contents of their drinks and whatnot. I've neither the time nor the care to get that deep into it, but at least keeping a record of these things has motivated me to get more active in general, which at my age probably isn't a bad idea at all.

Incidentally, adding lengthy walks to my off-work routine has given me a chance to deep-dive artist discographies I've always meant to check out. I've even taken to Twitter to share my thoughts on each album I listen to (currently going through the catalogue of hip-hop legend Nas), and will probably eventually post it here. So if anything, this exercise in doing more exercise has generated a little additional content in the long run.

Yet Another EMC Update: The Updatening (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Update Harder)

So I'm postponing the Ace Tracks Playlist another month. No major, life-shattering reason for this, some unforeseen, cataclysmic event in The Life Of Me shaking down. Between the last two months, I do have enough material for a respectable playlist, but my future schedule does make this the practical option.

For you see, I plan on taking July off. I'll be away from home for a significant chunk of the month, and likely won't have much time to knock out any reviews. Yes, not even on the road, as my poor old laptop is truly showing its age now. Besides, it's been four years since I last took a full month off, and could probably use a little mental recharge. Yeah, there were some fallow periods (oh God, were there ever some fallow periods in 2020!), but I still managed to squirt out a few reviews per month even during those challenging lean times. I can probably use some extended time not worrying about this blog. And since it's doubtful I'll do enough in June to justify its own playlist, it makes better sense combining these three months into one before going on my month-long break.

Wow, this has to be the most update-iest update I've ever updated.

Enter Your Convoluted Star Trek Episode Title Here

So I ...didn't have anything significant happen to me this past month. Wait, has the world actually decided to pause, even for a little bit?

Not really, no, but as with all things with no clear end in sight, a lot now feels like it's settled into a 'new normal'. Or a 'temporary normal', I guess. Do we really want to go back to the 'old normal' though? When ever was that, come to think of it? For sure there are periods within the last few decades I'd like to think were 'normal', but probably more due to our sense of being climbatizing to whatever the latest shake-up from the old paradigm created. We just had so much come at us in such a couple short years that our ability to adapt to changing conditions was thrown seriously askew. Maybe we're growing better equipped at dealing with it now, in a sort of "Come at me, bro!" sort of way. Who knows, but I can at least say, in my tiny corner of the world, things haven't felt quite so hectic.

And yet, no new ACE TRACKS playlist this month. Hey, though my rate of reviews still isn't as high as it could be, this isn't all my fault. Sometimes the material I'm covering simply isn't available on the usual streaming services, and this is one of those times, well over 50% as such. Some of it, okay, I understand, DJ mixes coming out long ago, and difficult to secure streaming rights to. The Grid's Evolver though? You can find everything else from that duo on Deezer (and Spotify), but not their biggest ever album? Unless they're holding onto it for a spiffy 30th Anniversary re-issue, it don't make sense.

So yeah, nothing else to say in this update. Onwards then, Raving Soldiers, to whatever splendours and horrors await us in the coming months.

Can't We Pause, Even For A Moment? ...An EMC Update

So now all this.

I guess it goes without saying it's hard to find motivation to write about one's CD collection when one gets addicted to 'doomscrolling'. I can't even claim I'm scrolling news and updates with an overbearing cloud of gloom while doing so. We've never seen a conflict on the scale of Putin's invasion into Ukraine in the social media era, and if nothing else, the constant stream of information is addicting enough. For sure I'm hoping the Ukrainian people can repel him, but even if Putin succeeds in installing his puppet government, he sure as shit isn't gonna' hold it, not with the dogged deternimation we've seen from the Ukrainians fighting for their freedom. And that's not even getting into just how swift and throughough the world's locked out Russia's finance sector, effectively turning that nation into a global pariah. Ukrainians are suffering. Common Russians who just want to live their lives will suffer. All for the delusions of grandeur from an aging dickhead dictator, whom I can only imagine is losing his mind in paranoia (seriously, have you seen the size of those tables he meets his Chiefs Of Staff with? Hilarious!).

I generally try to keep this blog apolitical, letting it be nothing more than a place to wax on about music past and (semi) present. If something I'm covering has a political bent, sure, I'll touch upon it, but by and large, I avoid current affairs seeping into what's written in a given review. When current affairs overwhelm your thoughts about anything though, it's hard to keep on as though nothing's nothing. I get many content creators kinda' have to, since it's their job and all. This is just a hobby for me though, one I sometimes have more time to dedicate to than not. I guess I need the world to be a bit less chaotic for me to write about Another Ambient Album on a consistent basis again.

Anyhow, back to the doomscrolling...

ACE TRACKS: January 2022 ...and an EMC Update

I repeat myself but seriously... wow.

True, this was an eventuality – there was only so much pre-2012 music I had in my collection to begin with – but it's still astounding that I accomplished this. I've seen a few attempts at the daft idea of reviewing one's entire pile of records or CDs, but almost never anyone accomplish it. Maybe Mark Prindle, before he retired his website? He certainly was thorough with artist discographies. I recall a few text-based websites way back in ye' olden Web 1.0 days, which were more useful as databases before Lord Discogs changed the game. A more recent trend of 'a track review a day for a year' certainly seems to have gained traction within the podcast-o-sphere, but that's not really the same.

I suppose it comes down to how folks consume music these days, most sticking with streaming. Could you imagine someone trying to review one's entire Spotify Favorites collection? Man, folks smash those little hearts like they're nothin'!The era of having a physical collection continues to dwindle down to niche interests, and of those who do, how many develop an itch to actually write reviews of everything they have? Not bloody many, I wager. No, Rate Your Music doesn't count. Well, maybe a little, if you're one of those 1,000+ word review 'blurb' types.

And I ain't finished, oh no. There's still plenty of music in my 'To Review' pile, plenty more on its way in the mail, plenty more to discover, new and old. All the same, it's nice having another arbitrary box checked off on my 'Blog Goals, I Guess' chalkboard. Meanwhile, here's the ACE TRACKS from January, the final batch from my pre-2012 collection!


Full track list here.


MISSING ALBUMS:
Neil Young - Chrome Dreams II
The KLF - Chill Out (I refuse to call what's been recently released proper Chill Out)

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 9%
Percentage Of Rock: 0%
Most “WTF?” Track: The Trans'pact stuff, especially lodged among Enya, as alphabetical stipulation decrees.

Wait...! Neil Young is missing!? Oh yeah, THAT whole thing. Time to address the elephant in the room.

So I've cancelled my Spotify subscription. This isn't some knee-jerk reaction to *all that* - I've been considering it for a while now. Believe me when I say I was a huge supporter of the app when it first launched in Canada, but in my mind, they've done little since to improve conditions for musicians relying on their service, especially when they've had ample chances to do so. And it's not like they aren't flush with enough cash to do so, doling out one-hundred million dolla' bill exclusivity rights to podcasters. Meanwhile the Discovery algorithm wasn't very useful for my interests, there was that one time they splattered every button, feature, genre, and playlist with Drake's mug (we're not a monolith culture!), not to mention a bunch of behind the scenes stuff that's about as icky as growing corporations get...

So if there's all this rot, why now, when everyone else is doing it, and not before? Honest and truly, Neil Young no longer being on the platform was the proper nudge I needed.

Ultimately, what I want is a means of having my entire music collection available to me anywhere I go in the world, easily streamed in high resolution through my phone. I also know that's not bloody likely anytime soon, so music streaming services are the alternative, even if most of them pay dick. I could justify Spotify's meagre crumbs by the fact I generally only streamed music I'd already bought and paid for elsewhere, whether through Bandcamp or getting CDs. And while Spotify didn't have all the music I've gathered, they had enough... until now. Mr. Young may only take up about 3% of my total collection, but he's still an artist I play a lot (so says my scrobbling data). If he's not on Spotify, what point is there in me staying with the service? None no point, there is. So long, Spotify, then. I'll keep my account for a couple practical reasons I'll get to, but for the most part, I'm done with them.

That settled, where to next? Amazon Music? Nah, I already pay for Prime, and don't need to add to that bill. Apple Music? Seeing as how I have 0% Apple products, I think not. Tidal? Kinda pointless for blogging purposes if anyone in my readerbase doesn't have an account (no free streaming, even for sharing audio clips). Besides, something about them still rubs me the wrong way. Like, it's almost too celebrity focused, pushing their high-profile artists because they have invested shares in the app. Let me put it this way: if any of these streaming services are gonna' jump on a superstar-endorsed NFT bandwagon to the detriment of its user-base, I can totally see Tidal being the first.

I guess that leaves me with Deezer, the Yahoo! of music streaming services. Been around longer than most, is serviceable in what it provides, mostly forgotten but spoken of fondly by those who still use it (*cough*).

So I gave Deezer a trial run, and quite liked how streamlined everything is (no fuss, no obnoxious muss). The desktop app is kinda' janky, but the website interface is mostly the same and runs smoothly. Mobile app works nice as well. Decided to port over all my ACE TRACK playlists, and unfortunately discovered it caps out at 2,000 tracks, effectively splitting my Ultimate Master List into three. Ah, whoops?

That hiccup aside, I think Deezer's the one I'm going with for now. All future streaming links will be through Deezer (where a Bandcamp one isn't available), as well as all future ACE TRACK playlists. Since the Ultimate Master List would be too cumbersome to maintain in a split state, I'm retiring it. Also, all current Spotify links will remain, as I have no desire spending hours replacing them all with Deezer ones, and will use Spotify as a third option if there are none for Bandcamp or Deezer.

Yeah, despite having a comparable library, some things just aren't available on Deezer but are on Spotify (damn you, American Movement In Still Life). However, in doing my library transfer, I discovered quite a few albums on Deezer that I never found on Spotify. Let's look at those albums now!

FOUND ALBUMS:
Alex Theory - Saturn Returns
Alien Project - Activation Portal
Bandulu - Redemption
B.G. The Prince Of Rap - The Time Is Now
BKS - Dreamcatcher
The Black Dog - Temple Of Transparent Balls
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony - E. 1999 Eternal
Carl Craig - Landcruising (altered edition titled The Album Formerly...)
Deep Forest - Deep Forest
Der Dritte Raum - Spaceglider
Dogon - The Sirius Expeditions
The Dust Brothers - Fight Club
Dusted - When We Were Young (altered edition titled Safe From Harm)
Emiliana Torrini - Love In The Time Of Science
Escape - The Futurescape
Frankie Bones - Computer Controlled 2: Live In California
Fun Factory - Nonstop! The Album
Grooverider - Mysteries Of Funk
Jefferson Airplane - Platinum & Gold Collection
John '00' Fleming - For Your Ears Only
John O'Callaghan - Something To Live For
Kon Kan - Syntonic
Lab 4 - None Of Us Are Saints (playlist)
Motorbass - Pansoul
N-Trance - Electronic Pleasure
The Oak Ridge Boys - A Higher Power
Opium - Pain(t)
Quadrophonia - Cozmic Jam
RZA as Bobby Digital - In Stereo
Sven Vath - Contact
Sven Vath - Harlequin – The Beauty And The Beast
Supercar - Futurama
Supercar - Highvision
Tom Middleton - The Sound Of The Cosmos
Wu-Tang Clan - 8 Diagrams
Various - Absence Of Gravity
Various - Audioworks V1
Various - Empire Records: The Soundtrack
Various - Grooverider Presents: The Prototype Years
Various - In Trance We Trust 021: Adam Ellis
Various - Influence 1.1: A Hardtrance Experience
Various - Massive Passive
Various - Organism 02
Various - Rave-Trance 2001 (as This Is Dream Trance Anthems Volume 2)
Various - Techno Nights – Ambient Dawn (playlist)
Various - Trance To Planet X: Influence 3.3
Various - Trancespotting II
Various - Trancespotting III


Not to say these might not be on Spotify now, they just weren't when I looked when doing reviews for them. Still, quite a list, eh?

*whew*

Has this ever been a wordful. Maybe I should have split this into two different posts, but wanted to get this out of the way. I'm not going to try and convince anyone to do as I've done, as your listening habits are your own. Just know if you feel Spotify's getting too sketchy for its britches, there are options.

Drowning In Atmospheric Rivers: An EMC Update

I won't front: personally, I'm not directly affected by all the flooding that's happened in my corner of the world. Vancouver-Proper hasn't seen any of the catastrophic damage so many nearby areas have. That doesn't mean there haven't been issues though, as supply chains get disrupted. It's easy to think, that's what we get, having just one route in and out of the Lower Mainland, but we really don't. There are multiple routes, and in years past, when there's been severe weather disruptions, at least one or two of those routes will remain open. That this substantial percipitation managed to knock-out all the routes is almost unprecidented! Throw in the killer combo of re-routing through the States ain't an easy task due to COVID restrictions (not all truck drivers are eligible for border crossings), and you have a logistical nightmare for those who's job it is to handle the movement of goods to local communities. I've had a hectic past couple weeks, is what I'm saying.

That all said, such a work schedule wouldn't have been enough to completely de-rail this blog's productivity for half a month. Nay, the other reason there hasn't been any updates in a while is because the next item in my queue is gonna' take up a significant chunk of time to get through, and I didn't want to split it between two months. Yep, it's another box-set, one where alphabetical stipulation won't let me work around it like the Lucette Bourdin one. Figured I'd wait until November ended, by which hopefully most of the Real World nutiness had cooled off a little. I... can't say it has, but eh, no sense putting this off any longer.

The Summer That Was Too Much: An EMC Update

Looks like I'm skipping a Playlist this month.

Normally, I set myself a minimum of ten albums per month if I'm to create a decently rounded Ace Tracks Playlist, which I did manage for August. However, between a few items unavailable, and a general dominance of all things Bent and Namlook already on it (with a hefty side portion of HIA), it wasn't looking too interesting of a playlist. Need more variety to spice things up, so I'm letting it slide.

Which is a shame, because for a short while there, I thought I'd regained some writing momentum. All those hot death-domes finally seemed past my corner of the world, and wouldn't you know it, it's much easier to concentrate at a keyboard when you're not dying in the fire of a thousand blue stars. Now we just contend with excessively warm, humid muggy weather. Y'know, like a proper rainforest, none of those cold-ass, moss-covered taiga ones. But 'things' and 'stuff' always seem to come up these days, putting writing efforts on short pause while it gets sorted and dealt with. Such is life the older you get, I guess. No wonder most folks put off their passion hobbies until retirement. They have no choice!

The Miraculous Melting Man: An EMC Update

So that was a month.

And you may be thinking, it ain't my fault my region of the world decided to go through one of the hottest heatwaves this planet has ever seen, rendering doing anything productive an impossible effort (thank God for MellVerse 'First Time Watch' vids getting me through it - sweet find!). Or maybe it is my fault, in that we are all culpable for unprecedented temperatures messing up our fragile ecosystems. Mm, nah, that's getting way too deep into it. Besides, all that happened in the final week of the month. What excuse do I have for the lack of activity here in the three weeks prior?

Distraction, mostly. Like, finding another podcast to binge-listen. Getting the ol' Rise Of Nations working on my computer to binge-play. Feeling invested in playoff Sportsball to binge-watch. All that good stuff. The stupid-hot heatwave was just a melting cherry on top a liquefied sundae of procrastination.

And I can't say things will be picking up soon either. Next week I'll be going on an honest-to-God, real, out-of-town vacation! Okay, not a major one, but just being able to leave town, go for a drive in the interior, stay at a hotel, all vaxx'd up and everything. By g'ar, it's been a while! Been having to get my fix in by playing GeoGuessr, which while neat, doesn't quite fill the void of cruising down long stretches of remote road. Ain't nothing gonna' keep me from doing this though, nosiree. Unless a ridiculous amount of forest fires shut down all the mountain highways. That'd do it.

Not The Revitalized Return I'd Hoped

Back to this year's monthly average, I guess.

Actually, I think I finally realized what's going on. Okay, I've known it for a while, sometimes even deadpanned about it, but for some reason, this month it became crystal clear just how much my ADHD is affecting me lately. I feel like I've always managed to balance all the little ideas and projects throughout my life reasonably well, such that one ongoing thing doesn't get side-tracked for some new flight of fancy. Not so much any more. If something snags my attention, I'll focus entirely on that, at least until something else snags my attention, and with *ALL THIS* going on in the year 2020, it's been all too easy to get continuously side-tracked.

And I really noticed it earlier in October, for a multitude of reasons I needn't get into here. Ultimately, I realized I didn't need to stress so much about not keeping up that writing pace I reconnected with back in the summer. It's okay to let some things sit fallow while other tasks take your time. It's... okay. It really, really is... okay. Or might it get worse as I grow older...?

I know there's drugs out there to help with ADHD and all, but I don't think this is at a crippling level yet. Sure, the apartment is messier than it should be, and pet projects take longer to complete. I still make it to work on time though, do all the things I must to carry on carrying. And who knows, maybe if this society we're living in can sort itself into some semblance of normalcy again, the mind won't feel like such a wayward wayfarer of constant distraction.

One can hope.

Almost back to some semblance of sanity, here in Canadaland

I sometimes wish I could be more forthright about my line of work. Absolutely it is a good idea to keep my Online and Meat Space activities as separate as possible, but hoo, some of the tales I could bring about the inner workings.

These past few months have been a real exercise in discovering just how many facets of my job there can be. I was already given the reigns to run a place as I saw fit to my whims, as I was essentially the only employee there. Which was fine until COVID-19 hit, after which I was suddenly an Essential Service and business boomed well beyond what an individual was capable of. But still, it was all stuff I was familiar with and could handle. Then I got called upon to help set-up a new location, and my compartmentalized little world was suddenly thrown into chaos. Well, more so.

I didn't think it would be much different than prepping a music festival, but oh was I ever wrong. So many things to do and get done, but the worst part was I wasn't very much involved with any of it. And what I was doing felt mostly like just busy-work, given menial tasks because I didn't have the 'expertise' to do specific things. When you go from doing all the things to doing almost nothing (but are still expected to look busy), that has a surprising knock-on affect on your general demeanor, to say nothing of how much that can carry home with you. Thank God I didn't try blogging any of that stuff! Couple it with keeping abreast of the shit-show that is American Politics, and is it any wonder I've been negligent here?

That's all past though. The new location is up and running, I've been positioned in a place I know I excel in without having to worry about excessive responsibilities (I've had my fill of being The Man, thanks), and my province is cautiously optimistic about opening for the summer (except the southern border). I've suddenly been able to get much better sleep than I have in months, bizarre dreams about obsessing over the band Chilliwack aside. It may still take a bit of time for my blogging routine to recover from this downswing of activity, but at least my surrounding life feels almost normal again.

Strange Days Behind, Insanity Ahead

It's not getting better anytime soon, is it?

Like, I was not so naive to think things would return to whatever 'normal' was in an instant, fully supportive of the responsible, pragmatic steps to post-pandemic recovery. And here in Vancouver, things seem to be proceeding as well as one can hope. Just this weekend, I went for a Denny's breakfast for the first time in months. Never thought I'd miss the ol' greasy girl. Sure, I couldn't go at my preferred time, somewhere around the 5am timeslot (nothing beats waking up too early, and going for an All-American Slam), but pragmatism, man. Guess we'll see in a few weeks how severe the unavoidable Second Wave is, but so long as we don't rush things, Vancouver should remain one of the healthier cities emerging from All This.

Yet when I watch what's going on in America right now, I see nothing but a long, grim road ahead. Used to be I'd sit in a lawn chair at the border munching popcorn, enjoying the spectacle of a nation so dysfunctional like so much Reality TV. The view is no longer so nice though, and my lawn chair sags, and the popcorn tastes stale. I want to help make things right, but am completely and utterly powerless to do so, thus can only watch and hope my brothers and sisters to the south can figure it out. How can they, though, when these issues are so ingrained and systemic that repressed folk feel nothing short of open rebellion is their only course of action? I feel powerless to do anything as an outside observer, but my God, how do those forced to live within that system cope? Lord knows I'd have been pushed well to my edge long ago if I had to put up with even a fraction of what minorities in America do. Marching in streets seems to accomplish too little, especially when the cops surrounding you are just itching at the chance to run you over with their tactical tanks or whatever Army hand-me-downs they get.

It just makes hobby-writing about 'escapism music' feel like more of a pointless chore at this time. I still do it, of course, but man, whenever I fire up the ol' computer, open up my OpenOffice, type out a few sentences, refer to the internet for some background info and Oh MY GOD! It never was this insane, was it? No, no it wasn't. Spits and fires, sure, but now it's all building and ramping up to a raging climax no one can predict but years of Downer Drama Television (depression porn?) has led us to believe it can't be good, it won't be good.

Ah well, at least I still have Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a game that takes the hyper-sensationalism of Americana (specifically early '90s Americana) and cranks it to levels of parody. Just barely so, compared to our current climes.

The Neverending Strangest Days (auh-ah auh auh-ah auh)

Yeah, things are still as they are. Where else would they be? Feels like we're in a perpetual, pragmatic holding pattern, and it's understandable why folks are getting antsy about the future. Make us do a time-out for a month, okay fine, it's for the good of the society. For two months though, and good God, is this the New Normal forever!? Heck, I'm one of the 'lucky' ones, in that my overall way of life didn't change that much, still going to my job as usual. Just... working harder, and feeling mentally exhausted as I catch up on the daily news after. And I can't get a dang haircut either, or a beard trim at least. Feels like I'm dealing with jungle bush on my face all the time now. How do them old wizards handle it? Or ZZ Top?

Still, things will be changing a little on my end in the coming weeks. I'll be moving to a new work location, doing different things which won't require so much of me. That'll be a nice change of pace. Maybe even free up some of my brain power for writing again? Oh, who am I kidding, now that I've finally cracked open that copy of GTA: San Andreas, that's about all that's consumed my attention now. Yes, it's taken me this long to check out the best selling PS2 game ever. I was only passively interested in the series, as a cultural touchstone and talking point. I did play GTA2, got hooked on the game's Just One More Mission addictiveness before the janky controls made it frustrating to continue. Would never have thought to play future games, but those Neebs Gaming guys, with their Cinematic Series of GTA: Online, making it look like a blast and all, maybe I should check it out? What's that you say, friend of mine, you have a copy of San Andreas but no PS2 to play it on? Why by jove, I have a PS2! In fact, I never upgraded my gaming console past that. Sure, I'll take that game off your hands. I'm sure it's not that much different than Online, being based on the same location and... oh my GOD! What happened to all the textures!!?? Oh, right, two console generations old.

So yeah, a lot of GTA: San Andreas in my diet this past week. Good thing I was 'forced' to take a week-long vacation during a time when there's no where I can go to indulge it!

Strangest Days: An EMC Update

And I thought February was hectic. Oh sweet child, you hadn't seen anything yet.

For obvious reasons, I don't get into what my Real World work is here. I can say, however, that I am one of those Front Line Essential Service workers you've been hearing all about this past month. Not in any major high-traffic area, mind you; in fact, I feel quite fortunate that my location is out of the way and basically only serves a modest (though affluent!) neighbourhood in the city of Vancouver. Yet even this tucked, out-of-sight place I earn my bones has been swamped with business and inquiries and all manner of anxiety as folks try to figure out how to go about things as though they were still normal. Things aren't normal though. Folks in the Western world are currently living in some of the most abnormal times in almost a century, and as adaptable as the human species is, the change was so rapid and so encompassing, we're still trying to process it. Some think this could be over in a couple more weeks? Frankly, I think we'll be lucky to find ourselves back to some semblance of what once was in a few months. (oh no, my summer vacations)

I also feel fortunate that, for the most part, my city has taken all this remarkably well. Aside from that first weekend of hoard shopping that nearly crippled the entire grocery supply chain anyway. Folks have kind of settled into this now, and have even taken to doing a 7pm city-wide cheer for all those still working at their essential services. The only time there was a city-wide cheer for anything was when Very Important Hockey Games were won. Yet why does this feel so hollow to me?

I get the occasional "thank-you for being open"s at work, but all I'm doing is what I've been doing all along. If anything, I feel like I've been failing at it more because I can't get the things everyone wants with any regularity anymore, though that's hardly my fault. Its the warehouse workers who deserve far more credit than what I'm doing. I dunno, I've always felt weird about people saying "thank you" for me doing a job, like my volunteer work at music festivals. It's just a job to me, one I calculated as being 'essential' in the worst of times, and therefore a sure thing to stick with in the long run. It's not something I figure needs being thanked for doing. Then again, I will give a "thank-you" to the bus drivers whenever I can, because I know it takes at least 20 of those to rub out the sting of just 1 bad interaction with your common man.

All of which has left this blog in rather poor shape, unfortunately. I'm not abandoning it, oh no; my OCD won't let me! However, with All This going on *gestures wildly*, it's understandable I simply don't have the usual time or mental fortitude to do more than a couple reviews a week at this point. And what's ironic about that is folks are saying this will be a boon time for internet content creators, with more people than ever stuck at home with nothing better to do than watch and engage with other people online copping through these strangest of days we are all facing together. Except those like me, the Essential workers, carrying on with bigger loads on their backs. I almost feel envious of the currently unemployed, like I'm missing out on a cultural event what with all these streams and Tik Toks and shared memes of Life In Iso'.

But that's not a very good headspace to be in, is it?