Stravinsky replied when asked why he stuck to a sort of diatonicism instead of converting to a 12-tone method that it was better for his creativity to have a limited box of choices. He changed his mind about that later, but to bring the question into 21st century electronic, alternative and post-classical music, I suggest that it may be a matter of having run out of choices. How many good new diatonic melodies that don’t sound like a 1970’s radio hit are there? Combinatorial mathematics suggest that there is a limited amount, and statistics suggest that within that larger number of possibilities that only a subset of these would be a melody worth playing out loud in public or committing to a recording. Therefore, re-mixing, the task of a ‘DJ’ not a ‘composer’ has become the new normal. It’s also a way to use the digital recording tools almost everyone seems to have now to creative a new improvisational tradition. I can labor over individual components of a track, getting the recording, EQ, compression perfect, then fiddling with post effects via plugins – this can go on for years, sorry to report. As an alternative to this fussy game of perfectionism, I can take things other people have recorded and make a re-mix. Since I don’t have access to other musicians’ master recording to perform forensics on their tracks, I take my own. It is a kind of freedom to not take each track so seriously that it cannot become fodder for another.

Vocal and lyric by Xerom Ohm. Is it always ‘standing tall’ or really stuck in autumn’s ‘late afternoon with your shadow friends?’.