Are we partying like it's 1999? I mean what it was actually like in 99, not how Prince imagined it might be back in 1982.

Millennium eve was supposed to be the best thing ever. I was beside myself with excitement for months beforehand, possibly years. But when push came to shove, my group of friends didn't even bother going to a rave and spent an underwhelming evening drinking warm champagne on Brighton Beach before attending a number of deeply boring house parties.

The subsequent inquest carried out in the pages of Mixmag, DJ Mag, and the rest suggested that our experience wasn't unusual. Promoters lost unfathomable amounts of money that night and the overall impression was that an enormous bubble had prematurely burst with the least fanfare possible.

The current landscape lacks a similar finishing line, but the bug-eyed faux enthusiasm and lip-smacking commercialism which seems to define everything in the dance scene right now definitely has a similar feel to the end of the 90s. But what, if anything, is going to let the air out this time? 1999 was also the time that our guest this week, Steve Bug, and some of the Superstition Records gang from Hamburg started Poker Flat Recordings, one of the labels that would define the minimal sound that emerged from the wreckage of Millennium Eve.

Steve has been pretty outspoken in his interviews of the last few years on above topics, so of course I wanted to get him on the podcast to talk about it. This conversation dovetails nicely with last week's episode with Radio Slave, in which I noted that 'if something is shit, then you should say it's shit, and this [the current dance scene] is shit'.

There is a reasonable degree of constructive comment in this episode though, as well as the doom. I think there is anyway!

If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features the show without ads, regular bonus podcasts, and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else.

You can also make a one-off donation to the podcast using a card, with Paypal, or your Ethereum wallet! Head over to scubaofficial.io/support.

Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server... but anyone can join the conversation in the public channels.

Listen to the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

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At what point does criticism of changes in culture become overly reactive? This is a question I've wrestled with continuously over the past couple of years, but I can't get past the conclusion that if something isn't good then pointing that fact out is never really a bad thing... right?

My conversation with Radio Slave this week doesn't pull any punches on what is wrong with dance music currently. It's no longer cool. Social media is rewarding the wrong stuff. The history of the thing is being trampled on and turned into something that bears no resemblance to the original vision.

But over the top of all that is a sense that good things are still happening, and that maybe it wouldn't take much for the forces of commercialism too be swept away and something great to emerge. Kind of like what happened after the turn of the millennium, a period which felt quite a bit like it does now.

We also discuss the new Radio Slave album, the changing nature of running a label in this space (Rekids, in this instance), and try to anticipate how it's all going to develop... positive or negative!

Matt Edwards is a don of the scene and you're going to enjoy this conversation!

If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features the show without ads, regular bonus podcasts, and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else.

You can also make a one-off donation to the podcast using a card, with Paypal, or your Ethereum wallet! Head over to scubaofficial.io/support.

Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server... but anyone can join the conversation in the public channels.

Listen to the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's the week after the week before.... no guest this week, but a deep dive into my experiences with live electronic music in the audience as well as being on stage myself.

And on stage I was, last week in London, Bristol, and Manchester. Huge thanks to all of you who attended the shows, had so much great feedback it's been a bit overwhelming actually. If you missed it then there will be more later in the year!

If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features the show without ads, regular bonus podcasts, and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else.

You can also make a one-off donation to the podcast using a card, with Paypal, or your Ethereum wallet! Head over to scubaofficial.io/support.

Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server... but anyone can join the conversation in the public channels.

Listen to the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

D:U:LIVE is coming this week!! My first live shows since 2013.... London / Bristol / Manchester - all tickets: scubaoficial.io/live

How many proper recording studios are there left in big cities in 2024? And how many of those are used regularly for making proper dance music?

Probably not that many but one of them is run by this week's guest, a recoding engineer with a ton of house and techno credits and one half of the Lost Souls Of Saturn alongside previous NDP guest Seth Troxler.

Phil Moffa is a born-and-raised New Yorker, with the accent to prove it. He's also a great person too discuss many of our favourite topics with, including the historic club scene of NYC, the ethics of music technology, and the current state of house and techno.

We also get deep into Phil's journey through music as a DJ, engineer, and lecturer.

This is a good one!

If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features the show without ads, regular bonus podcasts, and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else.

You can also make a one-off donation to the podcast using a card, with Paypal, or your Ethereum wallet! Head over to scubaofficial.io/support.

Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server... but anyone can join the conversation in the public channels.

Listen to the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

D:U:LIVE is coming in June! My first live shows since 2013.... London / Bristol / Manchester - all tickets: scubaoficial.io/live

We've been covering techno quite a lot on the show recently, but mostly from a legacy perspective. This week we are joined with one of the last few years' breakdown names on the production side.

Based in Krakow, Poland, Karol Mozgawa aka Deas emerged largely via the Audio River festival, a truly world class event which is now its seventeenth year. Releases on CLR, Dynamic Reflection, Planet Rhythm, Materia and others have cemented his name in the DJ sets of the biggest and best techno jocks on the circuit.

Karol is a proper studio guy, with a room full of kit in his house outside Krakow, so we get into the weeds a bit with audio interfaces and outboard gear in this conversation.

But we also delve into more familiar territory too, addressing the state of the current scene, the good points and bad, as well as some scene-specific stuff in Poland too.

This is a good one, you're gonna enjoy it!

If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features the show without ads, regular bonus podcasts, and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else.

You can also make a one-off donation to the podcast using a card, with Paypal, or your Ethereum wallet! Head over to scubaofficial.io/support.

Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server... but anyone can join the conversation in the public channels.

Listen to the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

D:U:LIVE is coming in June! My first live shows since 2013.... London / Bristol / Manchester - all tickets: scubaoficial.io/live

Tom Vek is a solo artist from the UK who has been signed to majors, indies, and been self released. He was in the news recently in the debate surrounding James Blake's Vault platform, penning an opinion piece on the subject in the Guardian.

So obviously we discuss all that stuff in this conversation, as well as his own contribution to the music distribution development conversation - the Supercollector blockchain platform.

We also get into his journey as a musician, from his extremely great first album 'We Have Sound' through a difficult period on Island/Universal, via his various excursions in tech and up to the present day.

Tom is a great guy whose music I've been a fan of for many years and you're gonna enjoy this conversation!

If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features the show without ads, regular bonus podcasts, and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else.

You can also make a one-off donation to the podcast using a card, with Paypal, or your Ethereum wallet! Head over to scubaofficial.io/support.

Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server... but anyone can join the conversation in the public channels.

Listen to the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

D:U:LIVE is coming in June! My first live shows since 2013.... London / Bristol / Manchester - all tickets: scubaoficial.io/live

Is it possible for the music to do the talking in 2024?

Maybe, but probably not the extent that Paranoid London managed it for the first few "vinyl-only, no interviews" years of their career. Quinn joins us on this episode for a chat that includes a lot more laughter than usual for an episode of this podcast. But that's a good thing!

And we talk about some interesting stuff too, like their new album, the effect of playing on big stages, how great London is right now, recording techniques... and a lot more.

This is a good one, you're gonna enjoy it.

If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features the show without ads, regular bonus podcasts, and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else.

You can also make a one-off donation to the podcast using a card, with Paypal, or your Ethereum wallet! Head over to scubaofficial.io/support.

Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server... but anyone can join the conversation in the public channels.

Listen to the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

D:U:LIVE is coming in June! My first live shows since 2013.... London / Bristol / Manchester - all tickets: scubaoficial.io/live

Ceri is a DJ, producer, Find Your Own Records label owner, and Find Your Own Sound music production masterclass host.

A former resident of the legendary after hours party Jaded in London, she has really taken off on the circuit since the pandemic with recent debuts at Panorama Bar and Blitz Munich.

She's also an Ibiza resident and a long-time participant in the scene there, with a full season as a worker under her belt... so we talk a lot about Ibiza in this episode.

We also discuss technique vs creativity, selling vinyl in 2024, and the Kendrick / Drake beef... kind of!

Check out her recent mix appearance on the Blitz Club podcast https://soundcloud.com/blitzclub/blitzcast-019-ceri

If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features the show without ads, regular bonus podcasts, and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else.

You can also make a one-off donation to the podcast using a card, with Paypal, or your Ethereum wallet! Head over to scubaofficial.io/support.

Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server... but anyone can join the conversation in the public channels.

Listen to the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

D:U:LIVE is coming in June! My first live set since 2013.... London / Bristol / Manchester - all tickets: scubaoficial.io/live

Radio is not something we've covered massively on the podcast to date but this week's guest is often (and somewhat lazily) referred to as the Irish John Peel, so this is a step towards rectifying that.

Cian Ó Cíobháin has been curating his 5-nights-a-week show An Taobh Tuathail on the Irish state broadcaster RTE RnaG for 25 years. That longevity is an achievement in itself, but doing a great music show for that long is a very rare thing indeed.

Originally from Gaeltacht in Co Kerry, he's been based in Galway since 1993, and has been a big part of the music scene ever since as a DJ and club promoter, bringing acts like Erol Alkan, Andrew Weatherall, and Justice to the city.

Cian is a real legend of underground music in Ireland and it's great to have him on the show!

If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features the show without ads, regular bonus podcasts, and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else.

You can also make a one-off donation to the podcast using a card, with Paypal, or your Ethereum wallet! Head over to scubaofficial.io/support.

Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server... but anyone can join the conversation in the public channels.

Listen to the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

D:U:LIVE is coming in June! My first live set since 2013.... London / Bristol / Manchester - all tickets: scubaoficial.io/live

How could we possibly follow last week's episode with the techno legend Luke Slater? Well, with another legend of techno of course!

Laurent Garnier is, in fact, and all-time great of dance music PERIOD. He was playing the Hacienda before acid house really got going. He can plausibly claim a large amount of the credit for the sound gaining popularity in France. And he continues to be one of the best DJs on the planet.

So it's a slightly daunting prospect to welcome him to a humble podcast such as ours, but welcome him we absolutely do.

Discussion topics include: what are the challenge facing the current scene, and the grounds for optimism. We talk about Paris as a dance music city, and the role of venues such as the Rex Club and Concrete. And we talk about his relationship with music, as a DJ and also as a producer.

This is a great conversation with a man who many claim to be the GOAT. You're gonna enjoy it...

If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! There are two tiers - "Solidarity" for $4 a month, which features the show without ads, regular bonus podcasts, and extra content. And "Musicality" which for a mere $10 a month gets you all the music we release on Hotflush and affiliate labels AND other music too, some of which never comes out anywhere else.

You can also make a one-off donation to the podcast using a card, with Paypal, or your Ethereum wallet! Head over to scubaofficial.io/support.

Plus there's also a private area for Patreon supporters in the Hotflush Discord Server... but anyone can join the conversation in the public channels.

Listen to the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlist

Follow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music beatport

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.