Well, I did it. I finally finished and released some music. Five slightly weird and unpolished tracks under the banner of the DILETTANTENDISCO EP.

“Dilettant“ is German for „Dilettante“, as you might have guessed. The dictionary defines it as „A person who follows a pursuit without attaining proficiency or professional status“. And that’s kinda fitting for the Psychofrakulator sound.  As a bedroom producer, who can only effort the lite version of his DAW and whose VST collection consists mostly of free stuff (with a bunch of stuff that was on sale), I had to accept that my music will lack a certain polish, if you get what I mean.

However, I also learned to embrace it. If you think of the House Music OGs from the 80s and early 90s, they often had to work with even less. Maybe nothing but  a crappy sampler + a drumcomputer, recorded on a reel to reel tape. There is a reason why many records from that time sound like 112 Kbps MP3s and if the producers only barely knew what they were doing. Yet they made booties shake! Not saying I am on the same level as, let’s say DJ Pierre or Todd Terry, but while I desperately tried to finish my tracks and give it a certain Beaport-ready sound, getting more and more pissed off that I don’t have the money for professional mastering or even equipment, not even someone who could borrow me a car, so that I could listen to my tracks on its soundsystem, I just thought at some point: “Your flaws are what make you special”. Which admittedly is some cheesy kids movie fortune cookie bullshit. Maybe “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature” would be more fitting, in a way.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not purposely half-assing my production and I will continue to improve my skills whenever I can (You should’ve heard the awful crap I made years ago!), but I won’t stress out over my tracks not sounding like what is playing on Sunshine Live. I hope to get there at some point, but for now, I will provide you with the best unpolished, but (hopefully) not shitty music I can make!

Which brings me again to DILETTANTENDISCO!

Five tracks that I actually like. I don’t expect them to take off big time, but I’m actually a bit proud of them.

GROMBY RIDES AGAIN is inspired by Roman Flügel’s GEHT’S NOCH, but obviously only very losely. Although when I started it, it was a more obvious rip-off. It’s a bit weird, a bit squeaky in parts, but maybe my favourite from the EP. The vocal sample says “Gut hundertausend teilweise nackte”, which is German for “Nearly one hundred thousand partly naked” and the person who said it talked about a Love Parade, back in the 90s.

DER CHONK is pretty minimalistic, despite its phat bass. I think it kinda crosses certain lines from House, to Tech House, to EDM, but genres are bullshit anyway. When I came up with that melody, I immediately had the image of a chubby cat walking downstairs in my mind, for some odd reason. OH LAWD HE COMING was its original title, but then I changed it to THE CHONK and later DER CHONK, because the denglish made it funnier IMO.

SAUSAGE PARTY…well, let’s just say sometimes you hear someone say something in a certain rhythm and you immediately wanna sample it. I really made that one only for shits and giggles. It started as a 30 second clip of the vocals on a drum beat, just to make a few friends laugh, but then it involved into some kind of Ghetto/Acid/Old School House hybrid.

#REALDJING /S is me being angry at all the gatekeeper shit that is going on in the scene. When the whole EDM boom started, many, many icons jumped on the hate train (and lost a bunch of respect from my side) and set up some rules about what according to them was rEaL dJiNg or rEaL hOuSe MuSiC and it got more and more absurd, from the classic “Real DJs play vinyl” to what DJs are supposed to wear! And of course all these random assholes on social media chimed in. What really made me wanna do this kind of danceable middle finger, was an instagram video of Nina Kraviz, where the people in the comments bitched about all kinds of shit, from the sound quality (As if she was responsible for the audio on the random stranger’s phone that it was recorded with) , to her dropping a classic anthem, to her outfit and ugh. Fuck these motherfuckers.

And finally YOU’LL NEVER BE MORE UNDERGROUND THAN IN YOUR OWN BEDROOM, a track that I made a few years ago. I love, how in the 80s people triggered vocal samples over and over and over. Like in Eurythmics’ NINETEEN EIGHTY FOUR or House Master Boyz’ HOUSE NATION. In general I love this tracks kinda unusual-ish structure, with the bells and stuff like that.

I self-released it, because honestly, waiting for a label to respond somehow, wasn’t good for my mental health. And it has a bit of a “Selling your records from your car in the club’s parking lot” vibe, if you squint. It’s available on several streaming services, including Spotify and Amazon Music, and can be purchased at iTunes and some other places. Including Bandcamp, where I give it currently away for free! So if you think “Hey, that’s not bad, but I really don’t wanna pay anything for it”, this is your place to go.

Have a great day!

Psychofrakulator