I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee

Over the last 10 years, I’ve been undergoing a - for me at least - massive transformation and I’ve been thinking a lot about what identity means – the identity that I present to the public, the identity that I present to my friends and family and the identity that I present to myself. With that comes a need to face yourself if you are going to find freedom. 

Our brains like to compartmentalise things and I think this is why we often get defined by society by our work or what we do. I mean, who hasn’t felt their blood run cold at the question “So, what do you do?”… “well, I’m an accountant and I’m also a grindcore enthusiast”. Whaaaaat?? The reaction of horror! And we start to believe how we get defined, it gets normalised.

And it’s the same for music genres – it’s easier to compartmentalise - they’re hip hop, they’re prog, they’re folk, but it’s so reductive.

So the whole definition of oneself becomes an inhibiting self fulfilling prophecy

I know for me it took courage to be comfortable with self-evolution, to transform myself according to what my body and mind is telling me and to ignore the voices of society to whom I had presented versions of myself. And only when we all have that fluidity, that freedom in ourselves, can we get to a world where the destructive forces subside and we make progress. 

The music of Dalila Kayros is like an evolutionary odyssey…from the beginning to the end of a song, of an album and, when I think about it, an entire catalogue. 

For me, Khthonie - the latest album - achieves a remarkable portrayal of perhaps what it’s like to be in a world that is transforming and equally what it’s like for oneself to be transforming  – moments of turbulence and tenderness, it feels like I’m on a precipice staring down into a black hole, there’s the mysticism, the beauty, the fantasy, the malevolence, the fear and the euphoria. I want to pick one track - Corpus Sonorum – which closes the album and, for me, sonically depicts the knife edge on which we live, how quickly and easily we can descend into hell. Or are already on our descent into hell. From a spiritual perspective, it feels like the soundtrack of Kali Yuga and a manifestation moral decline and self-destruction. Maybe you’ll feel differently, but it really is a remarkable piece of work - as is the whole album.

This entire conversation with Dalila and her long term collaborator, Danilo Casti, is an education on improvisation, experimentation and dealing with being outsiders. 

https://www.iwannajumplikedeedee.com


I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee is the music podcast that does music interviews differently.

Giles Sibbald talks to musicians, DJ’s and producers about how they use an experimental mindset in every part of their lives.

- brought to you from the mothership of the experimental mindset™
- cover art by Giles Sibbald 
- doodle logo and art by Tide Adesanya, Coppie and Paste

So here’s a couple of questions for y'all…how much do you think improvisation, self-consciousness and self-belief are connected? How do you get into that flow state where inhibitions are shed? And can an improv state of mind be a skill that can be learned?

I’m asking this with a bit of self interest as I have two practices that I’ve approached from completely different directions – cello and graphic design. And I am, as usual, probably overthinking things, but I do wonder how these work alongside my natural instincts.

Karl Bielik makes art and music, both of which, to me at least, feel rooted in a mind where lawlessness, turbulence and spontaneity rule. I really enjoy the feeling of dislocation and uncertainty and surprise from listening to his music and it feels like improvisation and experimentation plays a strong part in his work.

Earlier this year, his music project, Lark, released its first album for 7 years. It’s called Be Still and it’s another beautifully unpredictable, unnerving collection of ideas and inventiveness that, like the rest of the catalogue, displaces me, yet draws me back in.

This is a really fun and enlightening chat and I hope you learn as much from Karl as I did.

https://www.iwannajumplikedeedee.com


I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee is the music podcast that does music interviews differently.

Giles Sibbald talks to musicians, DJ’s and producers about how they use an experimental mindset in every part of their lives.

- brought to you from the mothership of the experimental mindset™
- cover art by Giles Sibbald 
- doodle logo and art by Tide Adesanya, Coppie and Paste

It’s fascinating to look back at the catalogue of band like Crocodiles , not that there are too many bands like Crocodiles. 

There’s the consistency – the tunes, the hooks, the harmonies, the feeling of escapism

There’s the unexpected – the sonic departures, the reinvention, how they make a new Crocodiles record always sound…just kinda Crocodiles… how they throw you an entire record of covers that blows you to the moon and then deliver something that confounds you but doesn’t in a kind of “how the fuck do they do it?” kinda way..…they hit you with Upside Down In Heaven, which, for me where I am in my life now, is my favourite.

Anyway, Brandon Welchez is now also getting stuck into a new project –  Psychic Pigs  – and it’s this adaptability to doing new things, working with different people and in ways that are possibly a little bit alien, getting out of your comfort zone, this open mindedness to take on new challenges that really interests me and I hope you'll really get stuck into what Brandon has to say.

https://www.iwannajumplikedeedee.com


I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee is the music podcast that does music interviews differently.

Giles Sibbald talks to musicians, DJ’s and producers about how they use an experimental mindset in every part of their lives.

- brought to you from the mothership of the experimental mindset™
- cover art by Giles Sibbald 
- doodle logo and art by Tide Adesanya, Coppie and Paste

The opening paragraph of Justin Pearson’s first book “From The Graveyard of the Arousal Industry” tells a story of how, when his mother had just given birth to him, that another new mother asked if she wanted to swap babies – her Frank for Justin. 

I’m not sure that JP himself is sure of the truth of that story, but hey, we live in a world where fewer and fewer people, certainly in government, media and other esteemed corporations, give fewer fucks about whether they tell the truth, so I kinda feel that it’s my turn to say that doesn’t matter if this story is true or not. Whatever…it almost feels like it could have been a pre-cursor or metaphor for his life where weird shit – good, bad, absurd and indifferent and everything else you can define as weird - often finds a way to his front door.

There are just way too many stories for even my brain to compute, but I guarantee that reading each of his four books will make you look at your own life, and, afterwards, perhaps the temptation to buy that latest AI infested fridge freezer appliance might be met with a little less enthusiasm. Or perhaps you’ll just think Fuck That and crack on and buy it. Who knows, the world is very unpredictable. 

Talking of which, for me it’s the unpredictability of what’s gonna emerge from Justin’s open-minded creativity that gives him such a unique, positive energy. You can’t predict what he’ll be cooking up next and who with – maybe he can’t either perhaps because that creativity comes from instinct - but you know that it’s going to be exciting and you know that you will want to experience it, be part of it, whatever. 

Dig in to this with one of the world's most subversive creatives and wonderful humans.

https://www.iwannajumplikedeedee.com


I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee is the music podcast that does music interviews differently.

Giles Sibbald talks to musicians, DJ’s and producers about how they use an experimental mindset in every part of their lives.

- brought to you from the mothership of the experimental mindset™
- cover art by Giles Sibbald 
- doodle logo and art by Tide Adesanya, Coppie and Paste

https://www.iwannajumplikedeedee.com


I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee is the music podcast that does music interviews differently.

Giles Sibbald talks to musicians, DJ’s and producers about how they use an experimental mindset in every part of their lives.

- brought to you from the mothership of the experimental mindset™
- cover art by Giles Sibbald 
- doodle logo and art by Tide Adesanya, Coppie and Paste

I remember starting an Arts Lab a few years ago – just before Covid started actually - with a group of people here in London, based roughly around the counter-culture arts labs of the 1960’s – Jim Haynes was the main guy behind that movement. The idea was to bring together people who wanted to challenge the corporitisation of the arts, draw, socialise, talk about culture, put on cultural events or fuck around.

I wanted to be a part of it but I didn’t know why. I mean had terrible insecurities about my ability to draw, sketch or paint…even as a classically trained cellist I had terrible imposter syndrome about being a musician. Probably explains why I petulantly packed it in…

At the first Arts Lab meeting, It was Youth from Killing Joke who said something that has always stuck with me and that was “the first thing you need to do is call yourself an artist, forget everything else”. I struggled with this – particularly with the whole identity of who I was. I certainly didn’t feel like a creative. Even now doing my own graphic design, I feel like a bit of a fake – especially when I compare myself to others - but I am getting better.

Of course, Youth was right. Allowing yourself that self-affirmation is really the start of your self-belief journey.

Neeraj Kane is so synonymous with, and important to, the hardcore scene and I was excited to find out if he has faced these issues and how he has navigated them through his life.

His musical footprint can’t be overstated. Every band he’s been in - like The Hope Conspiracy, The Suicide File, Hesitation Wounds, Godcollider - has produced music that is so incredibly potent and addictive in its structure and melody and the absolute precision of its attack. 

https://www.iwannajumplikedeedee.com


I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee is the music podcast that does music interviews differently.

Giles Sibbald talks to musicians, DJ’s and producers about how they use an experimental mindset in every part of their lives.

- brought to you from the mothership of the experimental mindset™
- cover art by Giles Sibbald 
- doodle logo and art by Tide Adesanya, Coppie and Paste

Allen Saunders was an American writer and cartoonist who once said “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans”.

It was later popularised by John Lennon in his song, Beautiful Boy.

Saunders first said this in 1957 and I guess how I see this is that many of us still spend time planning ahead, creating goals and objectives, trying to weed out uncertainty, only for that uncertainty to keep coming back, those unexpected things to happen which can derail our plans – either for better or for worse. 

If I think of a few things that have really changed my life (outside of my kids), they came about by chance, I couldn’t have predicted them or planned for them. They just happened.

Like when I first discovered punk rock – when I was 11 or 12, my mum and dad’s neighbour, with no real prompting, handed me a compilation with Judy Is A Punk on it and that was it – the Ramones changed my life….and not always for the good my dad would have said

Or how my parents starting to get ill a few years ago was a completely unexpected catalyst for me to get back into playing the cello. Never thought it would happen.

Serendipity, synchronicity, karma, energy…. how these things work together to open our mind to new things, to new ways of doing things, to new people, new ideas, really interests me, and only makes me firmer in the belief that our mindset is the most important asset we have for grasping these encounters and shaping who we are.

So, with their excellent second album as Venamoris imminent – it’s called To Cross or To Burn - I was thrilled to welcome Paula and Dave Lombardo and they very kindly indulged me in my incoherent ramblings. This is a really beautiful chat about their own tales of taking chances, the unexpected, self-belief, instinct, and their life journeys both individually and together.

https://www.iwannajumplikedeedee.com


I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee is the music podcast that does music interviews differently.

Giles Sibbald talks to musicians, DJ’s and producers about how they use an experimental mindset in every part of their lives.

- brought to you from the mothership of the experimental mindset™
- cover art by Giles Sibbald 
- doodle logo and art by Tide Adesanya, Coppie and Paste

Whilst conducting my meticulous research for Gail….I was taken back to 1980 - my year of transition that was painful, perplexing, exciting, scary – a tussle between my heavily Top of The Pops Top 40 oriented collection, my classical cello playing and a new, emerging, Through The Looking Glass world of punk, post-punk and hardcore. 

Not easy bedfellows for 12 year old me, I can tell you.

One of the songs in that struggle was Xanadu by Olivia Newton-John and Electric Light Orchestra. I think that the new punk crowd that I was gravitating towards would have sent me much further than Coventry had they known that this record was in my collection, such were the no cross-genre rules. 

So what does this rather tedious story have with today’s episode? Well, it’s as tenuous as you’ll have come to expect. After growing up adoring her music, Gail  holds the accolade of and standing on stage with Olivia Newton-John and a huge orchestra playing Xanadu in front of thousands of genuine fans. This connection, however tenuous, feels in some way serendipitous, and actually rather glorious in a way that only music can be.

This is just one part of an incredible, pioneering – and I don’t use that word loosely - life journey that’s led to three solo albums and a whole raft of collaborations with people like Lenny Kravitz, Gwen Stefani, Tears For Fears, Gang of Four, Boy George, The The and, of course…. David Bowie. 

Gail Ann Dorsey - a wonderful songwriter, composer, bass player with a voice to die for and wonderful human.

https://www.iwannajumplikedeedee.com


I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee is the music podcast that does music interviews differently.

Giles Sibbald talks to musicians, DJ’s and producers about how they use an experimental mindset in every part of their lives.

- brought to you from the mothership of the experimental mindset™
- cover art by Giles Sibbald 
- doodle logo and art by Tide Adesanya, Coppie and Paste

Before I started this podcast, I was kinda rudderless. Didn’t know what I was doing with my life. When this idea came up, the feeling was “Who will want to listen to me talking about mindset, about my worldview, blah blah blah”… I was dragged into doing it…my self-confidence and self-belief were pretty low. I’ve talked to amazing artists, many of whom, with incredible bravery, bare the inner sanctuary of their own mind through their music and, in particular, their lyrics. 

So, here we are: 4 years into this podcast and I’ve learnt so much about myself.  it’s been incredibly cathartic for me to have these conversations, not least it’s helped me face my fears and it’s forced me to face myself. There are still those moments when the self-belief looks at me and goes “Really?’. 

I think that the world is incredibly complex, uncertain and volatile. Definitive answers are so much harder to come by, reality is challenged, answers to big questions cannot be condensed into one sentence soundbites, which is what our feudal tech overlords demand from us. I know that there may never be answers to some questions, where things are out of my control, where I need to challenge an outdated definition of perfection, yet accepting this in how I live my life can be challenging, especially as I get older and I become more risk averse in some aspects of my life, yet paradoxically willing to take more risk in other aspects. 


As I write this, Sophie Jamieson is about to release her second and utterly beautiful album called I STILL WANT TO SHARE, which, to me, captures this complexity and uncertainty of our world and pitches it against our innate human needs for simplicity and certainty. Our chat here about her album and her life raises some fascinating observations.

https://www.iwannajumplikedeedee.com


I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee is the music podcast that does music interviews differently.

Giles Sibbald talks to musicians, DJ’s and producers about how they use an experimental mindset in every part of their lives.

- brought to you from the mothership of the experimental mindset™
- cover art by Giles Sibbald 
- doodle logo and art by Tide Adesanya, Coppie and Paste

Over the last few years, I’ve been heavily influenced by some of the work that my partner has been doing around decolonisation, particularly in the field of yoga. 

It’s led me to think about how this applies to music and my own relationship to music. 

I’ve realised that my own classical cello training from way back when, the exams I did, the framework that I was expected to adhere to, were a western, colonised version of what the instrument represents. 

Whilst it gave me a lot of technical abilities that have stayed with me through years of inactivity with the instrument, the restrictions of this approach has actually followed me through life and it has had some detrimental effects and I noticed this when I picked it up again a few years ago. 

I’m still thinking within the confines of that framework. 

But, when I first heard the music of cellists like Abel Selaocoe and the music of Tashi Dorji, I heard an unrestricted redefinition of their instruments and what their music can represent and a mind that’s free from so much of the colonised, capitalistic world. 

It felt like their stream of consciousness was washing over me. 

They have been inspirational for me to try harder to overcome the obstacles that I have with reconnecting with the cello and make it into an instrument that works for me, not for the establishment. 

https://www.iwannajumplikedeedee.com


I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee is the music podcast that does music interviews differently.

Giles Sibbald talks to musicians, DJ’s and producers about how they use an experimental mindset in every part of their lives.

- brought to you from the mothership of the experimental mindset™
- cover art by Giles Sibbald 
- doodle logo and art by Tide Adesanya, Coppie and Paste