The cult of cool is bullshit. I was listening to BBC6 earlier today and this track came on. My first thought? This isn’t cool. The reason I’m writing this message is because I noticed that thought and I don't think it was useful. Bruce Mau, the Canadian designer, once said: cool is conservatism dressed in black. And he’s right: “cool” is often just a way of saying this doesn’t fit, that doesn’t fit. Cool can be used as a weapon. To exclude and exclude… until only the chosen remain. Fucking boring, reductive, and based in fear. That's why I wanted to check myself - my cool and your cool do not need to be the same. And if we’re digging deep, it’s the antithesis of the roots of this scene—which was built on love, acceptance, and belonging (thanks in no small part to MDMA’s ability to dissolve imagined cultural boundaries). What’s much more powerful than cool by someone else’s standards isFiguring out what’s fucking cool to you.Figuring out what’s exciting to you.Figuring out what would make you and your friends lose their shit—not some imagined “cool kids.” And I say this as someone who’s spent a large part of my adult life trying to fit in, or trying to appeal to the imaginary moving target that is “cool kids.” What I’ve come to realise is this: the best, most interesting, most cool shit I make is when I’ve got a clear idea of the space I’m writing for—and the experience I had in that space, how it felt, smelt & sounded. It’s not about fitting into someone else’s gang.It’s about recreating my personal experienceSo your cool and my cool can life together "As one family". That’s the gang we're gathering inside the Unreaosnable Artist Community. Hope this makes sense and was useful to you.Tx. PS – The community is currently closed, but if you’d like to join the waitlist, to be told when next we have a spot, just hit reply.

If you struggle to move from loops > songs, or would just like some fresh ways oil up your creative machine, just drop me a comment below and I'll ping you over a framework you can use. x

I wanted to share this story with you. This will resonate if you’ve ever been surprised by your own music turning up in the wild. About two years ago I was at We Out Here Festival. One of the lovely fellas who helped set it up lives in the same village as me in Somerset – as such, a large contingent of us turn out every year. That year we had the kids with us, which is both lovely and sometimes a little exhausting. What it also means is late nights are rationed — because kicking on until 4am when you’ve got three small people waking you up at 7am is… not a vibe. Saturday was my night. My wife had Friday, and I was gonna get after it — in a reasonable, but still enjoyable way. Around 7pm I bid farewell to the fam, found my crew in Rhythm Corner, and settled in. We danced together as the sun started to sink lower in the sky. Crew came and went, but a nucleus remained — all vibrating with that special “we’re out (here)” energy. A way into proceedings I took a short walk to find refreshment, leaving my gang in Rhythm Corner and heading to the bar just outside… when my night took a turn I’ll never forget. In the distance I caught a sound that made my ears prick. My spider senses sharpened. My ears tuned into the tune coming in the mix. It was mine. WTF!? Cue top-speed floaty running. CC:Disco was banging out my edit of Roy Ayers’ Chicago to what felt like a gazillion people — including a whole herd of my mates. I made it back into Rhythm Corner just in time to hear the tune in full flex and see my mates. Grabbing one of my better mates forcibly: “This is one of mine.” “Whattttt?” “It’s one of mine.” “Fucking get in!!!” That tune came out over ten years ago. But that moment is gonna live with me for a long time. I’m smiling now thinking about it.I’ll smile when I tell the story again. And here’s the point: if I hadn’t finished and released that tune, that memory wouldn’t exist. No goosebumps, no shouting “this is mine” to my mates, no story I’ll carry for life.

You might say something like: "Hi my name is Squirrell Nutkins, I've been programming additive synth patches since I was a toddler and enjoy very much a little bit of boom-tish chugga chugga music - here's a link to some of my music on Soundcloud"

My question to you is simple Why the f*ck are you doing this? So many hours alone, away from friends, family, life? I don’t know about you, but let me share WHY I make my music. Firstly because it’s fun And it really is When those first few elements start to gel The drums have just the right amount of thud and click, and the whole becomes greater than the sum of it’s parts... And the groove that emerges creates the images in my head of people dancing And I have to turn the monitors up LOUD… as loud as I can get away with… Fuckkkkk… some of the best fun to be had with your clothes on - isn't it? 😁 Secondly I’m proving to myself that I can. Thirdly, I'm showing myself, that I do have something to say And finally, what I have to say has some value I’ll be honest my internal critic can be a vicious little bastard, and he’ll whisper all sorts of shit in my ear about My age My relevance My remoteness from a major city My lack of… well, pretty much anything and everything So yes alongside the fun, I am looking for validation. I could pretend I’m some zen high wizard sat cross legged atop a mountain… That my breath and the scent of the flowers alone is all the validation i need, but I’m not there yet I like it when my music is played. When people reach out to me on instagram, whatsapp or email and say: “I love away away away” (track from a recent release on SUPERUNKNOWN) “your music really hits the spot for me” Or like when last week I randomly got tagged by Godfather of House Mr Fingers, Who it turns out is a fan… W.. T… absolute F? And he’s been playing my music, my songs, with me singing on them 👀 👀 👀 💥 💥 💥 Those little plops of goodness The droplets of appreciation Are enough to quiet the inner bastard down a bit. And let me get on with having fun and creating the art. Like Seth Godin says: “This game is infinite. And the aim is to keep on playing” What I’ve found out is this… The love that comes back is directly related to how much I put myself out there, how much I put my work, my art out there.