I haven't been playing much lately, as I've been focused in other directions, but occasionally the urge to touch vinyl overtakes me and cannot be suppressed. 

I wanted to go through old records for a while, so what better way to do that than to play them super late at night to a full house of two cats and whatever insects happen to be listening through the walls.

The mixing at the beginning isn't the greatest but I'll blame that on rust; push through, there are some good tracks in here.

No, I won't give you a track list. This is a hobby, not a job. If you're that curious...post it and I >may< descend from the mountain to bless you with the info...provided you haven't used Shazam or some other instant gratification app to pull it from the aether without speaking to anyone else, you lazy, introverted, technologically-savvy bastards.

2022 - 8-24 Harmon Giddles - Can't You See I'm Trying To Sleep

This rolling ball of chaos was the result of NYE 2022-2023 at Domelandia. Is there such thing as a perfect evening? This came close. I wish there had been more time to spend with everyone, but I i did manage to have many extensive and enjoyable conversations while a bevvy of talented and enthusiastic individuals took over the digital 1's / 2's. It was a glorious mess that continued far past hours that normal people accept / tolerate. I wish everyone could experience such a thing...

If you played that night, feel free to tag yourself. I spent too much of my time socializing to bother with all of the records I'd carefully picked out prior to the evening, and I'd rather hear my friends play anyhow. So much good music!

Anyhow, here's hoping that 2023 treats everyone well. May you all pass this way again in whatever condition the fates find you.

Mixes

Domelandia NYE 2022-2023 - Let Chaos Reign (aka Mob Rule As A Serious Hobby)

2023-2024 NYE @ Domelandia - Don't Blame The Dome, You Did This To Yourselves

I was feeling the deep stuff today, mostly as a result of finally having sorted through all of my records and seeing all of my Pepe Bradock in one glorious pile, just waiting to be played, felt. Obedient. DOCILE. At my command. Is it love or just a brief infatuation? Only time will tell. How many vinyls of someone does one have to own before it qualifies as stalking? I mean, WHAT'S THE...UH...WHAT'S THE LINE, HERE?!?

This mix isn't all Pepe Bradock...but he weilds significant weight in this particular lineup, and you'd probably guess which fairly easly. That stated, there are a few excellent ringers in here; weapons, ancient and new, that I brazenly lugged back from Amsterdam when last I was there, and particular items that I hadn't played yet because I thought they'd be to deep to play out, but I may have been wrong. I had a blast playing everything, and the mixing is well practiced (but still meh) because I accidentally recorded for an hour and for got to actually hit "Record"...I am dumb as a leech some days for sure. Once I finally got the recording started the set had mutated wildly in my head. I will say I find this 2nd version had a few places to go and people to see, but the locales to be visited were mostly nearby and generally got along...nobody fought, everybody got on famously, it was a good trip, and there was even a little beef jerkey left over for later. Musically, of course. 

I wanted to let these records get some air, as many of their greatest tricks are very late in the track and do a lot of work for you if you give them free reign...some of them might even go quietly berzerk for no reason at all, but you'll be used to it by then; you'll have nothing to fear.

Nothing to fear.

2024-3-5 - Harmon Giddles - Fracking Until The Earth Shakes (A Deep House Journey And Then Some)

I don't norrmally do this, buuuuuut...

I pulled some old breaks tracks that had been floating in my collection for a while and managed to get them down in a fairly together recording. In many cases I let some of these longer tracks do their well-crafted thing so I didn't have to work as much. There are some odds-and-ends from Bassbin Twins, Uberzone, Rainbow Bridge (super-yum!), and the Ascendance label, amongst others.

The painting is oil on canvase, 36 x 36.
-"Square, Sine, and Sawtooth Are For Sinners", previously "I Have No Hamsters (Working Title)"-

MIxes

2024-9-7 - Harmon Giddles - Broken Things Can Still Bring Solace

All vinyl. Just pulling randoms to review and ended up with a few good mixes...and also a few mixes that are so bad they may actually give you cancer. You've been warned.

2025-5-25 Harmon Giddles - You Want Foreplay? Get It Yourself.

Working title for this was "A Most Exuberant Mess, Send Dump-Trucks" but this was vetoed by one of my cats (Anubis, the smart one) as too abstract. We have since reconciled our differences with an agreed-upon title. We've handed it over to Clyde, the other cat, for mastering; while dim and excitable, he's actually quite decent on a DAW, even sans thumbs.  

What REALLY happened was I found a secret folder of older breaks that I'd bought and forgotten about / misplaced, so a mixing I went...not sober. About three + hours later and a few weird records down the well, the urge to sleep overcame me, so I flew to my perch out of the sunlight and hung upside-down with my talons until it was time to go to work again.

Slightly more seriously, this thing is all over the place, but mostly a lot of older-style breaks, with the thump trying for techie and dark. I took a little dip into the vinyl-pool someplace around the middle, and I was trying to play more techno-type tracks at a slightly lower speed to both see how they sounded and step a little out of the comfort-zone as far as BPMs are concerned.

There are no edits on this except for:
-Normalization to 0 dB and some slight compression to even it out.
-Removing the last, genuinely HIDEOUS mix that finally broke my spirit after just over 3 hours of playing. I faded it out before you could become its next victim. You're welcome.

There are what appear to be a few skips. They are. The Traktor got a little buggy after playing for a while, but why let that stop us?

2018-2-3 Harmon Giddles - So I Found This Thing A Constant Of Extremes, But Colorful

There are no edits in this; using Traktor Scratch Pro with vinyl controllers and sometimes the interface freaks out. I let this one fly with warts and all because mistakes give the mix character, right?

The artwork is part of my attempt to achieve an adult hobby other than drinking, and is an original doodle called Slatternly.

I pretty much got right in there; why fuck about? I came for the techno, though I did work a little house right in the middle. Everyone was asleep and I was...very drunk.

2018-6-5 Elbow Touch Tongue

I was supposed to play the Nymble Digitz party at Ethics Nightclub in Austin, TX. on July 13, 2018 with Jeff Scroggin and Daniel Allen, but unfortunately someone had changed the locks on the place, so...no gig. I was glad. I was woefully unprepared, but I'd bought some new tracks for the aborted attempt at entertainment and decided they needed to be mixed.

Looking back on the mix...WAY too heavy for an opening slot. I just can't seem to help myself...

2018-7-13 The Karma Boomerang and the Mix that Never Happened

Think of this as walking around a giant pile of timber that you have no idea what to do with, so you just start assembling stuff until you think it resembles something that you might find useful...a bed-frame, a catapult, or the largest, most primitive and splinter-prone speculum you've ever seen. 

Maybe it turns out useful...you can sleep on it or use it to throw your compost into your neighbor's yard while they're holding their child's first birthday. 

Maybe it simply gives you splinters where you don't want them.

In any case, you feel good that you assembled something, and set it out for the world to see, ponder over and critique. They end up thinking it's a joke or someone offers you $15k to make one for their McMansion. Either way...it's been noticed.

I'm fine with that. Art is more productive than prayer.

Whittling Away While It All Burns Down

Soooooo...9Nov2018, post Blacktone 2nd Anniversary party with Praslesh (Raresh b2b Praslea), OZ (US), and Robert Roman b2b Salerno, a few people ended up back at the usual.

I hit the "Record" button in anticipation of capturing a few others' mixes to listen to, but caught myself instead. Nobody was playing and we were waiting for the professionals to show up, so I snuck on.

Nobody stopped me. I was...not sober. Three hours later...

Anyhow, the glorious piece of exuberance you hear before you is the result. There are a few serious skips (hazards of regular and control-vinyl), but warts and all, this is what really happens at a party where nobody is paying attention but still having a good time. It was...optimal.

The first couple of hours is mostly vinyl. There may be a few other things scattered in there. I forget. I think we ended up pulling a few randoms out of the collection that worked pretty well. 

There is a certain freedom in a lack of expectation...

2018-11-9 Harmon Giddles @ Domelandia - The Doors Are Now Sealed. Nobody Is Going Anywhere.

I attempted to smuggle this past Daniel, but his guards seized it for their own purposes. A copy is being held hostage at this location:
https://soundcloud.com/denied-music/harmon-giddles-the-perils-of-staying-out-of-trouble-and-also-i-should-have-been-born-with-claws?in=denied-music/sets/access-denied-denied-music

When he's not busy wresting pieces of recorded time from unsuspecting local DJs, he can be found plying his foul trade at 7pm CST on Tuesdays at www.lowercasesounds.com. 

Anyhow, The Mix:
This critter had a "live" feel to it in places, but didn't get too off-kilter. I always have a little trouble playing a little too hard too early (PDST...Post-Dance Stress Trauma from cutting my electronic chompers on UK break-beat), and this mix is no exception...but I think I kept it moderately under control. I tried to keep the mixing fairly calm as well...no crazy run-offs into French filter-house just for the sake of breaking on 9 / 16 ever so often and for no other reason than to be...well...French. Their tracks are good enough at times to tolerate it, but it is still infuriating. Sorry, side-tracked again...and speaking of tracked...I suppose you'd like a track-list...

...the track list is...very well organized, it was, planned and noted in columns, all neat-like...ahem...yes...well...I seem to have left it in my other...ah...the cleaners, you understand...indeed...likely dissolved the list in the wash is the probable and unfortunate thing, you see...completely out of my hands. Raw fate in action, honestly, and not something that could have been avoided, I feel, in retrospect. The Fates are not kind to those who try to avoid their machinations. Not to be trifled with, obviously. Track lists are for pussies anyhow, amiright? Eh, RIGHT?!? I do know that the first track on the albums is Daniel Allen's new Remix of Let's Funk by Hector Moran and Dawda on Denied Music. 

The rest is lost in a fog of serious insomnia, too-strong imported Indian incense (likely made from the holy, dessicated dung of one of many of it's fine Ascetics and/or Ancestors / cattle), Demon Whiskey, and the necessity of not looking an absolute fool the next time I play out. I decided it was the weekend, and I didn't really have anywhere to be Sunday, so I could afford to ride this personal synaptic lightning-bolt wherever it may land. This weird energy went into several hours of scouring websites for presentable tracks new enough to inspire enthusiasm, making a few notes on my purchases, transferring all of this to Recordbox and my USB, then just trying to match the tracks up on the newly-purchased XDJ1000 MK2s (thanks, Isa).

I had fun. Hope you do, too.

Harmon Giddles

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