The Death of God

I have just finished reading Christopher Hitchens God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and what a stunningly written, damning account of a read it is.

To give but a brief background to its premise (although much of it can be guessed by the title), Hitchens explores and categorically contends that organised religion is nothing less than a historical culmination of fallacy, evil, violence and hypocrisy, eroding away at the foundations of humanism and free enquiry that many have strived to attain.

You may be forgiven for thinking that such a contentious issue is not be resolved without the bias of subjective opinion, let alone within a 295 page book. But you would be wrong.

It is the ease and conviction of his arguments that propels Hitchens' integrity as both an enlightened intellectual and story teller. The numerous and often dryly humorous anecdotes are delivered on the foundations of indisputable, unwavering fact and reason, and you find yourself extremely hard-pressed to disagree with him.

Now, admittedly I have been a staunch atheist for years, and those who know me will vouch for my enthusiasm in the area - but even so, Hitchens produces a toweringly powerful and compelling claim against religion that could sway even the most firmly agnostic, or even those of a confused faith.

With that said, I strongly recommend all (that includes you, believers) to take the time to read, or at the very least some of Hitchens' other work. True opinion flowers from impartial judgement, after all...

To read more of Hitchens, or to follow recent news, visit his website HERE

K.

Arktrix - Interview & Thoughts.

Fields Under Skylines managed to catch up with Kent-based producer, DJ and writer Arktrix this week, and asked him a few questions about his upcoming work, and the ever expanding popularity of bass-heavy genres. Enjoy.


Hi Arktrix, how are you doing?
Hey Kris, I'm good!


Tell us a little about yourself, who you are and where the background for your sound has come from?
I'm 24 years old and I've been making 'music' for around four years now. Before making dubstep, I used to make ambient sound scape pieces that were heavily influenced by the drone metal and post rock genres. Thankfully they will never see the light of day as for the most part, they were experiments and sounded like absolute crap.


How did the name come about?
I don't fully remember. Though I'm pretty sure it had something to do with walking home from a friends house late one night slightly under the influence and going past a street that's name ended with “trix” and then thinking of a few different things to put before it. Luckily no-one else had thought to use Arktrix before.

You also head the popular blog 45hz which takes a look at both local and global bass-driven acts. How has that been going?
It has been going from strength to strength. I was going through the sites stats the other night and I had to pick my jaw up off the floor pretty much when I saw that people as far away as New Zealand and Japan have been listening to the mixes and reading the articles and interviews. When it comes to the blog itself, the heads that end up on 45hz are there usually because they've been in touch via Soundcloud, Facebook or AIM in the past and we've kept in contact. I like to know what a person's like before committing to promoting them. There are a lot of people in this scene that are involved for purely selfish personal reasons other than pushing good wholesome music that moves them. That is something I do not want to be a part of. Thankfully the large majority of people I've approached have shared the same sentiments and the blog has allowed me to talk and share ideas with some people I never thought I could've done twelve months ago. Especially the Sub Lab family I'm a part of.

Given the recent rise in popularity for bass-orientated music, how do you think Kent's own scene has been keeping up?
Its always been big around here. More so on the drum and bass side of things, but as for Dubstep we have three of the biggest names in the scene in amongst our ranks in the forms of J:Kenzo, Stenchman and Rod Azlan. On the more 'grassroots' side of it all we have heads like J-One, Mosaix, Pressa, Lex, Wen and myself who are all pushing the deeper side of things and on the jump up side of things we have Thanet locals Doomtrooper and Dr Bloodnugget and Medway head Kursa Vexille. A lad called Arcane from Deal is also well worth keeping an eye on for his “all styles” multi genre mixing skills.

Any acts you're tipping to be making a name for themselves in the near future?
It might be biased, but Sub Lab the label I signed to not so long ago is definitely one to keep watch for. All the producers and DJ's involved are making some seriously amazing music and I cannot wait to see where it all goes over the next few years. Besides that I've got high hopes for Wen. His tunes are on some next level business. The intricacy and care he puts into his drums and sub bass is phenomenal and it shows.

Mosaix is also one to keep an eye on. He was in the first lot of DJ's announced for the Outlook Festival this year, made a blinder of a track with J:Kenzo that has been seeing a LOT of support from the Youngsta & Toast on their RinseFM slot and he's one of the most pleasant people I've ever dealt with in the Dubstep circles. 

As for further afield in the UK, Compa from my old home town up north is making some big waves at the moment with some ultra minimal beats.

 Many genres need to re-invent themselves in order to stay fresh. In what direction can you see dubstep taking since its mainstream explosion?
I'm not too bothered, I know the styles I like and push will always have their niche and always have unwavering support from the fans. Commercial music by its very nature doesn't have this luxury and I'm glad for that in a way




Any new projects/collabs in the works?
I'm currently trying to work out some remixes with a female vocalist and maybe do some original tunes with her too. Its all talk at the minute, but I'm hoping it pans out well. 

There is some stuff that will be surfacing towards the end of summer that is being worked on by myself and three other locals who shall remain nameless until the time comes. 

Also I should hopefully be getting some stuff done with a lad from Medway who goes under the name Kursa Vexille too. 

What advice would you give to any rookie/would-be producer who wants to start putting their stuff out there?
Focus on getting your knowledge of production, synthesis and sampling techniques up as these are things that require time and dedication if you want the ability to deal with problems as they occur in the writing process.

Try and make sure you have a decent monitoring set up with your speakers, or if you don't then at least try out your tunes on a good few different types of speakers and headphones before you upload your first tune. Laptop speakers are good for pretty much nothing, so don't attempt it on them.

There is nothing worse than vibing off a tune only to have some ear piercing frequencies hit you halfway through. EQ is one of the most helpful tools a producer can use. 

Also, protect your ears. You don't need to have your speakers set to full when you're working on music. You risk short term hearing fatigue which will affect the quality of the music you produce and long term loss of hearing within specific frequencies.

Finally, favourite crisp flavour? 
Salt and Vinegar. Anything else is an absolute crime to humanity.


Big thanks to Arktrix - I'll leave you with two tracks; the sub-wobbling Initiation and the absolutely beautiful collaboration with local producer J-One - Capture. Both of these tracks can be found on his SOUNDCLOUD PAGE with a whole host of other gems.
Also, don't forget to check out the brilliant 45hz BLOG while you're at it...


K.


  Initiation by ARKTRIX


  Arktrix & J-One - Capture by ARKTRIX