cobl_04
Can you dance to my beat?
As we dance to a beat that seems out of time
To the one you feel in the metronome of your mind
Does it offend you that our rhythm is strange
Or causes your thinking to be re-arranged
Could it be that you would understand this beat to which we dance
More cleary had you been given the chance
So as you struggle to catch the rhythm with your feet
Ask yourself...
...can you dance to my beat?
Rainbow Serpent Festival 2013 was one of the most crucial weekends of my life. Encouraged by this girl I had fallen in love with, I jumped into a car with a bunch of couchsurfers and drove to the festival, knowing only one person and having never been to a four-day bush doof. I met several great people who I am still very good friends with. I had a ridiculous amount of fun for most of the time, dancing in a donkey onesie and socks to a huge range of electronic music. Drinking. Taking drugs. Talking shit. I discovered that I probably wouldn’t ever get with this girl. She got with another of our crew. I walked off to explore, commiserate, drink and dance by myself. I finally lost my virginity. I also took acid, and had a negative experience with it, becoming extremely anxious, leading to several very scary hours where I thought I’d be trapped forever.
I heard Audiojack’s “Chemical Rewind” version of Homework’s “Ask Yourself” that weekend. It, like so many other things that happened at Rainbow, was a turning point in my life. Some things were great - I now no longer walked around day-in, day-out, with a label reading “virgin” hanging over my head. I discovered more and more electronic dance music that spoke to me in ways dance music had not really spoken to me before. I found that “having fun” was now truly a massive part of my life. I learnt that the mind is incredibly powerful, and that there is nothing scarier than losing control of it.
For months after Rainbow I was, ostensibly, fine. But later in the year, after a bummer of a night, I had some negative thoughts race around my mind. This would have been okay, if they had disappeared like they always had in the past. But something about it took me back to the moments of great anxiety when on acid, and I got stuck for a few days. I told my parents, started seeing a doctor, got medicated and started to get control back. I am still medicated and I still see a doctor. I haven’t been diagnosed with anything but generalised anxiety disorder seems most likely. As it turns out I’ve been living with it my entire life, I just never recognised it in the past. If I told you some of the ridiculous shit that has swum around my mind over the past two years…
This is a playlist that tells you a bit about how I live life. From the high points, having fun, partying, dancing to great music with friends, sometimes you’re in a cool, dank nightclub drinking and taking drugs and talking about how fucked you are, sometimes you’re on you’re own, just digging great music sober at work in the middle of the day, just enjoying life as it is.
Leaving the club, or the bar, or your friend’s house, or walking home from the pub, or the shops, the music slows down as you get reflective, and start thinking about shit. And then, just when you’ve made a life-changing to decision to be neither vacant nor waiting anymore, anxiety hits, like a cloud appearing over your shoulder. Now you’re in trouble, and you can’t get these thoughts out of you. There is something wrong with me. Take your pills, go to sleep.
You can’t say for certain that everything is going to be okay, but there are things you can do to make it seem alright. There are times, plenty of them, where you feel fine. There are crap times, too, but they don’t last forever. For the time being, you just gotta step with care and great tact, remembering life’s a great balancing act.
1. Homework - “Ask Yourself (Audiojack’s Chemical Rewind)” - Conversation Piece Remixes (8:48)
2. Les Sins - “Grind” - Grind / Prelims 12” (5:18)
3. Todd Terje - “Strandbar” - It’s Album Time (4:28)
4. Thundercat - “Oh Sheit It’s X” - Apocalypse (3:47)
5. The Juan Maclean - “You Are My Destiny (ft. Nancy Whang)” - You Are My Destiny 12” (8:30)
6. Julio Bashmore - “Au Seve” - Au Seve 12” (6:26)
7. Kele Okereke - “Heartbreak” - Heartbreaker EP (6:04)
7. Ben Pearce - “What I Might Do (Club Mix)” - What I Might Do Remixes (6:30)
8. DJ Koze - “Nices Wölkchen (ft. Apparat)” - Amygdala (5:31)
9. DJ Shadow - “What Does Your Soul Look Like (pt. 1 - Blue Sky Revisit)” - Endtroducing..... (6:17)
10. Outkast - “Elevators (Me & You)” - ATLiens (4:25)
11. Chance the Rapper - “Acid Rain” - Acid Rap (3:36)
12. Nightlands - “So Far So Long” - Oak Island (4:18)
13. St Vincent - “Strange Mercy” - Strange Mercy (4:29)
14. Something for Kate - “Star-Crossed Citizens” - Leave Your Soul to Science (3:41)
15. The National - “This is the Last Time” - Trouble Will Find Me (4:45)
16. Los Campesinos! - “Cemetery Gaits” - No Blues (4:53)
17. Broken Social Scene - “KC Accidental” - You Forgot it in People (3:51)
17. Wilco - “Radio Cure” - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (5:09)
18. Courtney Barnett - “Anonymous Club” - How to Carve a Carrot into a Rose EP (5:51)
19. Passion Pit - “Swimming in the Flood” - Manners (4:58)
20. Flying Lotus - “Galaxy in Janaki” - Cosmogramma (2:28)
21. The Avalanches - “Extra Kings” - Since I Left You (3:47)
22. Jon Hopkins - “Immunity” - Immunity (9:57)
23. Brian Eno - “Becalmed” - Another Green World (3:57)
Total runtime - 2:11:31