Mount Dubstep

Blinking slowly through a daze of fatigue, I set my massive backpack down with a sigh and look around. The earth is stark, barren, blanketed in ice and snow.

I’m enveloped in the kind of cold that freezes blood and marrow.

Broken, cracked, crumbling rock is the decor of choice.

No vegetation. No animals. 

No colour.

I feel like I’m on the moon. 

The climb here was no joke.

Decreasing oxygen with every step. Frigid temperatures. Near-constant ascent.

Getting this far feels accomplishment enough—yet the adventure has barely begun.

———

For the past week, since I released my Eyes Cut Deeper remix, I’ve been thinking about the process of building my music project like climbing Mount Everest.

A touch dramatic, perhaps, but an honest perspective nonetheless.

My summit?

Consistently releasing original music and being booked to play dark, intimate rooms.

I don’t need this to become a full-time career (although that would be neat.)

I’m not chasing a million and one followers on Instagram or SoundCloud.

I couldn’t care less about receiving fame, fortune, and accolades.

I just want to make, share, and play music that I love. 

I want my sets to help foster a return to how dancefloors used to be…

Where people are present with themselves and those around them, rather than living through their phones or physically and energetically oriented towards the DJ.

Releasing a song is a big, important, and necessary step in that direction.

But that’s not enough… not nearly enough.

One remix is a drop in an ocean of what’s required.

Post-release, I feel this truth more keenly than ever before.

Hence the climbing Mount Everest analogy that’s bubbled up. I’ve reached Base Camp, but there’s still Camps I, II, III, and IV to pass through before the summit.

The climb ahead is not impossible. 

Many have reached the peak.

Many more have not.

———

The ascent from here will only grow more challenging, twisty, and dangerous.

Each step forward is progress through unfamiliar terrain.

Each step forward is another moment spent doing what I love.

That’s the subtle difference that makes me believe the summit is possible.

This climb isn’t being attempted to get, become, or achieve anything.

I’m not striving to build a shrine for myself on the summit.

My music is born of love.

And there’s a whole lotta music in me.

With love from the forest,

~ Alexander

P.S. Somehow, Eyes Cut Deeper (Siren Jinx Submersion) is SO close to cracking 200 listens in its first week out in the world. Which isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but 200 people would pack my two favourite dancing venues in Vancouver.

So come now, have a listen to this:

→ Eyes Cut Deeper (Siren Jinx Submersion)