Almost two years ago I have started with my first post in a weekly series in my Break Beat Friday collection posting music with off-beat rhythms on Mastodon.
So Breakbeats, hmmm
I grew up in a country where the majority of people are used to express there biggest enthusiasm in clapping the hands tho the first and third beat of a quarter measure. Folks there love clarity in music which can be found in March and Polka and their successor Techno.
There is nothing wrong about as the people really get touched by the music and feeling home in straight beaten music. I also sometimes like even beats especially when it has some other funky elements in it. But most of the time music with an off-beat simply touches me easier.
Since back in the days when I was playing a mix of Disco Funk, Nothern Soul, Big Beat, Ska, Indie Rock, Dub and more I always was touched by Elektro (the Break Dance music), Jungle and Hip Hop. This has never stopped even when I got more into Trap, Dubstep and Drum and Bass. There is such a variety of Break Beat Breakbeat sub-genres, it feels like an other Universe.
Lift-off to the Fediverse
In my sets I always love to surprise and mix something unusual and unexpected in. But the more I played the deeper I did understand that most of the crowd in clubs mostly wants to dance to more or less the same style at least a while. But I am in love with much more music then I play in DJ sets.
For the latter I found a good channel. I upload some of my sets to my account at Hearthis.at which is even available as a Podcast feed. Some music I share with friends listening together but I have missed a channel where more music lovers can participate in. Back in 2008 I started using Twitter and explored some Internet communities, made friends and started sharing music.
But Twitter has been murdered and now many of us have found another home in the Fediverse. It is open and it is – federated. It is harder then in a monolith platform to reach more people then personal friends. But in a bigger niche it works well. So I made the plan to start sharing Break Beat music on Mastodon.
In the first months I was using the hashtag #bbf – which is short and was not used at Mastodon at this time – but soon found out that the search results on BlueSky did not fir into my topic at all. Try out when you are ready for some NSFW content. So later I switched to the hashtag #breakbeatfriday.
Into the Mix
When I stumble upon interesting music I try ti figure out what it is. Notes are very important!
Later I try to find the source. Still most of the Indie music is published on Bandcamp; a fact which makes it to my main source of digging (in case you have wondered why there are mostly links from this service). Even the name for the hashtag I have adopted from Bandcamp.
As soon as I found it a bookmark and tag the link to it in an on-line bookmarking tool. Tagging is very important not to loose the orientation in a huge bunch of links.
When I find some time I quick-listen through all tracks. I decide very quick what I want to keep to share, what I want to by to play and what I hold to listen more deeply later. The track selected to share get the tag #bbf and when I post on Mastodon I put them also into a public collection to my bookmarking service. This collection is even available as a RSS feed.
The Joy
At least I am very happy tho share some of the music I very much enjoy. Even at the time posting it I often literally dance to it or head-bang when the drop kicks in.
And I build a collection for myself with even a history time-line. Since when do I adore Sully‘s beats?
To whom I am really very grateful
This all is a result of many influences and helping hands, sharers and friends. Here I want to name just some of the biggest who have supported me all years:
BarbNerdy who Supports her Local Ghetto, Peter Withoutfield with his Blogrebellen, Saetchmo in his Echochamber, Marinelli, Cven and the c-base crew, all folks at Alte Hölle, the xHain and all my fellow followers
And all my friends!