Hauntology Then Pt. 2: RA 230 Alan Howarth Mix
Falling in love with aura.
Hauntology Now! is the Substack of interdisciplinary artist, designer, musician, academic writer, and cultural critic J. Simpson, where he writes about all things hauntological, atemporal, philosophical, as well as sharing thoughts, reflections, and musings on music, movies, books, and life.
If you were to ask me what was the matter with music in 2010 or to explain my slight sense of malingering malaise i probably wouldn’t have had a good answer. After all, life was good, right? We were a few years into the Blogspot Boom and things were going good. A lot of stellar underground music was being disseminated into more hands and hearts than ever before which, in turn, inspired people to make more, much of which was distributed for free. In almost every way, it was a Golden Age for underground music lovers.
In retrospect, i think i was responding to some subtle tremors that would become raging earthquakes which would then, in turn, turn into gaping chasms, ready to swallow society whole like Saturn’s mouth. My dissatisfaction came from two main angles. First, i had been (and still am) wildly passionate about much of the first wave of dubstep, with artists like Burial and Kode9 speaking to my goth 90s soul and fusing it with some delicious, spliffed-out dubby bassweight. Even in 2010, the starker, more experimental, more militant and philosophical dubstep was already starting to morph into smoother, more party-ready sounds thanks to artists like Rustie, Joker, and Skream. I’ve since come to like a lot of that music, too. The whole genre would soon be swallowed down the twompy monstrous maw of monsterstep/brostep, though, and then dissolve into irrelevancy. It was the first time i really noticed 2010s “indie culture” cannibalize the underground, leaving it a spent husk of what it was. (Although i have since come to realize that the Alternative Rock of the 90s that got me into music in the first place basically did the same thing and i am more or less a hypocrite for feeling like this.)
Secondly and even more importantly, i was finally getting into making and producing electronic music, as i had finally laid my claws into some production software. It is utterly impossible to separate my journey as a musician, sound engineer, and producer from my journalism, criticism, and academic writing, and it feels dishonest to even try. I’ll write more about that in a future edition but, for now, suffice it to say that i started writing about music because i was teaching myself, as i’d run out of money and was dead broke between the ages of 18 to 30 or so, around the time this mix came out. So i FINALLY had some gear. I FINALLY knew music theory and could kind of play okay. What was the problem? And, more importantly, why wasn’t i banging out an EP a month?
The trouble i ran into is i simply couldn’t finish anything in the realm of infinite possibilities, which turned out to be an existential, philosophical, and psychological issue (which plays an important role in why this newsletter exists.) To make something, you have to know yourself. I do, anyway. Even more, you’ve got to trust yourself and maybe even like yourself, which is hard when you’ve been told you’re shit most of your life. To make something, there’s a certain amount of saying “fuck it!” and sticking yr head out of the foxhole like Kilroy, which i would finally do about a year later when i moved to Portland.
So there i was in 2010, my last year living in Boulder, Colorado. I was feeling kind of rootless and aimless as the economy was still rather destroyed following the Great Recession. At one point, i found myself wandering through the de-industrialized suburban sprawl of Longmont, killing time and walking around listening to music, which i still do to this day. Resident Advisor had just released a mix from Alan Howarth, friend and collaborator of horror auteur John Carpenter. Walking through back alleys, past grease traps into deserted parking lots, past Chinese restaurants and bodegas proved to be a pivotal moment, a real “Eureka!” as Howarth’s analog synths and primitivist drum machines stood my hair up on end while listening through my HD Stanton DJ headphones.
To start, horror soundtracks weren’t nearly as much of a thing as they are now. In fact, sensing the vibe shift, with the rise of horror soundtracks, underground music of all kinds, and Goth everything in the 2010s was what inspired me to start Forestpunk, just a year after this mixed published. Just as importantly, my nervous system instinctively responded to the fuzzy warbles of analog circuitry and recording technology. Music and recordings that are entirely digital are too harsh and sharp for these ears. I’ve come to realize, after much introspection, that i prefer a bit of distortion and reverb on pretty much everything. It’s okay to like what you like, which is something i wish someone had said to me on countless occasions during the 2010s.
It’s entirely possible my tastes, and my fondness for this Alan Howarth mix, are entirely rooted in nostalgia for my childhood in the 80s. That’s a big part of what this project is hoping to untangle and unpack. There wasn’t as much of a clamor for a reappraisal for Big Trouble In Little China or Escape From New York in 2010, though, at least not to my recollection. Alan Howarth’s mix for Resident Advisor healed me in some fundamental way, giving me permission to simply be myself, to move without apology in this world which, in my experience, is essential for growing as an artist.
I thought i’d share in the spirit of the greatest day of the year, when the veil is particularly thin and the spirit is especially accessible. With each passing entry, i’m getting more clear about what this space is for, which is a healing journey all on its own. So i’ll leave you with a question - what are some of the greatest mixes of all time, in your opinion? What makes a great mix? It’s something i hope to explore in all of my writing, going forward.
Happy Halloween! Blessed Samhain! May the spirit move you, the magic make you. May the jack o’ lanterns drive evil from your doorstep while candy corns make your year extra sweet!
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