And I Still Miss You... / Issue 01 by Peter Smith

issue one

wor ks by

Jeremy Sengly American Dreamâ &#x201E;Daily Reminders

Mikel A. Telleria Barnetik

Yaniv Waissa

Disintegration of a Revived Nation

Marlaina Read Before Focus is Fixed

a n in terv iew w ith

Brock Van Wey aka bvdub

brock, thanks for taking the time to talk with me. For those of our readers who haven’t heard your music or you, could you give us your introduction? It’s I who should thank you…so thanks. I’m Brock Van Wey, and musically I go by bvdub. Contrary to popular misconception, the “dub” in my moniker has nothing whatsoever to do with dub techno, or dub music, nor has it ever. I’ve been using it for 14 years, and it is merely an abbreviation of the “W” in “Wey.” I used to work at a pizza place in San Diego in the mid-90s, where one of my coworkers started calling me “bvdub” instead of “BVW,” and for some reason it stuck. I adopted the name throughout a large part of my DJ life, and, obviously, still to this day. I live in San Francisco CA, and was born and raised here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Though I was born here in San Francisco, I was raised since day two in Livermore, a small city about 45 minutes away. Some will probably wonder why I note that, since a) it’s not a city of real noteworthy acclaim (a lot of people in the Bay Area don’t even know exactly where it is), and b) a lot of people probably don’t care. But it’s a big part of who I am. I used to be ashamed of it and hate it when I was younger, as I saw it as some pointless hick town, but when I got older, I realized that a lot of who I am is rooted in where I’m from. It’s just an average (very) small city, but it’s an unpretentious, regular people sort of place. And especially living in San Francisco, the capital of pretentious posers, I cling to those roots more than ever. I think it’s important to always remember where you come from, because like it or not, it’s a huge part of who you are. Hardly anyone in this city is from here, and most everyone who isn’t seems to forget where they’re from, which is not only annoying

as hell, but a big shame. If you love yourself, you should love your history. And I definitely love myself. In fact, the majority of my ex-girlfriends can attest that I love myself too much. Wait, that sounded weird. You know what I mean. Anyway, sorry. Bit of a sidetrack there. I DJed deep house, deep techno, and ambient for crowds of 2 to 2,000 in both Northern and Southern California from about 19922002. After becoming completely fed up with the direction the “underground” electronic music scene (which was anything but after 1996, tops) had taken here in the Bay Area, I sold off every last one of the 7,000 + records I owned (the worst mistake of my life, I know) and moved to China in the beginning of 2002 to basically put the last few years of heartbreak the scene had inflicted behind me. I made a few mixes in the years after my return (old habits die hard), and then at the very end of 2006 finally caved in to years of pressure from one of my best friends Joel to start making my own music, which he insisted was the ultimate end I needed to reach. I always thought making my own music would rob my love of its romance and magic, but was surprised to find it had the exact opposite effect. In fact, it completely rekindled everything I had believed in, loved, and fought for, for what’s now going on 17 years. I make the music I love and feel, and that which says everything I can’t with words, which for me, is deep techno, ambient techno, and ambient. Of course others will have their own definitions of what I make, but that’s what I call it. As long as people feel where it’s coming from, they can call it whatever they want. Well, except dub techno. Because for the love of god, it’s not dub techno, no matter how many people want to call it that.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have gained an amazing and true family of people who appreciate what I make, and my reasons for making it. So I have to say thanks to them…without them, I surely wouldn’t have the heart to carry on.

sadly i have to say you just finished off a number of questions i was planning for a follow up, but thankfully you didn’t hit the one that i really wanted to ask: you talked a bit about place/location/ home. many of your releases (most notably the two most recent on your imprint quietus) deal specifically with certain locations, and i’m curious how these, and other, ‘location’ (bay area, china, etc) influence the music you are creating. Oops.,. sorry. I guess it was inevitable with my prattling on… The concept of location is integral for Quietus. When I first thought of creating the label, the idea was to make releases that contained both a visual and audio element, each of which represented the other, and embodied their counterpart in every way…at least as far as how I saw it, anyway. I didn’t want this to be achieved through some random coincidence, like if I had some cool photo laying around that ended up looking good or going with the music, but instead very deliberately, by taking all photos specifically for the release at hand. I wanted each release to serve as a sort of an audible and visual postcard for those who received it…with a photo (and for those that have the releases, they know they are indeed actual photos) that could accompany the music, so while they listened, they could kind of be transported to that place, like I was. The idea was to give a visual representation to what the music

meant to me in my own head, which could only be accomplished by taking the photos with the actual music in my ears at the time…which is exactly how they are done. For Quietus 001 and 002, both releases were loaded into some headphones, before I set out on a (pretty much) all-day excursion out into the world, to capture the image akin to the picture the music already painted in my head (in the case of 002, which was Quantec’s, I of course could only speak for what his music painted for me, not what he intended it to portray originally). In this way, someone who bought the release could see exactly what I did at that moment, when the audio and visual came together. It didn’t just have to be something in my own head, or my own memory. It was something we could share. Not surprisingly, the photos for 001 and 002 both ended up being taken in San Francisco’s Sutro Park, a remote park that few people go to, which is located directly on a cliff where the city and everything else literally drops away at the cliff’s edge, and all that’s left is ocean, for as far as the eye can see. It has always been my favorite place in San Francisco, and has always been where I go to find peace, and get my head together when it starts to wander astray, which it often does. It is one of the most special places in the world to me. And so in that way, people who got the CD and photo could see a glimpse of that place, and that moment in time that not only meant a lot to me and my life, but was where the music they were listening to led me, and hopefully in their minds, would lead them as well. I know, it’s starting to sound kind of like some hippied-out Astral Projection thing, sorry. [Quietus releases] 003 and 004 were both taken in China, which as anyone who knows me knows is another integral part of my life, and a place that holds meanings for me far beyond what

I could possibly describe (and no, that’s not some mystical spiritual journey type talk, a lot of those meanings are not good ones, but good or not, they are forever a part of me)… Without going on about it too much, I basically lived there for 2 years in the time I sought to escape the world I knew, which was mostly centered in and around electronic music, as I mentioned before. Though I have a real love-hate relationship with that place, China is not only a place I return to several times a year, and one with which I am forever irrevocably intertwined in countless ways, from the Chinese language to my own personal history, but one that is the only other thing on the planet I can think of that ever held (and in some ways still holds) ideals and dreams in the same way that electronic music always did. So in the end, it is only natural that they would come together in some way. For years I dreamed of living there—a dream largely fueled by flights of fancy and unrealistic, idyllic ideals that cloud a lot of people’s vision when dreaming of such an endeavor, I guess. Absolutely none of those ideals or dreams came to reality when living there…but strangely enough, it is because they never came true that it means even more to me. I guess it forever remains a monument to the fact that ideals and dreams are just that… and though they will likely never come true, without them, life would lose all meaning. In fact it was in China that someone I knew said to me, “It’s better to dream of places you wish you were, and leave it at that. Because if you were to actually go where you wished you were, you’d only wish you had never made it there.” I never forgot those words.

And so, the pictures for 003 and 004 were both taken during return trips, and, like 001 and 002, were taken with the actual music from the release in my headphones at the time…something that is very important to me, and a ritual I would simply not be willing to forgo. But unlike the first 2, which were concrete images of abstract ideas I had in my head before, the photos for 003 and 004 were the specific location and exact image I already had in my head for a long time…years, in fact. And so when I had the opportunity to create a release around that image that I had long held in my mind, and then return and take the exact photo of that scene, there was no way I was going to pass that up, even though the journey to reach both locations was honestly far from easy. Both locations were ones that held meanings and ideals for me that I can hardly put into words. And I must say, both times were two of the most surreal occurrences of my life…a very “complete circle” kind of thing that words can’t do justice to. As far as my present location and/or surroundings influencing the music I make I’d say for the most part I make the music I do in spite of where I live, rather than because of it. In fact, I’d say 90% of people who hear my music and then learn where I’m from are quite shocked. They usually expect me to be from Northern Europe or something, and I can’t say I would guess differently if I were them. But when you’re as much of a misanthropic hermit I am, maybe it doesn’t matter where you’re from. And one thing’s for sure, my head is never where the rest of me is. But in another sense, I’m proud to represent another side of San Francisco and the Bay Area, and to be able to remind people that not everyone here only listens to 80s hits and Tiesto.

so, in a way you are creating music that to you may represent a real place, but in another sense represents a sort of utopia (using the original definition; a ‘nowhere’ place) for your listeners? i guess what i’m trying to get at is that while you have been and lived in these places, i (and many of your other listeners) haven’t. where do these two points meet? is it important to you if they do? does it really matter (overall)? Well in some ways I want listeners to be where I’ve been…but in many cases, that really takes on as much of a “space” thing as it does “place,” as it could easily be an emotional state or moment, which is kind of more of a “space” thing, as it is much more amorphous. However, for me, every emotion I experience or remember, though by definition abstract, is tied to a specific memory of a physical scene or place I was in or seeing at the time. So for me, the concrete and abstract are tied together, and in wanting someone to be able to experience an emotion I’m trying to describe through a track, I guess ideally I wish they could somehow know the place or scene I associate with it as well, though of course I know that’s not possible. But I guess that’s the weird subjective beauty of music. Your mention of a utopia is right on the money. It’s often about a sort of utopia; a place that doesn’t exist, where I could capture past happiness, or the dreams of a future one; a place or time I could say the words I never got to say, or somehow leave behind thoughts and memories that I unfortunately let haunt me, and which create what is often a dystopia in my head. Sometimes it’s about remembering my dreams of such a utopia and the happiness it holds, and sometimes it’s more about forgetting,

and frankly wishing I never remembered anything, with a clean slate and a new life. Sometimes, if only for a short time, my music can help me reach that place. Maybe a utopia is a place where all those are possible, where you can exist in a brand new beautiful world, but can only appreciate it through your knowledge of the one you’ve left behind. Even though supposedly you’ve forgotten it. Right? Yeah. Sometimes it is about a specific place I was, where, as you said, the listener hasn’t been. But just as it’s about that place, it’s also about what I felt when being there…and often my feelings weren’t even a result of the place itself, but it just happened to be the place I associate them with, as it happened to be where I was at the time. But I don’t think the listener has to have been to that place to feel what I felt, or at least a glimpse of it, which in the end, is really all I can ask. Music has always been a bizarre mix of escapism and stark introspection for me, so I guess that duality is kind of reflected not only in my intentions behind making music, but my relatively unclear answer to your question. Some tracks have to do with my association with a place that I’ve actually been, but other times, it’s really just purely about an emotion, and an imaginary place it creates for me in my own head. And since I myself haven’t even been there, I guess I can’t expect someone else too, though I of course hope they can at least sense the idea behind it. And frankly, sometimes it’s just about a pure emotion or time in my life, and the place really isn’t important, at least I don’t expect it to be to anyone but me. Wow, this answer just keeps getting clearer and clearer, huh? I don’t think it was until the last few years that the concept of “place” really entered into my thoughts, when I realized that all the emotions I’ve felt over time, all the joys and sadness I

remember, really are each tied to a specific physical place that I associate them with, some for reasons I understand, and some I don’t. I think it wasn’t until I became more interested in taking photos of where I’ve been in recent times (up until about 6 years ago or so, I never took pictures of anything, no matter where I went, even if I was somewhere I knew I would never be again). I guess later, when I looked at those photos, and all those emotions and memories came flooding back at a simple glance, I realized how important that concept of “place” really was, and how much it actually meant to me. But for me, “place” is what I make it in my own head, rather than what it probably really is, which isn’t surprising, as I am so engulfed in my own thoughts most of the time that I can barely keep a simple grip on reality. Not to beat the China thing in the ground (I guess it comes up sp much because that was a time in my life that I gained so many realizations about myself and what a lot of things meant to me), but I am reminded of a time I hadn’t ever thought of again until this moment. I remember I was on a tour with only a couple other people that took me through this little town that was just amazing…all built on a complex series of little rivers and canals, and one of those idyllic places I could dream all day about disappearing into. As our guide was talking, I was paying no attention, and was lost in thought looking around on my own. I remember a guy next to me asked, “Don’t you want to listen to the guide about the history of this place?” To which I responded, “No, I’d rather imagine my own.” And it was true. It really only mattered what it meant to me, and what I imagined had happened there. I guess in the same way,

music is like that place. Someone can listen to one of my tracks, and maybe they will somehow stumble across the same emotion I felt, the same story I’m trying to tell, or that same place I was. Or maybe they’ll just write their own history for it. And at the end of the day, I can’t really say one is better than the other. Strangely enough, the latter is probably even better than the former.

while i don’t want to call your explanation a ‘concept’ per se, how do you build your track from these emotions/visions? is there an audio aesthetic you feel pull towards, or is it new, clean slate every time? Well I wouldn’t blame you if you called it a concept…or at least “conceptual,” which is a nice euphemism for “unintelligible.” As you would probably imagine, describing how one goes about building something as abstract as music from something even more abstract, like an emotion or vision, is about as easy as describing…well, something that’s not easy to describe. I wouldn’t say I have a particular aesthetic I’m pulled towards before I set out to make something, but I do have a general idea of what I want the track to be before I sit down to make it, not only in the tone I want it to take, but also structurally, like whether it needs to be ambient, offbeat, more 4/4, etc. To me, different emotions and visions translate to completely different kinds of structure. But though the basic framework of what I want to express is already playing in a continuous loop in my head before I sit down (pretty much any track I make has already been looping in my head for days on end), it inevitably evolves and changes as I get deeper and deeper into the track, and one idea brings up another, and I all I can do is go along for the ride.

From the first time I began listening to electronic music half a lifetime ago, there wasn’t a single track I ever heard that meant something to me or resonated with me that didn’t bring up a distinct and unchanging vision in my mind, whether it be a memory of the past, or a completely imagined present or future. That’s never stopped, and I think that’s why it is so natural for me to have very specific ideas in how I want to make something when I try to create an audible representation of those visions, and the emotions involved. Why certain visions or emotions represent themselves in certain ways musically or vice versa is something I guess I really can’t explain, as I really don’t know myself. But I think when you stick to those visions of your own, and your music is truly personal, you create your own aesthetic, really. So in the end I get pulled toward my own aesthetic, I guess. If that makes any sense. But it’s a clean slate every time. I never sit down to make a “this kind” or “that kind” of track. It’s just whatever’s in my head. I think keeping myself so removed from the music “scene” allows me the freedom to go in whatever direction I feel like, and wherever my heart takes me, with no worries about whether it’s something people are listening to, will like, etc. Of course I hope people will like it (otherwise I wouldn’t let anyone hear it), but honestly, whenever I finish a track, I have no idea if people will like it or not. So it’s always an awesome surprise if they do. For those who have been listening to electronic music for some time, or for those who haven’t, but like to dig back a few years, it’s probably no surprise that I take a massive amount of influence from my history with early to mid-90’s ambient and deep house, as well as mid-to late 90’s idm (or “electronica,” or whatever it’s supposed to be called nowadays), and early 90’s trance (actual trance, before all the drumrolls, which was pretty much gone by

1994). I think in at least some abstract way, all of those elements are represented in every track I make. But though every track I’ve loved in the past somehow influences me now, they never do so consciously, in the sense that I never sit down with the intention of making anything that sounds like anyone else, or anything else I’ve heard. But to say there’s not a massive amount of subconscious influence would be as ludicrous as it would be ignorant. I guess it’s as simple as this: emotions and visions get stuck in my head to the point that I can’t get them out no matter how hard I try; and at that point, they start to take form as music which I start to associate with them…like an imaginary soundtrack. And getting it out into a format others can listen to and hopefully relate to is my way of either hoping to share something beautiful, or my own way of trying to let a piece of me go that I wish I could forget. A massive majority of my tracks are my attempts at putting pain, regret, sadness, and disappointment behind me that I wish I could erase, but which are forever there. But I think at the same time, they are imbued with a sense of hope and beauty as well…both because I find beauty in sadness, but also because if one is trying to express something that’s hurt them or caused them sadness, they do so in the hopes of reaching or returning to a happier, more beautiful place. So in the end they go hand in hand. And once in a blue moon, there’s no sadness at all in my intention for making a track, and I just want to share something beautiful, or remember a time of hope or joy. But most of the time that line is so blurred anyway that I can’t tell the difference. Welcome to living inside my head. More information http://www.bvdub.org/ http://www.quietus-recordings.com/

brock’s short list Places // My apartment // Sutro Park (San Francisco) // Huzhou (China) // Anywhere quiet Records / Songs // Fleetwood Mac – Dreams // Sting – Shape of My Heart // Cherelle & Alexander O’Neal – Saturday Love // Every Sade album ever made // Joi + Jorio – I Won’t Waste Your Time // Steve Roach – Structures From Silence // Thomas Koner – Nuuk (Driftworks disc 1) Dishes // Shui Zhu Rou (boiled pork…a super spicy Sichuan dish) // Anything else that makes you cry it’s so spicy // Burritos Burritos Burritos // My dad’s apple pie

and i still miss you is copyrighted & published by peter skwiot smith, 2009. all artwork is used with the kind permission of the artist.

http://www.andistillmissyou.com/ http://www.skwiotsmith.com/