Invisible Sounds take over Porto again; Ferro Bar 19th August all night, Torto Porto 20th August

IdleRich

IdleRich
We are getting the bus to Porto this afternoon for another dj-ing jaunt. Tonight we play pretty much my favourite spot in Portugal which is Ferro Bar, it's just a small place cut into the side of the hill, there is a bar and a terrace overlooking the station but if you push through that you get a small cellar with no windows, a raised platform with the turntables on it and that's pretty much it - oh and normally a hundred and fifty or so punters dancing like crazy all night. Should be such a simple formula to reproduce but nowhere in Lisbon does it quite as well.
Tomorrow we go upmarket at posh bar Torto Porto, playing crazy sounds as people sip their beetroot cocktails and nibble on elevated (ie smaller) versions of Portuguese classics. Towards the end of the night we normally get some people dancing there...
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
If anyone is interested to see it this is the cellar where we will play. Calm before the storm type thing. Really all you need for a party is a room like this. Which makes it so frustrating that there is nowhere like this in Lisbon.

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They got a terrace too but it's kinda incidental.

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IdleRich

IdleRich
wahts ur SoundCloud OP

Thanks for your interest Horniman. Um, I dj with my partner Lizatron and the name of our collective is Invisible Sounds... cos we're not very smart at advertising these things coherently the nearest thing we have to an Invisible Sounds soundcloud is actually Lizatron's mixcloud. The selection is not necessarily a good advert in that they vary from radio shows we made entirely from 80s Russian records, or an hour of sixties psych, to stuff more like what we play out... this one is the first mix we did together and I guess it's still a good enough guide for the sound we are trying to get at.... also, I notice it is on the cusp of reaching one thousand listens, perhaps you can be the lucky one who takes it over the edge and claims the fantastic prize


Or this is one I did a month ago on my own, I've put it on here about seven times already but seeing as it's the most up to date thing we've recorded then I suppose it does provide some idea of where we are (except it aint got Liza on so she could be anywhere)



But actually you asking that question does make me think we should put together a proper one that we could send to people and that really has only the best and most appropriate ones on it. One day I'll definitely do that. Though I suppose when I think about it that that mixcloud does provide a good overview of how scattershot and unorganised we are - so although it would be a bad advert for us it is, at the same time, a fair overview.

I'm sorry I just slowly waffled a half-hour's worth of low-key bollocks in response to your very simple question. I think that must be because, oh yes, I'm really high. Sorry again.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
were in need for a proper idle rich x lizatron promo meex
It would be nice to step back from doing mixes for radio shows and stuff every couple of months and do something like a "best of" or something, where you stop worrying about whether you've used this tune before but just pick your absolute favourites and put them all together somehow. If I could really be arsed it would be perfect to get loads of samples from favourite films and stuff too... wonder if we will ever get our arse together and do something good... probably not.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Scary looking fire made the sky overcast for about an hour before we got to this point.

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I just wanna say that these fires are fucking scary. I dunno if they report about it at all in the rest of the world (it's only Portugal after all) but on the way to Porto and back there were several we saw in the distance form thebus. Many are just a big load of smoke and stuff but there was one that seemed much bigger (I dunno if it was just nearer or a different part of the cycle or what) and the sheer size of it was seriously crazy, for a long time I couldn't understand why the sky was so black for such a huge area.

On the way back we came by bus again but some friends of ours took the train back and basically the train had to stop cos the tracks were on fire. They were at Pombal and the train stopped in the station and the announcer said that the fire had crossed the tracks and they would halve to eait at least a couple of hours... in the end I thnk it was like six hours before the train could move again. I honestly don't know what they do though... is it just like "fire's gone, turn the train back on" or do they not have to do anything to fix the tracks at all? I'd have thought you did personally, but what do i know eh?

Edit: who would have known that the fire icon would be so useful.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
extremely fabulous, my guy! i will listen to all of it while i am working tomorrow :)

Thanks for your interest mate, I dunno if it's up your street at all, seems totally different from the stuff your putting together, but of course we are all multidimensional beings and we are not limited to what we ourselves do I guess. I hope you like it anyhow, would be very keen to hear your thoughts. I reckon there is more chance of you liking the one with both of us (ie the Invisible City one) cos it's more varied than the one of me on my own, that one is really just the most kinda "straight-forward dance music mix" that I have ever done.

Anyhow, whatever, good night everyone. Even I must sleep sometimes.
 
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Mr. Naga Pickle

Well-known member
Thanks for your interest mate, I dunno if it's up your street at all, seems totally different from the stuff your putting together, but of course we are all multidimensional beings and we are not limited to what we ourselves do I guess. I hope you like it anyhow, would be very keen to hear your thoughts. I reckon there is more chance of you liking the one with both of us (ie the Invisible City one) cos it's more varied than the one of me on my own, that one is really just the most kinda "straight-forward dance music mix" that I have ever done.

Anyhow, whatever, good night everyone. Even I must sleep sometimes.
first off, jesus christ y'all are prolific! it's going to take me a week to listen to all these!

i woke up feeling like hot trash this morning, but your mixes sorted me right out!

DJ IMAGINARY CAT is a very new thing for me. i was a techno man for something like 31 years, so
your mix is very much something i can appreciate! your selection is absolutely fantastic, as is
liza's! is she playing vinyl, too? her transitions are immaculate! loved that you played mu -
let's get sick! that song's been on my mind a lot lately, for some reason! hearing you
spin it felt as if i was being given some sort of magical present!

here is a story:

one time i was trying to exit a london subway station while stoned as fuck. i was walking
down this long, white tiled hallway, when i heard the sound of hand drums. eventually encountered
an older, middle eastern-looking man, playing something which resembled a djembe.

he was incredible, so i sat down on the ground and watched him drum for awhile, before getting up and leaving a tip
in the box he had in front of him. as i turned to go, he stopped playing and said "hey! come here!
don't be afraid!" i stepped a bit closer, to have him whisper "SOUNDS ARE INVISIBLE" into my ear.

i'm pretty sure i knew that at the time, but given the circumstances, it felt hella profound.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Thanks for your interest mate, I dunno if it's up your street at all, seems totally different from the stuff your putting together, but of course we are all multidimensional beings and we are not limited to what we ourselves do I guess. I hope you like it anyhow, would be very keen to hear your thoughts. I reckon there is more chance of you liking the one with both of us (ie the Invisible City one) cos it's more varied than the one of me on my own, that one is really just the most kinda "straight-forward dance music mix" that I have ever done.

Anyhow, whatever, good night everyone. Even I must sleep sometimes.
Oh dear did I write your instead of you're, that is unforgivable.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
first off, jesus christ y'all are prolific! it's going to take me a week to listen to all these!

i woke up feeling like hot trash this morning, but your mixes sorted me right out!

DJ IMAGINARY CAT is a very new thing for me. i was a techno man for something like 31 years, so
your mix is very much something i can appreciate! your selection is absolutely fantastic, as is
liza's! is she playing vinyl, too? her transitions are immaculate! loved that you played mu -
let's get sick! that song's been on my mind a lot lately, for some reason! hearing you
spin it felt as if i was being given some sort of magical present!

here is a story:

one time i was trying to exit a london subway station while stoned as fuck. i was walking
down this long, white tiled hallway, when i heard the sound of hand drums. eventually encountered
an older, middle eastern-looking man, playing something which resembled a djembe.

he was incredible, so i sat down on the ground and watched him drum for awhile, before getting up and leaving a tip
in the box he had in front of him. as i turned to go, he stopped playing and said "hey! come here!
don't be afraid!" i stepped a bit closer, to have him whisper "SOUNDS ARE INVISIBLE" into my ear.

i'm pretty sure i knew that at the time, but given the circumstances, it felt hella profound.
Hey mate, thanks for listening and those words... I gonna write a proper reply but that is the first thought that hits me and it needs to be said before anything else. Thank you.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
first off, jesus christ y'all are prolific! it's going to take me a week to listen to all these!

There are a lot on there, I guess they been done over a long old time but it adds to a lot. And they are really kinda all over the place in a real mish-mash of styles and lack of general direction and, at times - eg when we were doing two radio shows a month - I think we were making 'em too quickly and there was an unfortunate lack of quality control. It's weird, not like we were cutting corners or even knowing we were doing it, and at the time we'd be thinking "oh that was a great one" but when you listen back, turns out it wasn't.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't listen to them all, please I beg you. It sounds to me like you must have heard the very best ones and from now on any further listens will just reveal more and more diminishing returns. Or if that is an exaggeration, I do feel that there is a huge range in quality and... you know what, I'm too fucked to write this now. But I will address your comment with the politeness and respect it deserves tomorrow, I will write a proper answer. But really thank you for listening and I am glad you enjoyed.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
DJ IMAGINARY CAT is a very new thing for me. i was a techno man for something like 31 years, so
your mix is very much something i can appreciate! your selection is absolutely fantastic, as is
liza's! is she playing vinyl, too? her transitions are immaculate! loved that you played mu -
let's get sick! that song's been on my mind a lot lately, for some reason! hearing you
spin it felt as if i was being given some sort of magical present!
Hey thanks man, really happy you enjoyed. Liza plays mainly vinyl but she has been playing more and more with sticks now. I dunno which one your'e talking about with the transitions but her mixing aint that good... or no, that's not fair, what I mean to say is she is really good at is putting stuff that is at different speeds together quite inventively to keep the flow without beatmatching, but she's not particularly great at, or even interested in, beatmatching. But from the mixes it's maybe quite hard to tell who did what.

With the selections, we always try to pick interesting tunes of course, but you're right about there being so many... some of them may have been a bit rushed etc which is a shame cos I think that there are some mixes that I'm pretty pleased with on there but maybe a couple that could be better, or which maybe don't make sense cos we were choosing them according to some criteria that is long forgotten.

Anyway, thanks once again, will more check out more of yours in due course. I listened straight away to the one that has Dum Maro Dum cos I love that tune (in fact I play it quite often) and it was a killer selection as I knew it would be the second I saw that).
 

Mr. Naga Pickle

Well-known member
No, thank you! I've mostly been into production/live performance for the past 20 years or so, but was a planet roaming vinyl DJ for a long time prior to that, and was absolutely fucking obsessed with beatmatching. I honestly don't like the way most non-hardcore dance music tracks sound when they're just being played by their lonesome, and would literally spend days trying to figure out how best to layer shit. The fact that she's able to take such disparate material and make it flow so seamlessly without beatmatching is awesome to me, and 1000% something I'm trying to accomplish with my current project!

I'm going to disregard your recommendations and listen to every single one of these mixes. As we say where I'm living at the moment, EAT A BUT GARFELD (ok im the only one who says that, but i say it a lot)

If you'd like to hear some of my techno crap, you can do so in these places:

(slow and dark live set i played at Teh Nyege Nyege Festival in 2018)

(techstep/idm/electro live set i did at a shitty bar in Jacksonville, FL circa 2005. threw a record at some asshole who was fucking with me while I was playing this, so u know it's HOT)

(compilation of the gameboy noisetek i was doing for a minute. kind of like subhead, if subhead TOTALLY FUCKING SUCKED.)
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
No, thank you! I've mostly been into production/live performance for the past 20 years or so, but was a planet roaming vinyl DJ for a long time prior to that, and was absolutely fucking obsessed with beatmatching. I honestly don't like the way most non-hardcore dance music tracks sound when they're just being played by their lonesome, and would literally spend days trying to figure out how best to layer shit. The fact that she's able to take such disparate material and make it flow so seamlessly without beatmatching is awesome to me, and 1000% something I'm trying to accomplish with my current project!
I guess we were discussing beat-matching vaguely in one of the other threads lately (or at least I said something but I dunno if anyone listened) and probably I said something about how beat-matching is one of the ways that DJs can use to make their set better. I mean it's a really cool thing when it's done well, it sounds good and it's satisfying to do even. But it is only a technique, it's not the ultimate aim in itself - and I really think that some people seem to forget that and make it the be-all and end-all. Like when you hear someone saying "I really love this tune but it's the wrong bpm and so I won't play it" and I always feel that that is someone sacrificing their set to the cast-iron rule of tempo... I think if that were me and I really wanted to play the tune then I would just press stop on one tt and just put it on as it was. I do understand that the statement about not being able to play it might well mean that they have considered what they would gain by doing that and whether it would make up for the loss of built-up momentum and atmosphere that would occur... so, sure it's not like a stupid thing to say or anything. It's just that I think if it were me then I would feel the other way.

In fact, what you're saying about being a techno dj and then hoovering up all these other sounds and starting to become a different kind of dj (can I ask, is that instead or as well? Have you hung up your techno boots entirely or do you just do both types these days?) is quite interesting to me cos you could sort of say that I'm doing the same journey in the other direction (ok maybe I'm not gonna end at techno exactly but I think the analogy works). And I guess that it's cos of that that I tend to think still more in terms of the individual tunes than the flow or whole mix or something. Maybe that will change as I get more experienced in this sort of dj-ing, I dunno. I think I also said that cos I've always been someone pulling stuff off my shelves that I like and which i think will work it meant that what I was playing was quite unusual compared to DJs who go to the shop each Monday and play all the new ones that come out in their genre. So I wanna try and keep that individuality and even if I do get better and smoother at mixing I really wanna kinda keep it in my mind that that will never be my main strength and I should never forget the stuff that (I hope) I'm good at and which is what (if anything) makes me stand out. I think that Liza has got really good at finding leftfield stuff and making it work on the dancefloor (often to my surprise) and hopefully she will keep me on my toes that way.

Cos if there are some tracks that you know you can beatmatch then you'll almost automatically do it that way and it's one fewer thing to think about... so it's quite nice to play with Liza and watching her almost solve the problem of "how will I make this one work?" again and again.

Anyhow I listened to your Tsetsetse one and it's cool man. I mean really it's a lot of fun. Again I find myself saying to someone though, do you really think of that as a dark sound? To me a lot of it had this really crunchy sound to it which I found quite warm, I'd say I found it kinda welcoming and friendly. Although as this is the second time in the last week or so I've found myself questioning things described as dark, then perhaps it's my sensors (or senses) that need to be re-calibrated, I dunno. That's not really important anyway, either way, I dig the mix, there were a couple of tracks I wanted to ask about but I can't remember what they were now, I will listen again. To me, this is one where it's so tightly put together that it feels kinda one piece of music with various movements. Especially cos the way you've kept some kind of consistency in the sound palette of the selections. I think a lot of that follows from what you're getting at here

I honestly don't like the way most non-hardcore dance music tracks sound when they're just being played by their lonesome,

It's really the opposite of what I tend to do a lot of the time - I like the contrast between the beat staying the same and yet the old tune being jerked roughly out of the mix so that you are very conscious of the change. When I was dj-ing in Porto the other day I was doing that and the other dj was laughing at me and saying "it's like you get bored of doing the mix" which I suppose was a fair point but it was a deliberate aesthetic choice.

But of course you can do it much more subtly and make the whole thing more continuous if you like. And I'm not saying that one way is better than the other and I'm definitely not saying I won't try it myself at some point in the future. Really what I'm saying in this really really long-winded way is that you mixed it in a way that is quite different and more skilled than I would have chosen to do even if were capable of doing so, but I can appreciate it and enjoy it all the same.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
(techstep/idm/electro live set i did at a shitty bar in Jacksonville, FL circa 2005. threw a record at some asshole who was fucking with me while I was playing this, so u know it's HOT)

(compilation of the gameboy noisetek i was doing for a minute. kind of like subhead, if subhead TOTALLY FUCKING SUCKED.)
I will check these too when I get a sec. Interested in the record throwing bit particularly. You threw your own record at, what, a heckler in the crowd? I'm hoping that what happened was, there was someone way back, maybe on someone's shoulders and they cupped their hands round their mouth and shouted "Can I plug my ipod in?" just as the final chords of Sigue Sigue Sputnik's Love Missile F1-11 faded and so, strengthened by righteous anger, in one fluid motion you seized it from the deck and hurled it like a discuss with deadly accuracy right into their face, slicing off the top half of their skull and causing them to topple backwards into the crowd who turned and devoured them like wild dogs.
 
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