Road to the Music

Happy Birthday, Memkash!

12 September, 1984

Hi, my name is Serge, and I produce music. The music was around us from childhood; we spent days in the parents' music school with my sis — being in our father's studio, playing with Korg synth, and enjoying mom's strings together with some craziness the kids can produce. The event that married me to EDM was a casual evening in a friend's house. He had a 5cd sound system with radio and two cassettes deck; we proudly kept the stickers on the speakers saying 5000W, the symbol of power back then. In the evening, something special came from the speakers, that was, a rave song appeared for the first time.

And that's the place the journey begins.

Electronic music just started to gain popularity and was still mainly considered an underground sub-culture back then. The radio stations were playing the rave and house genres after midnight. I was waiting every night to get another portion of the fresh air. I created cassette recordings of the mixes, sort of Spotify playlists we have now and ended up with around 1000 hours of electronic music.

In 1996, 12 yo, I decided to learn to play the piano. I spent about five years in the classes but was never satisfied with the piano alone and always wanted to hear more instruments. So in 2000, I moved from my parent's house and lived in my grandmother place to learn information technologies in college. At last, I could get a personal computer, and my little dream to make music with more instruments started to become a reality.

The first mix was done using Audition, owned by Adobe now. It was a chill downbeat melodic composition, maybe 3 minutes long. This year, I made maybe ten other tracks with the same mood and tempo. Slowly my melodic downbeat started to progress into something described as a mix of drum'n'bass, jungle and dubstep (sure, the genre was not known back then). That was fast, aggressive compositions mixed with calm melodies in breaks. My friend was taking my CDs, and they were playing them in the club, "having fun" - he told me. So from 2002 to 2009, I made different EDM genres, drum'n'bass, jungle, house, UK garage, trance, and who knows what. Back then, I was also working in a computer club (a place where people come to use personal computers and the Internet) and played my mixes in the computer club to gather feedback from people. One day, a girl came to work in the club and asked what the music was coming from the speakers:

She knew a local DJ in the city and asked if I wanted to meet him.

In the Club

19 September, 2021

Our collaboration progressed to having me playing in the club. That was exciting. I enjoyed these days; we all were in the music, sharing what we felt.

Some days we played pop, some days progressive or other house genres, some days people were throwing money at us, pretending we're the strip dancers or what? That was a luxury club - and we were looking for underground. On the last day in the club, I played two-step. Two guys were doing low break. Amazing.

It seems we were making music everywhere we could: in the basement level of the computer shop; in the cabinet of the political party; while we walked and talked. We were making music the whole night in front of the physics exam, and it looks like every one of us just committed to the music. I was doing different house genres: piano, jazzy, progressive, and latino house, never played. My little rebel was starting to fade in the mainstream of demand. The Internet just started to gain an audience, but who cares about the cloud platforms' numbers they began to sell. Still, that was another turn to come. Guys organised a gig - the uplifting trance with a live guitar; we danced from 11 to 5, at 6 o'clock I went to another city to work and back home and still was on the gig. The trance it is.

The Backup

26 September, 2021

I've connected the hard drive, and it was dead. Unfortunately, it was not that much you could do about the broken computer devices by the time. Maybe it was possible to restore even back then, but it seems that wasn't an option - either by my stupidity or lack of having someone doing so. So the hard drive was dead together with the part of me, and I haven't created even a note for years.

I can't remember what year that was and for how long I didn't touch the music. I still was following gigs and listened to trance music.

Sometimes you just let it go.

The Name

03 October, 2021

Jannette, a host of the local radio station, invited us for an interview. And I thought, why not?

And then Jannette pulled off her jacket because it was getting hot...

Productivity

10 October, 2021

2013. It was the perfect time to return to music production. I started working on "Red", which was initially just named "trance-01". Oh boy, that was the tough return. I finished the first version and headed to meet with my DJ friend.

My DJ friend is a very polite person. The version was total shit, but still, it has a nice melody. I worked on a few more versions and left the last one alone. I worked on a few more trance tracks, and then there was an idea to name the tracks as colours and try to represent the mood of the colours. My supporter for years liked it. We then created the mix and called it "Spectrum". To our enjoyment, people liked it too, so we decided to continue.

With my next mix, "All the Love", I wanted to say goodbye to the all other genres I worked with, like House (the classic one), UK Garage and Jungle. All the stuff in one mix. Our audience was confused with the variety of styles within one compilation, but that was ok.

Having the genre defined, I started working on my next mix, "Destination Trance". That was a range of progressive to psytrance tracks. It looks like I always had the idea to go from calm to crazy at the end. It was personal. Intimate, if you will. Those were very productive years!

Eyes on our back

17 October, 2021

That was a casual evening. My friend and I just walked down the street.

So, we're at the entrance secured by the colossal bouncer — two eyes looked at us from the top.

We entered the club, and the wall of sound just cut our ears. Neither my friend nor I liked the music. So while sitting on the sofa and staring at the floor, I was waiting for the next track in the hope of catching the groove.

It was loud. I think I just looked at my friend.

Four kicks, two claps, with hats in between. Is that it? Of course not, I would say today, but back then, that was the case — the breakup. Sure, the reason wasn't that particular club and day; I was just tired of it, which triggered my decision to stop producing music. And I would never guess the way I'll return to production!

I still have the eyes of the bouncer on our back. We've been to the club for 2 minutes.

Shake it, babe

24 October, 2021

2019. I'm on the elective course finishing my other study. I picked, well, sound engineering as the elective, quite the opposite of what I learned during the main course. I can't explain precisely the reasons; maybe I wanted to relax after the extensive course, a bit of calm. I also did not tell anyone I do music production because I hadn't been doing it for years; it didn't matter anymore, the music production was in the past, and I didn't want to return. Just a simple ride with music, that's it.

We were charged to make a live recording and mix it to complete the elective. My teammate found the local Voice talent. We arranged the time, picked up the equipment, set up the studio and started the recording. We did a few takes on vocals, a few variations on guitar, and then that was my time to shine — to play the shaker part. What else can the fallow stranger do?

We downloaded the files, I returned home and started mixing the next day. That was alright, just completing the task and goodbye. Whatever. And then I played the mix to check how is it going. No, it wasn't the perfect mix in any sense, I mean, the sound quality is good, but a lot of things were off. However, that's not the point. While listening to the mixed track, something unexpected happened. Now I should make a pause. I hope you won't consider it crazy, so let's go. How is it possible that you're sorry in front of music? Sorry about not producing it. It felt like the lost son of the family. How is it possible? I was shocked, scared and a bit shaky. What the hell is this? I put these feelings away, not for a long tho.

To be continued.