dj snobo / Gosh from Yaputhma

Is this really jazz? Do I actually hate it? Are you warm enough? What is the meaning of life? Such good questions - and are you really gonna trade them for answers, boy? On the contrary to my last opus magnum, Waltz of the Fireflies , there is no large concept, long preparation and deeper meaning behind this collection of long-standing alt.jazz favorites. So take it easy and just, as they usually say in such cases, sit back, relax and enjoy. Snobo Hates Jazz by Gosh Snobo on Mixcloud Download: http://failiem.lv/u/txaludm

Чем реже и тщательнее я делаю миксы, тем больше я воспринимаю работу над ними как своеобразное гадание на картах Таро: я наблюдаю, как складывается пасьянс из треков, и когда он окончательно сложился, пытаюсь разглядеть в получившейся картине некую историю, увидеть знаки, найти повод для размышления. Так и в этот раз. Уже во время подготовки к выступлению на Baltā Nakts / Space Textures в сентябре 2015 оформилось несколько концепций. Во-первых, я хотел ставить музыку исключительно с физических носителей разных форматов - кассеты, винил, CD; во-вторых, я пригласил своего хорошего друга Ли Чепмена ( Lee Chapman ) поучаствовать, в реальном времени обрабатывая музыкальную ткань и накладывая эффекты. В третьих, как-то сразу стало ясно, что центральной вещью должна быть пронзительная элегия Суфьяна Стивенса “4th of July” из альбома “ Carrie and Lowell ”, целиком посвященного его недавно умершей матери и откровенно описывающего мучительные переживания, вызванные потерей (см. также испове...

After 2+ months of work my new mix, originally performed @ Space Textures  in September 2015 together with Lee Chapman , is published by Headphone Commute . Existentially, this mix is a meditation on mortality, a fear of death (own and dear ones) and simultaneously a latent desire to shortcut the earthly path (a theme I started to explore in my Music for a New Beginnings ). A kind of aural Maranasati, just prettier and less scary, or a reading from Seneca’s letters , but non-verbal and less moralizing. Kicking off with the sound of clay burial urns captured by Simon Whetham, it is centered around Sufjan Stevens’ lament to his late mother, which opens the gates of an “afterlife” that begins with a narrative from a Russian animation about seeing [signs and] wonders in mundanity and finding a waltz pattern in flashing street lights, followed by a limbo of Melanie De Biasio’s consolation to her own mother, and rounded off by a succession of heavenly piano music dissolving in the s...

This is a redux studio version of a mix I played @ Watercolours festival in Riga on 06.09.2014, which I have recorded and already previously, but Soundcloud banned it for copyright reasons, so it ended up on Mixcloud only. Still, I kept thinking of finding a way to make it available on Soundcloud where I have much wider audience, but a straightforward edit wasn't an option because taking the suppressed track out would ruin the dramaturgy of the mix; and actually, I was already considering reshaping the live take into a more refined studio version. So here it is: meticulously constructed, multi-layered assemblage that still takes cues from momentary impulses of a live performance. I think it's one of the cases when an obstacle forces you to improve and achieve even better results than you originally were aiming for.

On 6 September 2014, under the auspices of the contemporary culture forum  White Night , the electronic music festival “Watercolours”, organized by my old friend, colleague and brother in arms Selffish , after 12-year break has again taken place at the floating arts centre NOASS on AB Dambis (AB Jetty) in Riga. The complete Rasols DJ crew has taken over the NOASS' 2nd floor, with audience residing on the jetty, enjoying the quality of the superb PA and the visuals projected on several screens; the highlight of the night has become the live graffiti writing performed by the godfather of Riga street art scene - Krys (Крыс). Being in the strictly minimal ambient/electroacoustic mood, I nevertheless had a momentary whim of starting the set with a penultimate flashback from LV rave-o-lution times - the epic ambient classic, Banco De Gaia's "Kinkajou (Duck! Asteroid)" remix, the track that kicked off the party of the parties, the one that opened the doors of percep...

A wicked sequence of circumstances recently made me, all of a sudden, review my semi-abandoned collection of deep minimal drum'n'bass tunes and after a long break check if I still remember how to beatmatch and work the woofers. Thanks to that occasion I recorded my first ever full-on 170bpm mix. Surprise surprise. The artwork is based on a painting by Larisa Shellar , a unique and breathtakingly amazing underground artist from Riga, whose works I have fallen in love with. Clockwork Knowledge by Gosh Snobo on Mixcloud

Half a year after the  New Beginnings , I have a new mix. As the title says, it's all about the piano: my favorite solo piano pieces from recent years. There are days (and nights) when I can only listen to the sounds of 88 black and white keys, and sometimes I feel these sounds get so deep under my skin that I can repeat after Peter Broderick: "I am piano". Snobo's Pianotheque: 88 shades of black and white by .:Snobo:. on Mixcloud DOWNLOAD: http://files.fm/u/vsgmxgb both MP3/320 and lossless (FLAC) at your choice

Selected and mixed on the 1st of January, 2014. Inspired by Conor Oberst and Hirokazu Koreeda. Influenced by people, experiences and signs surrounding me on the NY eve. Featuring some of the finest music I came across in 2013, including gems by my dear friends Orla Wren and Lee Chapman . “And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been” - Rainer Maria Rilke.

I made a mix for Secreet Thirteen , serious and influential online musical journal. Artists such as Biosphere, Machinefabriek, ASC, Richard Chartier, Steinbrüchel, Sun Araw, Tropic Of Cancer, Scanner, Aidan Baker and many others provided mixes before, so it's quite an honour. http://secretthirteen.org/secret-thirteen-mix-074-gosh-snobo/ If you care to know some background behind the mix, read on. Otherwise just head on to the mix, sit back and enjoy...

So, this is my official end-of-the-year roundup mix. More or less a "best of" selection, although of course a lot of stuff didn't make it, especially from the isolationist/ambient or folk/singer-songwriter realms - it just didn't fit the mood of the mix and, more importantly, I actually prefer that kind of stuff unmixed. Also, I can confess and admit that this year I stopped following certain scenes or radically decreased attention paid to new artists, releases and labels. Yes, an oversaturation/information overdose thing, exactly. In fact, I've been listening to less music than before - instead I started reading again after long break... call me old fashioned ;) Anyway... Still, when compiling this mixtape, I reminisced back and I can just say - what a great year it was! Wasn't it? :)

I've been silent for quite a long time. My last Rasols mix has been made 10 month ago, as this year I actually took a break from co-hosting the radio show. The reasons for the silence I explained here . And finally, the material has accumulated - as I like to say, the tracks themselves just started to cry out, begging to be mixed and presented to the audience. As this year I very sparsely followed "the scene", I felt free from obligations to use the freshest and hypest material possible; on the contrary, I wanted to include some compositions that either stand aside of any scenes, or just some songs from authors very dear to me, no matter how out of place they might sound. And - surprise surprise - they actually didn't :) At the same time, I still like the "sound of today" - liquid beats, deconstructed instrumental hip-hop, aquacrunk, call it watchalike. So here it is - an odd but integral mixture of new and old material, songs and tracks, melodies a...

After a long silence, finally: a new mix. A recording of an austere, minimalist ambient set I played at Organic Sounds event (the successor of the great series of chillout Wednesdays in 2010, Om Tree ). I've taken the liberty to slightly adjust its tail end though, adding one extra track and replacing the coda. Otherwise no edits, straight as it was - an uneasy journey from despair to acceptance. In the intro, what you hear is  Kim Ki Duk  singing "Arirang", a  traditional Korean song  from his  own film of the same name . If you have seen the movie, you may understand why I started the set with it. If you don't, I cautiously advise you to do so - cautiously, because 1) it's not an easy watch 2) it's not for everyone 3) knowing and loving Kim Ki Duk's previous films - at least  "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring"  is virtually a pre-requisite. I experienced a shock and a very strong catharsis when I saw it - amplified by the state...

Year 2012 brought radical change of my listening habits. I listen to less new music than ever (instead I read more than ever, at least in a decade or even two). I rarely download anything - too often checking online is enough to understand that I don't actually need to extend my huge collection even more. Granted, I still buy CDs (and even a couple of vinyls) - mostly ambientish, although sometimes I pay my debts to contemporary beatmakers I respect and who opened new doors for me. I still love fresh beat-related music - post-dubstep, instrumental hip-hop, juke - but I can no longer work through its endless crates as a selector: the scene is so wide and there is so much music made which is ok, but too... momentary, transient, which fades away too fast. In other words, " scenius " music - that belongs to the scene and is better consumed in the mix, as part of the whole. These days, this is how I prefer enjoying this kind of music - by appreciating the work of other selec...

This is the recording of a set I played at the Rasols party @ Dirty Deal club, 07 Oct 2011. On the contrary to my well-known specialization in deep, contemplative, epic, beautiful, meditative, relaxed, spaced out stuff (=anthems), this time I decided to remember the old times and rock the party proper. So - bangers all the way, post-dubstep, UK funky, UK garage, call it whachalike - all shades of UK bass in a 135-bpm tempo! Also, read what one my most respected selectors - Mincīša Ieraksti - says about this mix in the post @ dubstep.lv (in Latvian). Big ups! Bangers not Anthems by Gosh Snobo on Mixcloud

After long work and preparations, finally, my track Just Kitten , with remixes from 8 artists, is out on De'fchild Productions , a very great San-Francisco-based label run by Ruoho Ruotsi. The remixes are provided by new and old friends: Selffish, Martinez Gonzalez, Ruoho Ruotsi himself, Havantepe, Triton, The Marx Trukker, Tim Suspect, Celice Monnette & Enrique Gongora... Too bad a few more friends could not make the cut due to their busy schedule, but still the 62-minute collection does no longer qualify as an EP as it was originally planned... Remix album y'all! :) The artwork is based on the painting from my dear Mom, done way back circa 1970 ~ more or less the same time as me ;) Listen and buy on Bandcamp:  http://defchild.bandcamp.com/album/just-kitten Release page:  http://www.defchild.com/releases.php?id=dcp021

This is the recording of my dj set @ Skaņu Mežs , the headquarters of the annual festival of untamed music of the same name (Skaņu Mežs = Sound Forest) in Riga, Latvia, on 2011.05.06. It fits publishing it this nice sunny day, 21st of May 2011, on a good occasion of The Judgement Day, according to this funny guy Harold Camping . Why? Listen till the end to find the answer :) I was in a retrospective mood, so quite a few old favorites from different eras, but on the other hand there's a lot of brand new and just a little bit of unreleased stuff.

A mix in the series Stillness Is My Move: minimalist ambient, electroacoustic, field recordings in other words - epic stillness (resolving in equally epic slow tectonic movements). Played at  Rasols  party @  NABAKLAB  2011.03.19. It was a rare occasion of me dropping my trusted Traktor software in favor of old-skool medium of real, all officially purchased CDs. I wanted an attempt to step from a usual routine (and even a usual material - originally planned to do a set of experimental techno released circa 2000 - which was not possible for several reasons). Anyway, I think I won’t do it again. I prefer better track control, looping/delay possibilities, faster browsing and selection... Though it was still an interesting experience. Initially, I thought the mix was not very successful. However, after some time and some relistens I changed my mind... It's cold, restrained and isolationist, but still with emotions, especially in the coda. Hope you enjo...

Finally, for the completeness of the blog (which I'm not very active in updating actually) I should let anyone interested know that me & my friends who host radio show Rasols @ Radio Naba  finally moved our complete archive of Rasols shows from often faulty failiem.lv to proper international server. Listen to and follow us at Official.FM/Rasols Update Sep 2013: our account has been closed by official.fm "due to copyright infringement". In other words, this audio hosting site is officially not a mixtape-friendly one. All our show archives plus Rasolniks archive and my own account are gone.

This is the recording of my set from Home Video #6 event @ Taka cafe, Riga. The title is a nod to the ever hyped 14th February, its influence on my state of mind at the time of performance, and two of the tracks played ;-]

Here you are, first 1.5 hours of my 6-hour set @ BD party of Erik Pelmeshkin , best pizza maker in Riga, tireless party photographer, good music lover and just an awesome guy all around. Recorded  05.02.2011 @ Jurga's place. The 6-hour set is edited to 1.5 hours because unfortunately my Soundcloud account (while seemingly limitless) still does not allow attaching and transferring you the prerequisite amount of red wine that you would need to get in the appropriate mood and enjoy the whole thing ;-D Not speaking about Pelmeshkin's pizza of course...