Dubearth Collective - Free dj mix sets

As some of our more observant visitors might have noticed there have been subtle changes to the site since the end of the now infamous Laugh! Sing! Dance! tour of Portugal by some of our collective’s members in August. Some were inside jokes (”Like a big bottle of cold water for your ears”) but one in particular is really meaningful: The swap of Fadotech to Fodastech in the sites address.

When we all first congregated at the airport to pick up Zoemer who was flying in from the Netherlands we decided that this tour would be different from a “normal” tour. I (Dubian) had already been in Lisbon for just over a week and had been down to Cascais to jam and hang out with LorenzFactor and Phalovich a few times and these sessions were always punctuated with classic Krautrock listening sessions late into the night (or more accurately early into the morning…) and we made it our mission that our tour, this creative meeting of 6 artists from 3 different countries brought together in the spirit of making new sounds, should reflect our mutual love and respect for the german psychedelic rock esthetic.

Originally all the gigs were to be recorded but the devil made a mockery of this plan since only the initial gig we played in Porto was recorded correctly on audio. However we now sit with many, many hours of short video excerpts of gigs, travelling, jamming, etc. which Zoemer has already begun editing, and which I will start to work with shortly, which will eventually be a nice short testament to our two weeks of tripping around portugal.

The accent for the performances was really based on live improvisation and collaboration. Although there were moments that could be seen as “sets” from the individual groups or artists these were short and it was never long before someone else would jump on and the whole thing would turn into a real trippy jam session in true psy fashion. And this is where we get to the Fodastech part…

When I got home at the end of August I started listening to the tapes and watching Zoemers videos of the tour and I kept thinking to myself: “Man this is so fucked up but in a magical way it works!” Out what felt like chaos and confusion and a whole lot of fun when it was happening there were true diamonds on those videos. Good memories and brilliant musical moments out of two weeks of recording just like all the old week long Krautrock sessions would always deliver brilliant 12″ records when edited.

Of course far be it from us to claim to be Krautrock…that was a moment in time that can’t be brought back to life no matter how much LSD you take! But we were onto something new, something I decided to call “fodastech”. Fodas (portuguese expression meaning all at once “fuck it” “fuck” “fucked up”) and tech for technique (and obviously not techno). It was a blend of Yin and Yang that happened instinctually. Each of us had our own way of doing things and approching live performance…we each had our technique. When we suddenly got onstage together (and the first show in Porto was only two days after Zoemer’s arrival in-country) we had to just go with our gut and jam. We had to say “fuck it” and follow each other’s vibe and let the big picture, the music, the listeners, the venue and our personal moods and, often, level of fatigue (!) take us into new ways of performing as we performed. This was no time to intellectualize…we had to do it in real time!

So there you have it…that’s what I called Fodastech. It’s our new way of living, it’s now who we are!

I think I can speak for Zoemer, LorenzFactor and Phalovich when I say that our only regret was that Connectionnist was not there to share in our insanity and fun. But the tour never ends now and the nice thing about life is that your always live with an audience and you have to ask yourself: When was the last time I had a drink of water and a piss?

What a long strange trip it’s been…saudades!

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