An (Almost) Really Great Interview
a.k.a. Check some highlights from the archives instead.
After taking a little break from the newsletter last week, I was particularly excited to return to First Floor and kick off October on a high note. Why? Because I’d lined up an interview with a couple of top-tier artists whose work I’ve admired for more than a decade. Even better, they just so happened to be here in Barcelona over the weekend, which provided me with the rare chance to speak to with them in person.
At first, everything went as planned. I prepared some questions, met them at their hotel (which, coincidentally, was literally walking distance from my house) and we had a lovely, in-depth conversation.
There was just one problem: it didn’t get recorded.
Feel free to file the incident under “operator error” (i.e. blame me), but somehow, my phone managed to only record the first 25 minutes of the interview. Even worse, those 25 minutes were completely unintelligible, to a point where transcribing even a fraction of the conversation was impossible.
These kinds of technical gaffes do happen of course (thankfully not too often), but they’re always terribly embarrassing. Luckily, the artists in question were kind and extremely understanding, and though re-doing the interview again that day wasn’t possible, it looks like a second attempt will be made very soon.
In the meantime, however, I still have a newsletter to publish. As you likely know, on Tuesdays I usually send out some sort of long-form content, and while I cycled through a number of potential ideas during the past few days, I ultimately realized that I didn’t want to offer up something that was undercooked or haphazardly slapped together. (In fairness, it wouldn’t have been the first time.)
Instead, I’ve decided to temporarily unlock a few recent pieces from the First Floor archives. Dedicated newsletter readers might have seen these the first time around, but I’m willing to bet that at least one or two of them will still be new to many of you:
An interview with The Soft Pink Truth (a.k.a. Drew Daniel of Matmos), whose new album Is It Going to Get Any Deeper Than This? is slated to drop on Thrill Jockey later this month. He spoke eloquently about the evolution of his creative process, the queer history of dance music and how coming up to the DJ booth with a request isn’t necessarily as bad as everyone thinks it is.
An interview with Nick León, the fast-rising Miami producer whose track “Xtasis” was one of dance music’s most ubiquitous songs of the summer. He talked about growing up in South Florida and how that shaped his musical vision, and also advocated for Miami’s contemporary music scene, which has begun to move beyond EDM, South Beach and terrible tech house.
In the wake of Resident Advisor’s announcement that the company had launched its own in-house creative agency, I penned an article about the growing role of brand partnerships within music journalism. The piece looks at why the economics of online media have increasingly made brand partnerships necessary—at least for outlets who want to keep the lights on—and also raises a cautionary flag about what this potentially means for these publications’ editorial content.
Post-COVID raving has prompted a lot of grumbling from older dance music aficionados, particularly as new generations of club kids show up, champion “tacky” music from the past and (often quite awkwardly) find their footing within the scene. I myself have admittedly done some of that grumbling, but I also penned this essay about how generation gaps have always excited in musical subcultures, and how the passing of the cultural baton from one group to the next is rarely a smooth process. (As an added bonus, the article also includes a lengthy aside into my youthful days as a diehard emo fan.)
The paywall on all of these articles will remain down through the weekend, and remember: the First Floor archives are full of stuff like this, so if you’d like unlimited access to everything I’ve published during the past three-plus years (including interviews with Jeff Mills, Paul Woolford, Huerco S., Jacques Greene, The Bug, Galcher Lustwerk, Anthony Naples, Nguzunguzu, and many, many others), please consider signing up for a paid subscription.
As an added incentive, I’ve also decided to temporarily offer paid subscriptions at a 20% discount. If you sign up before Monday (using the button below), you can get a paid subscription for only €40/year or €4/month.
People say “I’ve been meaning to sign up for paid subscription” all the time, and while I never want to push it too hard, I’ll just say this: if you’re going to sign up, why not do it at a discount?
Otherwise, if you like First Floor, and would like to support what I’m doing, then please consider grabbing a paid subscription. (If you’re a music industry professional and you—or, even better, the company you work for—can write off a subscription as a business expense, that goes double.) Obviously that isn’t economically possible for everyone, and that’s of course fine, but please remember: First Floor has no ads, no brand partnerships and no parent company providing an editorial budget. A ton of work goes into every edition of the newsletter, and that can only continue if a certain percentage of the readership signs up for paid subscriptions.
Anyways, that’s all for my sales pitch. My apologies for the interview mishap, but please enjoy perusing these pieces from the First Floor archives. I’ll be back on Thursday with my usual complement of electronic music news and new track recommendations. (An absurd amount of music came out during the past two weeks, so get ready.)
Shawn Reynaldo is a freelance writer, editor, presenter and project manager. Find him on LinkedIn and Twitter, or you can just drop him an email to get in touch about projects, collaborations or potential work opportunities.