mnml ssgs mx fnl - donato dozzy

This may sound strange to readers in the northern hemisphere, but every year in June I go to ground. It’s the log cabin feeling, a desire not so much to hibernate as to really hunker in my bunker, settle in my own private log cabin.

Over the past three years or so, this yearly inclination has been cast in relation to music in general, and house and techno in particular. I keep wanting to get back beyond the contemporary, behind what I’d taken my archive to be: somehow the inclination to hunker down typically goes hand in glove for me with a desire to get to the roots of the music. And this has been intensified by the fact that, as we just announced, Chris and I have decided to end our mix series for good.

What are the roots of house and techno? We know the stock answers; I know they’re not good enough. We have to go further, think harder, look a bit deeper.

Two and some years ago, I speculated about this: house/techno might emerge and take place in relation to a space; it might take place in relation to a tradition, whether rooted in hedonism, worship, or ritual; or it might take place in relation to a social context… these days it seems we’re desparately trying to locate and stake out spaces and traditions, but of course a key part of the reason for this, what motivates it, deep down, is that the social context is dominant. And the dominant social context is the internet. And the internet is dominating and overdetermining the spaces and the traditions, soaking them up, para-siting them, to the point where electronic music is just something, maybe, you download and comment on. Then I read this piece, and found out that, well, it's happening to another 'industry'...

I think I can speak for many of us when I say that this is something a bit sad, something that gives you the sense that ‘there is no one to talk to’, nowhere to go. But it’s moments like these when we do hunker down and take stock, reflect, and try to re-locate spaces and traditions for the music we love so much. These are also the moments where inspiration, where new movements, really come from.

Dozzy has offered us this mix as a way to do that. It’s a way to get back something or get back to something… was it something we ‘had’? Was it something there ‘was’, or was it just something we remember? All Dozzy said was:

‘voodoo forever’

Our deepest thanks to Donato for putting this together for us, as well as the other mixes he has contributed to mnml ssgs over the years.