why?

I've always wondered why some of my favourite beatmakers choose to switch into the electronic world, and vice versa.

It's well-documented that each genre's origins are rooted in so many of the same characteristics. Both came from similar equipment and ears for samples, and both developed their own deeply-ingrained sounds and subcultures following years of experimentation and competition. But both emulated similar feelings.

Take the wide-reaching sounds of house for example. Even in its origins, hiphop production didn't necessarily have a four to the floor beat, but house deejays recognised that both sounds had the energy to be adopted for dancefloors who craved the fusion of the two. Chopped vocal samples, deep basslines, sizzling hihats, punchy kicks, looping and looping into oblivion.

With boundless choice and the history of all music stirring in one big pot before you, I feel that instrumental hiphop and electronic today are so stylistically-ambigious today, I wonder if it's worth genre tagging at all. On a single beat tape, you'll find the legendary ohbliv flipping between house and hiphop in a heartbeat.

Of course, in some spaces, these two sounds exist in completely different worlds. You'll have beatheads that swear by 60s jazz and 70s soul samples like the second coming of christ, and technoheads that won't even touch anything below 130bpm.

But my hope is that by honing in on these sounds, and deeply listening to discover new artists and projects, I can explore the shared love for head knocking and blood pumping between the two, and dive into the space between the rhythm.

For now, I'll be covering beat tapes (with a focus on tape music) on the sp-404 site, electronic/house/jungle/techno etc etc recordss/eps on the tr-909 site, and an array of mostly beatless ambient and sound-focused projects on the last site - piano, strings and other things.

Thank you so much for clicking through.