Sets

Super Mario Muppet Motown Mashup

A "house salad"; bass/organic/tech/melodic.  

Live at Lampress - April 23, 2022

Lampress Set

This is a mashup I've been remixing live a lot lately (see my Lampress set at around the 58:00 mark)

Father Ocean - Monolink + Ben Bohmer
Something Just Like This - Coldplay + Chainsmokers
Ahead By A Century - Tragically Hip

Something Just Like This - Coldplay - Monolink/Ben Bohmer - Tragically Hip - Remix

Because I hate Winnipeg.  

Actually I have never been to Winnipeg.  But I love this song by The Weakerthans, so I had to remix it.   I can't say I love the Coldplay tune on its own, but it just fit so perfectly here.

One Great City - Weakerthans - Remix

The one you know and love.  With a little something extra.

I mashed the original Fleetwood Mac together with elements of the Kerala Dust remix, added some new sounds, reworked the progression a bit.

The Chain - Fleetwood Mac - Remix

A bass house ballroom curation.  Possibly my gayest set ever.

Bass Ball

Another bass salad.  A bit of this and that!  

We start in mellow poetry land, kick into some funky downtempo, elevate to future-bassy trap, escalate to drum + bass, then settle back down into some psychedelic hip-hop.  

special mention of @dirtsqrl on this mix, who just dropped an EP this weekend.  get it.

the poet at the beginning of the set is anis mojgani.  check him out!

Shake the Dust

A meditative journey through some of the deep storytelling bass music I've been digging into lately, interspersed with some of my favourite Boards of Canada tracks.  Lots of Wildlife Bass Division in here: Saturna, Kilbourne, Silk Static, Josh Teed, Nahlith.  Also the Desert Dwellers, Orenda, Lazy Syrup Orchestra.  All the Burning Man vibes.

Best enjoyed at night, preferably while lounging with friends.

Chilltop Sunset

Cello, tabla, accordion, etc.  Following the route of the Romani from India to Spain.  Most modern Western music has elements that can be traced back to India at some point through the Romani diaspora.  :) If you haven't watched the amazing musical documentary Latcho Drom, I highly recommend it.

A forest stands for thousands of years,
beyond the dynasties of civilization.

The cities rise and fall; their voices barely echo.

Atrocities are conceived and born.

Imagination claws its ambitions into the bark of the trees, but they hold.

The soil is filled with the bones of strategists who designed pathways to the heavens,
but were pulled down to their tombs by time.
Their legacies are food for worms.
The mycelium thanks them for their service.

Long after the mushroom clouds scatter and the digital apocalypse has claimed its generations,
the forest will be standing,
nourished by the blood of these hopeful cities.

Voices

This is about 50% original music. 

The other 50% is some of my top picks from the organic house playlist that kept me going throughout the isolation periods of the pandemic.

There is a poem by Mary Oliver and a poem by yours truly in the mix.

Also, I played electric guitar over this set.

Most of the best dancing I do is in the forest.  I am dedicating this one to the trees, who, even though under constant attack by our industries of war, production and commerce, will ultimately survive all of us.  Whenever I am thinking about deforestation and start to feel sad, I like to think about how when the climate catastrophe ultimately destroys us, the trees will return and eat us as compost.  It makes me feel strangely calm and happy.

Forest Voices

sf high

can a bro count?  a bro wants to tell you that he can.  in 4/4 time.

do u even count, bro?  do u?

Can U Even Count?  Bro?

it's been a minute since I made a house track, thought I'd smash this out.  

turn up the balance, eh

turn up the *

this has been sitting on the front porch for a while marinating.  

it's a little bit of muddy waters on the banged up porch of some banger house.

hope you find it juicy!

oh yeah

Lost In Reverse

Basically old-school dub mix here (loops on repeat routed to shared FX bus), with an organ solo for good measure.

Button Fugue

Infinity

Money Talks

Low Sun (Chicane) - Flip

Substance

Rootstrap is a multi-instrumentalist, DJ, poet, producer + composer based out of Victoria, BC, whose performances + compositions incorporate live instruments with DJ decks, and straddle many genres including spoken word poetry, psy bass, deep dubstep, folktronica/folkstep, halftime/trap/downtempo/drum + bass, and organic house, weaving them into cohesive long-form spontaneous compositional journeys.

About the name: "rootstrap" rhymes with bootstrap, but it's different because music doesn't come from nothing; every song has ancestors, and they are all connected to each other, like how the mycelium network links tree roots under the soil, all tied together somehow.  So, this is deep organic grassroots bass, exploring the lineage of sounds; it's like a dance party in the family crypt.

rootstrap

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