Sunday Morning Bike Ride and Birds
I started using Reamp for a very simple reason: I wanted listening to music on my laptop to feel better. Not better in a technical or audiophile way, just better to exist alongside me.
Reamp gives my music an aesthetic and functional base. EQ that feels integrated rather than bolted on, a visualiser that reacts without needing crazy tweaks, and a sense that the sound isn’t just leaking out of speakers while I do something else. It’s still just playback, but it feels more personal.
I like that it doesn’t ask much. I’m not editing, producing, or tweaking endlessly. I’m just listening, with a little bit of structure around it. That small adjustment ended up changing how closely I paid attention to what I'm listening to.
From there I ended up using Project MilkDrop via Syphon as a visualiser. It’s really pretty simple (apart from the weird timing functions).
It reacts, it loops, it occasionally surprises you with very random effects. Mostly it just gives sound somewhere to go visually. I’ve been running it during lessoss to help keep myself awake (think subway surfers under reels). Not as a distraction, more to keep myself aware of both my lesson and music without sacrificing my attention to either.
It feels like a small adaptation rather than a transformation. Sometimes that’s all that’s needed (especially when moving from different media players).
A lot of this has been soundtracked by the same records on repeat.
Very Fast Very Dangerous by Reuben has been a constant. My favourite track on it is Blamethrower. I relate a lot to how it talks about presenting a false version of yourself, putting forward something that makes functioning easier than the truth. It feels angry and aware. Like it knows the false truth is deliberate, even if it resents having to keep it up.
That idea shows up again in As Seen on TV from Deviant. It feels like it’s pointing at generations (rather than the individual) wanting a statement they can call their own (be it tattoos or bolt on horns). Not necessarily because it’s more honest, but because it marks distance from what came before. A new signal, clearly broadcast, just so it can be recognised as different.
This made me question why I feel so much nostalgia and have so much interest in a past i havent experienced.
I’ve also been rewatching Goldorak.
I own the DVDs, but I actually rediscovered it through peer-to-peer networks while browsing for music. That felt strangely appropriate, an old signal resurfacing in the middle of digital noise.
I watched Goldorak growing up with my dad, who had watched it when he was my age. Seeing it again now feels like a combination of us both. My memory of it, his memory of it, and the show itself still running underneath. The theme alone carries that weight. Bold, dramatic, completely sincere (with absolutely epic horns).
ThunderCats does something similar, but Goldorak hits closer to home. It feels comforting to go back and watch the episodes i've seen so many times, despite my french not being good enough to keep up all the time.
Goldorak is also known as UFO Robot Grendizer in Japan which reminded me of another great band out of the UK: UFO! They've got some of the greatest guitar solos i've ever heard (Michael Schenker is an absolute legend) Mother Mary has one of the most awesome riffs of all time (superheavy for the 70s)
Recently I’d been reading about blackbirds singing earlier in cities, shifting their schedules so they don’t have to compete with industry, traffic and the general chatter of humans.
Rather than competing by volume they compete by their timing, singing earlier and earlier depending on the general noise level at the time and their area (the early bird catches the empty air waves).
Cycling back from the club early Sunday morning, the city felt briefly hollowed out. Frost in the air, empty streets, and birdsong cutting through in short bursts as I passed parks and quiet roads. One of those in-between moments where our systems seem to loosen and natures signals get a chance to cut through.
It didn’t feel disconnected from everything else, despite preceeding our lives. The songs I listened to perform the self and generational statements. Even nature mimics the desperation to perform, birds adjusting their timing rather than their volume, in order to cut through the noise.
None of it is about becoming something else entirely. It’s about small changes made to stay audible, visible, awake. Shifting when and how you present yourself, not to disappear into the noise, but to find a space where your signal plays clear.
I guess that’s what this blog is doing too. Feeling around for its own early morning slot. A place to exist quietly, before everything else starts up again.
