20 years ago, aged 22 and at a particularly difficult and transitionary stage of my life, I had to sell most of my possessions and move away temporarily from my hometown. This meant the loss of most of my beloved music studio equipment. I had no choice but to sell my mixer, synth, MIDI keyboard, monitor speakers and about 15 years of technical equipment. Everything except the computer was gone. It was that or starving and being pretty much homeless.
I found myself sharing a house with two friends for a short few months, both also in their own transitionary stages of life. It was a strangely good but also extremely difficult time. Three minds were on three very different paths, with different ideas and views and influences, but it was just how we lived. There were some great nights of wonder and laughter and fun, and there were low moments of despair and anguish, but mostly there was the space in between – lack of money, lack of employment and depression that caused lack of motivation to really get up and sort it out.
I ploughed as much time as possible into writing poetry and music. The music production was virtually impossible without my tools of the trade. I was stuck for a while, really stumped, but before panic set in a sudden spark lit me up. It was 1999 – millennium fever was rising. I had been working on a concept for an album to mark the coming new millennium. I had my ‘bits and pieces’, some half-finished tracks and a wealth of sampled stuff from my old setup before I sold it all. What to do?
I was introduced to someone who showed me how a guy he knew had made loads of tunes, on some really simple software called ‘Rave eJay’ that you can buy from any shop. I listened to his tunes and didn’t really think that much of them, but then I saw that he had uploaded them to an ‘unsigned artist’ website and was getting hundreds of plays and downloads. In fact, as I followed him over the next few weeks it went into the thousands…
I was in awe, totally shocked and also properly angry, all at the same time. Why? Simple – I was told that this guy had no musical background, no real interest in any music scene and simply did the whole thing as an experiment, to see how much interest he could get and if people would go for it. This made me angry because I had been uploading my tunes for a while along with a friend, music that took us years to get good at making, music that we had ploughed our hearts and souls into perfecting, and got barely a shadow of the listens and downloads that this guy was getting. However, I cast these feelings aside when my friend said something really simple but profound to me…
“You know what they say - if you can’t beat them, join them.”
It hit me like a stone in the face but instead of pain, a sudden rush of excitement flooded my brain. Even though I knew all about eJay software – that once you use it, and if you dare put out tunes made using it, you’ll never be taken seriously in ‘the industry’ – I got a copy and installed it on my PC. I figured fuck it, no one has ever really taken us seriously thus far anyway, so what is there to lose?
I spent not much more than a couple of hours tinkering with this ‘Rave eJay’ software and two things quickly became apparent. (1) This software was so easy to use and simple that I could produce very quickly on it, and (2) despite its rudimentary controls and basic design it was actually reasonably adaptable and perfect for fast, heavy dance music. I am not ashamed of the decision that followed, any more than I am embarrassed at the results of that decision…
I chose to use ‘Rave eJay’ to make my tunes, perhaps more in desperation than anything, but it was a solution to my lack of equipment. I decided this was how I would create my ‘millennium concept album’. I would simply use all the bits already created, raid my massive sample library, and use the best and most attractive native sounds the software carried to produce it. In short order, project ‘Millenium Rising’ was created (spelling intended). I decided it would be a full-length CD album, non-genre specific but with a heavy Jungle/DnB/Breakbeat influence, combined with the fast 180 BPM techno/trance that the software was designed around.
Having heard what the aforementioned guy was putting out online using this software, and getting so much attention for, I already knew exactly how I didn’t want it to sound. I also decided that unlike all my previous efforts to get my music ‘out there’, downloaded and listened to, I simply did not care about how many people it would reach. Little did I know at the time, that by not giving two shits if anyone bothered to listen to the finished article, I would actually free myself to work on the project completely unfettered and liberated from pressure or expectation.
Strange things happened over the next few weeks. The software was almost addictive, and I could see why it had got a bad reputation and why there was a stigma to producing anything with it. It was so easy to make good sounding tunes with minimal effort. I have to say that I threw out about 70% of what I made over that time, not because it didn’t sound good but simply because it sounded too ‘eJay’! It struck me that a compromise would have to be made.
I gave a demo listen to my friends of two basic but fairly complete tunes. I asked specific questions about these tunes. Do they sound different to what you’ve heard before, from ‘that guy’ and others using the same software? Do they sound like my tunes, my style, as you’ve known it from the last few years? Do these tunes sound like they were just thrown together? The overriding feeling was positive and I was pleased, but I knew the real test was to come. Could I do a whole album this way?
I have no idea how long it took to complete the album from start to finish. I have no idea how much of it is a true reflection of my musical ability and how much is just a fortunate mix of half-decent samples and convenient mass-market software. I have no real idea if Millenium Rising is an album worthy of publishing online. Ultimately, I only know what I think of it, and what a mixed group of around 20-30 people thought of it, on nights when we played it at parties. And I know what I thought of it when I listened to it again for the first time in years, a few short months ago.
It is most definitely my own work, regardless of the software and many of the samples used. It definitely sounds like a complete album from start to finish. It is a product of the situation I was in – producing with bare bones, sheer will and determination. It is far from my best work, but it has moments on it that are among my finest musical creations. It is what it is.
So, as it is now 20 years since I finished the album, I’m releasing it in full on Youtube. I am more than happy to provide a copy on CD, and if interest is sufficient I may even use my valuable remaining free Soundcloud time to provide it to download from there. Either way, I feel it is worth publishing because it is a journey through the music that has shaped my life – rave/dance music.
You can hear the album here - https://youtu.be/x6kDwltt8FI
Copyright © 2019 R. C. Greenlow. All Rights Reserved.
