I have recently returned from a fair bit of solo travel that included time with friends, family, and some study. There is something special about travelling alone that is uniquely thought provoking. I am reminded of a quote that I’m not able to determine the provenance of but that has long rattled around my head – ‘there is no loneliness quite like the loneliness of a long drive home late at night, having visited worlds that no one else will ever know.’ I’m confident the same can be said of a long overnight flight returning home, too.
This mix was recorded live in Vancouver on the first weekend of the trip at my good friend Dan’s groovy inner city pad. It carries throughout a couple of relevant thematic elements, and served as my soundtrack for the rest of the journey. With a DJ booth facing the outdoor terrace, and the terrace offering an elevated view of Gastown, Chinatown and surrounds with all of its urban grit and energy, Dan’s place was a really fun space to catch up with friends and reconnect.
I played a really fun house party gig in the inner west last night, sharing the controls with two very good friends. We’ve played a lot of gigs together over the years, from sharing residencies here in Melbourne nearly twenty years ago through to countless club gigs, parties and get-togethers in all sorts of interesting places with many lovely people over the years in between. A good gig remains equal parts energising and cathartic.
It’s amazing to reflect on just how quickly twenty years can go by – and who we have each become in the process. Somewhere along the way we’ve each turned into actual adults. Hard to say where or when it happened, even with the benefit of hindsight. Thankfully, we have stayed connected to each other, and I’d like to think we’ve stayed true to ourselves.
While we’re each indubitably twenty years older than we were twenty years ago, and we’ve each added a few wrinkles and grey hairs since those heady nights of the noughties, nights like last night really reinforce the power and importance of enduring good friendships. It’s also a friendly reminder of just how timeless shared musical bonds can be. While it’s true that many of the ‘old school classics’ we played last night were our up front and fresh new catches twenty years ago, it also goes to show that a good tune is a good tune is a good tune. As the old John Digweed saying goes, the only thing that matters is what comes out of the speakers.
This is episode 118 of MFSA. There is some sensational music contained within, including a couple of bits of wax that I had been checking the post for regularly prior to their arrival. Enjoy.
I celebrated a milestone recently. To mark the occasion, we spent a few days in sunny Brisbane. While it wasn’t a long trip, it was a relaxing trip, and an inspiring one, too.
In such a context it is hard not to reflect with some depth on one’s mortality and one’s time and place in the world. Thankfully, the trip involved plenty of walking, plenty of time in nature, plenty of time in the ocean, and plenty of time doing not-very-much. Good for the soul, I suspect.
This is episode 117 of Music For Small Audiences. Recorded live the weekend before the trip, it’s a laid back look at some of the more reflective music in my collection, including a few modern takes on some classics, and a few groovy tunes that have been stuck in my head for weeks. It builds from a gentle start, and is exactly the sort of set I’d play for a lazy late-afternoon-into-early-evening subtropical sunset poolside get together. Enjoy.
Sometimes it’s important to play to your strengths. Sometimes it’s important to work on your weaknesses. For some reason the former always sounds much more appealing than the latter.
After a nearly ten year break, I have returned to study. I am hoping some of the topics covered will be within my existing areas of knowledge. At the same time, I both look forward to and fear the parts that are at the moment completely foreign to me. Time will tell I suppose.
This is the 116th installment of Music For Small Audiences. At just under four hours, it was recorded live on March 2024. As befits my current headspace, it contains within at least one unveiled reference to the connection between effort and reward. As always, perspective is everything. I hope you enjoy.
Never trust a thought that occurs indoors, the saying goes.
We are into the final third of summer here in Australia, and at the risk of tempting the sun gods, I daresay the weather has started to stabilise – as far as Melbourne weather ever does, anyways. The combination of pleasant weather and still-long-enough evenings makes for plenty of time to be outdoors and introspective, while the ever-shortening days also serve as a reminder that soon enough we’ll be back to heaters and scarves.
As the year comes to a close, it seems natural to reflect on the year that has passed, and where it has taken us. Are we where we intended to be? Where we wanted to be? Or are we somewhere else, somewhere better defined as the logical destination given the decisions we made over the course of the year?
So I suppose too that it’s natural to cast a critical eye to the year ahead. What needs to change – and what needs to continue – if we are to hit closer to the mark of optimistic intent, come twelve months from now? As always, the answer (for me at least) lies in balancing the needs and wants of those two eternally uneasy acquaintances – my present and future self.
In line with the spirit of reflection and relaxation that is generally intended to accompany one’s summer holiday, this is an extended, exploratory mix. In its latter half it has a number of modern takes on some timeless clubland classics that I hope spark some positive nostalgic memories for you as they do for me. Enjoy, and here’s to our 2024.
I have recently returned from a few weeks in Canada. The trip included a weekend with some very good friends, during which I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to play an extended set on what is probably my favourite pair of speakers in the world.
Set up well in a great sounding loft conversion in Toronto’s inner west, it was a chance to reconnect, recharge, and recycle the same stories that seem to get funnier each time they are told.
This is the live recording of the set that I played on that Friday night a few weeks ago. It includes a few of the vinyl records I took as gifts, a record I was given in return, a few classics both original and reworked, and a lot of the music that kept me company on the 32,000km round trip.
As always, good friends with good records makes for a good weekend indeed.
I’ve long been intrigued by the end user experience of modern medicine, and what can at times feel to the layperson like a focus on only fixing what is broken. If we are unwell past a certain arbitrary threshold, we receive medical intervention until we are back to baseline. We heal, we rehabilitate, we repair, and we focus on eliminating the negative to bring things back to where they should be, wherever ‘should’ is, and that’s it. If the symptoms aren’t serious enough to warrant intervention, we ride them out.
But there is an argument to be made that health – both physical and mental – exists on a continuum. At any given moment we’re neither well nor unwell, but somewhere in between, doing the best we can. As such, we take in stride the odd intermittent symptom or mood that shows up while we are trying to get through the day in one piece. In that regard, I reckon both Seal and Gnarls Barkley had it right with their take on things – that we’re all a bit not-quite-right at times, just to varying degrees.
This is Episode 112 of Music For Small Audiences. Recorded a few days ago on the last weekend of the southern winter, it leans heavily on a few bits of vinyl that have recently arrived in the post, and contains much of the music that has been keeping my boat afloat in recent weeks.
Much has been said about the importance of time management. When time is tight and competing priorities overlap, it can be easy to succumb to a sense of guilt that things may be missed or not prioritised appropriately.
I had a bit of an epiphany from an article I read a few years ago – a lightbulb moment after years of reflecting on how to best manage my time, where I realised that it was just as much my energy that I needed to better manage.
Doing stuff is hard, and is made harder by not being in the right headspace for the task or project at hand. Determining what needs to be done against both objective priority and in-the-moment capacity is as much art as it is science, and the reality of knowledge work is that there is never enough time or energy to get everything done to the standard it deserves. Sometimes all we can do is work to the moment as best we can, and hope we are leaving the right things undone.
Negativity can be seductive. As we get older, our awareness seems to build about just how much can go wrong at any given moment – personally, professionally, geopolitically, economically, and physically. It’s easy to be fearful, and the more acutely aware we are of the worst case scenario, the more tempting it can be to jump at shadows or assume the worst.
Having taken a month long break from running on account of a strange feeling in my left knee, it was a huge relief to get back out in recent days to find the pain gone. The last time I had an issue with my knee I ended up needing surgery, and so the wave of optimism I felt with the realisation I was back on track was palpable.
On an administrative note, I’ve recently updated a few back end settings on my podcast feed. If you have found this episode in your subscription alongside the previous episodes and are none the wiser as to this change, then I have set things up correctly! If you have had to unsubscribe and resubscribe, or if previous episodes are not showing up prior to this one, then my apologies, I’ll keep on it. As always, every episode of MFSA is available for streaming and direct download in high quality MP3 format at mbelleghem.com.
We all have our idiosyncrasies. Two of mine are closely related, in that I love a good quotation, and I am a sucker for a good cliché. In both cases, I like to think of them as bits of distilled wisdom that have stood the test of time. But as Abraham Lincoln once dryly noted, the problem with looking up old quotes on the internet is that you can never be too sure if they have been attributed correctly.
With that said, it has been a really interesting couple of weeks, both for me and for some of those I am closest to. For some, new beginnings and new hope. For others, closure and completion after a period of turbulence and difficulty. It is a strange thing to see so much change clustered around the late April and early May period. As Alexander Graham Bell may or may not have opined, when one door closes, another one opens.
This is Episode 109 of Music For Small Audiences. An extended set, it evolves over a series of distinctly different phases, each with its own energy and emotional content. I hope you enjoy.
A commonly accepted definition of sustainability is the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future. So how then to make a future worth waiting for, without shortchanging our ability to fully seize the present moment?
There are many tradeoffs and worse in daily life as we try to ensure that today is OK while not robbing ourselves of tomorrow. Stay up late or get up early? Smash the fun button, or play it safe? Keep your eye on the prize, or sit back and enjoy the spectacle? Focus on the destination, or enjoy the ride? Recent weeks have given me a newly refreshed appreciation for both sides of that balancing act – leading in turn to the inevitable question, why not both?
The summer holiday period is drawing to a close here in Australia, and we have just come back from a few weeks travelling through New Zealand’s South Island. The landscape is extraordinary to the point of being mind expanding, and every day was a reminder of just how beautiful the world can be. We were fortunate to have had excellent weather, meaning plenty of time to hike and bike and further explore a very special corner of the world.
Travel is often an opportunity for personal growth. In this case it also provided a catalyst for a bit of longer term, whole life planning and reflection. Thinking at these longer time horizons leads to some existential reflection, and the realisation when trying to talk it out that not every emotion has a name.
As the old Hans Christian Andersen quote goes – and with due credit to Eelke Kleijn who duly reminds us at the start of each of his podcast episodes – where words fail, music speaks.
This is episode 107 of Music For Small Audiences. It was recorded live just a few hours before Santa’s anticipated arrival down the proverbial chimney on Christmas Eve, marking the first day of my summer holiday break. It has some very new tunes, some timeless classics, and some very new reworks of some even older timeless classics. As befits a proper end of year celebration it is again an extended affair, best enjoyed wherever you happen to be.
There is something exciting about covering new ground. The transition from known to unknown brings with it a sense of renewal and energy, and it can be quite fun to explore that little bit further, and to cover a little bit of new ground at the edge of a previously understood boundary.
One of the things I quite like about Melbourne is the quiet sense of perpetual renewal I feel when exploring it. While the city’s infrastructure is not perfect, it gets incrementally better each year. The paths get a little bit wider and more clearly marked, the streetscapes and amenities are refreshed and the structures and signage are rebuilt, meaning that even familiar territory is constantly evolving.
Sometimes when I’m out on foot on one of my usual routes, I even find a well-worn path has a new addition at the end of it – adding a little bit of unknown at the end of a well-trodden familiarity. New can be challenging, but new can also be invigorating.
It has been an unusual weekend. It has been an unusual year.
Springtime in Melbourne often brings a bit of rain. With another La Nina apparently on the horizon, we have seen quite a bit of rain already. So much so, in fact, that it has exposed the failings of our second story roof drainage system. Not a fun way to spend the weekend.
While there is plenty of truth in the old adage that if you want something done right you have to do it yourself, there is an added element of excitement and uncertainty when the task involved requires working at heights.
Even still, if 2022 has taught me anything, it has taught me that life is short. As such, there is a balance to be struck between getting things done and staying alive. The joys of home ownership indeed.
This is episode 105 of Music For Small Audiences. It was recorded live the evening of a belated birthday celebration, and at four hours and twenty two minutes long, it represents a bit of a catching up with regards to some of the music I have been enjoying in recent times. Having spent a few months overseas this year the episodes have come a bit more slowly, but the good news is that the travels have introduced me to some fantastic new tunes, some of which are here, and some of which I will be showcasing in the episodes to come.
I have recently returned from a fair bit of solo travel that included time with friends, family, and some study. There is something special about travelling alone that is uniquely thought provoking. I am reminded of a quote that I’m not able to determine the provenance of but that has long rattled around my head – ‘there is no loneliness quite like the loneliness of a long drive home late at night, having visited worlds that no one else will ever know.’ I’m confident the same can be said of a long overnight flight returning home, too.
