On Losing Yourself and Finding Your Place to Drum 'n Bass

Peace is seeing the bigger picture - and knowing your place in it.

Brick: Somethin' hasn't happened yet.

Big Daddy: What's that?

Brick: A click in my head.

Big Daddy: Did you say "click"?

Brick: Yes sir, the click in my head that makes me feel peaceful.

Big Daddy: Boy, sometimes you worry me.

Brick: It's like a switch, clickin' off in my head. Turns the hot light off and the cool one on, and all of a sudden there's peace.

- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennesse Williams

Of course, this quote is referring to drinking to cope with the pain of Brick’s probably repressed homosexuality, which is of course not a healthy coping mechanism. Yet the feeling he describes, that click, is all too real, and sometimes found in the most unlikely of places.

Some dogmatists will tell you that sitting meditation is the only way to escape your mind. For many years, I judged myself, that I wasn’t “meditating properly,” although I continued to return to the mat again, and again, and again. Don’t get me wrong, my years of experience with sitting meditation have been invaluable, and I don’t know I would recommend anyone abstain entirely. What I did notice, though, is how often the meditative state can come over you, even in day-to-day life. This revelation may be one of the most significant I’ve discovered, in my spiritual/philosophical pursuits, as it lets you export the skills you learn on the meditation into real life, where it matters most.

Over time, long walks, doing chores, listening to longform music, even reading, have all been acts of meditation in my life, allowing for some peace and spaciousness away from the fevered thoughts of my conscious mind.

A packed drum ‘n bass/jungle night in the backroom of Portland’s Holocene couldn’t be further from the tranquility of most Buddhist temples. Stainless steel breaks whirling past your head while vicious, viscous sub-bass reduce your guts to water doesn’t sound very peaceful. And yet, when your mind quiets, when all that’s left is rhythm and motion - there it is, as potent and as pure and as powerful and as important as any meditation retreat.

More so, i’d contend, as finding the stillness found on misty mountaintops is rare-if-not-impossible in the West, under the augurs of neoliberal late-stage capitalism. It’s vital to be able to access the peace when life is throwing fastballs and hand grenades at you, from all sides. Your survival might depend on it - your sanity certainly will.

These are a few of the revelations that occurred to me during 3 hours of losing my shit at the latest Juice Drum ‘n Bass night here in Portland. Goldie was headlining, probably the most well-known dnb DJ and arguably the best, preceded by a handful of insanely talented junglists, MCs, and drum ‘n bass warriors. I was tired, the weight of the world was pressing down on my shoulders until, all of a sudden, there it is. Click.

Peace.

Sometimes you might talk about a good dancefloor not having any boundaries or barriers. That’s not quite right, at least not in the case of this exceptional dnb throwdown, (plus it hints at all manner of unhealthy psychology and behaviors.) Instead, boundaries are keenly understood, until they’re fine as mithril, as moonlight. Surfaces are so smooth as to be frictionless, and everyone is free to be themselves, yet the whole dancefloor works as one beautiful, staggeringly complex whole.

Mindfulness does not mean an end to individuality. Compassion and humanitarianism are not an end to self-expression. Instead, they’re a bridge to a freer and more just world, where we’re all free, free to get down, as we please.

You can read my full review of Goldie at Juice Drum ‘n Bass over at Spectrum Culture.

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