dazeblog #3
How I found Digitally Imported + 7+ songs I found thru it
So in almost every interview I do, I mention listening to this one web radio all the time called Digitally Imported in middle school.
Honestly I’d say it’s what formed my taste in electronic music, but I’ve never really gotten the chance to really explain my attachment to it.
How the Android app looked (circa 2014)
There was almost 40+ stations, operating 24/7, with radio shows on a select few of them every once in a while.
When I was 10/11, I got really big into Jet Set Radio. I believe I saw it first on Wikipedia, looking up Sonic related stuff, then SEGA related stuff, then I stumbled on JSR. I didn’t get a chance to play it until I saw the remaster on my cousin’s Xbox 360 & ever since then I got hooked. The aesthetics of everything stuck out to me but what rang out to me the most was the pirate radio element of the story. The idea of having a underground pirate radio was just so fuckin cool to me.
At the same time, I was really fw with another game’s underground radio, GTA III’s “MSX FM”. MSX FM was a pirate radio station that ran with no mock ads & pure Drum & Bass music (Darkstep & Techstep, according to the GTA wiki) provided by the Moving Shadow label & MC Codebreaker. I was so hooked to the music I used to just open my dad’s PC, launch the game & sit in a car just listening to it. (Fun fact, this station is what inspired me & quinn to make dSX.fm).
Between JSR & GTA3, I was so hooked to underground radio.
So I searched online about pirate radio stations & web radio in general, and along the way I was on the Google Play Store on my shitty lil Boost Mobile Android downloading internet radio apps, like TuneIn Radio. TuneIn didn’t do much for me but I used to listen to the news radio as I went to sleep, until I found a Digitally Imported station that I really liked on there. Then I got their DI.FM app, and it was like a whole new world was on the screen. Just stations of electronic music any time, all the time & I was in love with it. I was always finding new songs, new artists & new genres, it was fucking great. Friends at school didn’t get it at all but I was hooked like shit. Every time I found a song I liked, I would copy-paste it & download it anyway I could; direct downloads off shady sites, YouTube to mp3, compilations from Kickass Torrents, literally by any means necessary. I was collecting them like I was building a micro radio station on my phone & in some way I was.
So with that, in no particular order, here’s 7 of the songs that I found on there that shaped my taste in electronic music:
Dub One - King Operator [Scientific Wax, 2011]
I got a myriad of memories with this track man. I’ve cried to this track before, I used to listen to the mp3 file on the way to and from the hospital my dad was at, I used to hop on my Ripstick and pretend I was playing Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity IRL to this track.
I found this on DI.FM’s Jungle station if I recall correctly, but I’ve since learned it’s actually more in line with the “Drumfunk” sub-genre (thank u powerdoll for letting me know). Nevertheless, I think the break work is incredible and the keys & atmosphere around the track give a real nocturnal feel that I unfortunately don’t hear done well enough these days. One day, I hope to own this single on vinyl.
DJ Red Alert & Mike Slammer - Ruff (1993)
This track’s so fuckin good man. I had to have spent days listening to this just off the strength of those stabs. I’d always love to imagine this shit went crazy back in the 90s at raves. I’ve always had a soft spot for this song, I unfortunately forgot the name of it while I grew away from electronic music back in my teen years but thankfully I found it again. I can’t recall what DI.FM station I found it on but if I had to guess I’d say it was from either their Oldschool Rave or Jungle station, genre-wise though this is almost certainly Breakbeat Hardcore.
Learned a couple years ago that it samples the breaks from Johny L’s - Hurt you so, which I thought was really cool considering that track released only a year prior to this. For some reason, I don’t really think that’d be done within the current internet underground break genres without some push back, but it’s still a cool connection.
S-Type - Walrus ft. Budgie [LuckyMe, 2013]
I can’t tell you how many times I ran this track as a kid, the talkbox vocals are fuckin spectacular and the overall production reminded me of the Hip-Hop & Trap tracks I heard all the time with my brother & cousins. The old-school string sample that loops throughout the track is really catchy and complements the other, more modern synthesized elements. The whole EP’s really good, I’m super glad I found it. Came across this on DI.FM’s Trap radio station, which truth be told isn’t much of my thing but this is a diamond in the rough.
Photo of the vinyl that this track appears on
I actually got this off Discogs for like $6 but to me this shit worth a cool $30.
Aaliyah - Never Giving Up (Raumskaya Remix) [Unknown, 2015(?)]
This one’s a really smooth track, a really nice flip to Aaliyah’s Never Giving Up recontextualizing it as a 160bpm footwork/juke track. It’s a lil challenge in my head on whether I play this version of the track in my sets or DJ Swisha’s edit of the original song.
Note: Since DI.FM doesn’t have a dedicated footwork station, it had to have either appeared on the Liquid Trap or Trap station. However, I believed this was somewhere in their syndication as the mp3 file for this song is in my personal folder archive of audio files labeled “DI.FM”. Nonetheless this track’s existence is really elusive, Raumskaya doesn’t have it on his Soundcloud and you can’t exactly YouTube search this track either. According to the ID3 in my copy of it, this track appeared on a compilation/album called Sounds of Jam Bar, but information on that seems pretty sparse. I ended up putting this track on my own throwaway Soundcloud account a couple years ago when I realized, “huh you can’t really find this anywhere” (aside from vk, apparently).
Seba & Lo Tek - Sonic Winds [Good Looking Records, 1996]
Man I fucking love Good Looking Records, a real staple in the space of Drum & Bass (in my eyes at least). Finding this on DI.FM’s Jungle station was the first auditory run-in I had with the label but I didn’t really get hooked until later down the line. This song though, man, this fucking song. The dolphin noises, the airy pads, the synth keys that bounce forward and backwards, the breaks— its all impeccable man.
Tennyson - With You [2014]
This track almost has the same feeling to me as Nimbasa CORE by plasterbrain & Snail’s House, another track that I love so much. I kinda grew out of this type of music but this was one of the tracks I heard when I first started going high-school. I got a few good memories of listening to this after shitty days at school, just looking around n shit it was cool. The production + arrangement are really tight & pristine and the melodies were definitely something I tried to copy when I started producing seriously in FL. Likely found this on DI’s Future Bass Station.
Darren Keen - Diamond [Seculaisis, 2014]
Another footwork track I (likely) found on the DI.FM Trap Radio Station. This shit is so rare it’s got under 15 views on youtube, like fr nobody knows bout this track which is funny cuz this was super big in my rotation, especially on the long bus rides I took from NYC to ATL. I love this track alot; the overall production is great, the chopped vocals are cool as shit & the mallets are a great touch to the vibe. I’ll always have a soft spot for Juke & Footwork music, shit’s so cool man.
Honorable Mentions
Here’s some other tracks I was rly fuckin wit from DI.FM that I wanted to shed light on:
Gramatik - While I Was Playing Fair
Flosstradamus - From the Back ft. Danny Brown
Future - Move That Dope (Non Drifter Remix)
Tall Black Guy - Rain Into The Nite Outro
The Green Man - Shut Up and Dance (RIP Ryuchi Sakamoto btw, I first found out about him thru this song cuz it samples a score he did for a film)
And this one flip of L.T.D. - Lovers Everywhere that unfortunately was lost to time & my old android phone, but I tried to remake from memory. (I remember I got laughed at by my class mates for listening to this one in middle school cuz the amens in the original tune sounded like the PowerPuff Girls theme through my headphones.)
