Drexciya | Black Sea | Breakdown

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instagram: @alexwilcoxx Patreon: Patreon.com/alexwilcox
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Stream my new release: bit.ly/BANGBANGBANGGG
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Grab it on vinyl: bit.ly/BANGBANGBANGVINYL

[@alexwilcoxx]

GET THE PROJECT/MIDI FILES BY EMAILING ME HERE: [e-mail]

[@RV-jq5pb]

In interview Drexciya state that they always record their songs live and purposefully leave any human like elements in the track to give it character.

[@X-101]

A lot of old techno records especially Detroit techno was arranged on the mixer rather than in a sequencer or computer, this means mute/unmuting stuff and upping the sends on delays and reverbs and ofc tweaking live on hardware gear

[@johnnyhawk]

Which you can still do with DAW only tracks, just assign stuff to your midi controller😊

[@Pablosko611]

@@johnnyhawklol

[@trinityverse]

Yeah, this material feels like unnoticed treasure for anyone who's interested in underground electronic music. Even though I don't produce tracks, I like to watch & listen your videos out of pure enjoyment. Excellent choice of tracks as well, Drexciya finally prompted me to write something :) salutations.

[@alexwilcoxx]

Much appreciated :) Tell a friend! Yes...Drexciya is simply too good for their own good. What type of writing?

[@trinityverse]

@@alexwilcoxx To write something - as in comment for you :) However, since you asked, I write speculative philosophy and chase inspiration whenever I can. These writings come out as poetic reflections at first, but as they mature (alongside myself), I'm leaning towards "informed essay" - that is to say - I'm trying to develop my thought on shoulders of giants who came before me. Have no idea what will come out of it the end, but I'm fine with the process itself. A note - it's all deeply rooted in my mother's tongue, for me, English is reserved just for fun. Thanks for reading, and keep on doing what you love!

[@juliancumpian2747]

glad you highlighted that when the kick comes in, it creates great syncopation and changes the feel for sure.

[@alexwilcoxx]

It does!

[@SomewhereDownThere]

Another great video Alex, thanks you. I could watch/listen to the Drexciya breakdown videos all day long.

[@OffworldRecords]

One of the (many) great aspects of Drexciya’s production is their unusual timings - bringing in kick drums unexpectedly, not waiting 4/16/32 (yawn) bars to make changes, sounds dropping out and coming back in, 1 bar introductions, etc. Clearly they weren’t DJ’s and this is a good thing.

[@alexwilcoxx]

Love your closing sentence lol. Yeah, those timings are so fun. I’ve recently been making some tracks that I hope confuse DJ’s // or at least make them really work to incorporate them in their sets

[@zrzvtadam]

@@alexwilcoxx "... I was already a fan, and I was already playing the music back when they first came out, and I had known Gerald and James because I worked in a record store in the late 80s and early 90s called Buy Rite music. So I was selling their music as well. We'd buy like 50 of them or so and put them on the shelves and we'd sell them to people. So I was already familiar with James and Gerald long before they started Drexciya. I met them, talked to them, we argued about somethings.... We argued because one of their first pieces, I think it was "Glass Domain", and I was telling them the count from the beginning of the song wasn't even. You know, it didn't come in on like an eight or a 16, it came in on like a five or a seven. And I said you shouldn't do that cause DJs are not apt to play it if the beginning isn't even. And we argued about that, but it wasn't a hostile argument. And I had told Gerald this, and the next day him and James came back in the store and we kind of argued about it, and that's how I met James. ..." -DJ Stingray - www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/interviews/dj-stingray-unedited

[@DaddyF4ts4k2]

Mate, thank you so much for that breakdown! Glad to see some People diving deeper in underground Detroit-Techno. Love!!!

[@Johanthegnarler]

Great content, i was fortunate enough to get to be around a lot of influential people in the Detroit scene in the late 90s when i wasn't partying as a teen ;D. Thanks for the breakdown, a lot of this live jammed stuff i never really thought to break down myself to learn some of the magic. Thanks for doing the hard work man!

[@davidryan2874]

Excellent

[@angelivanmunoz1158]

Bro! I loved the way that you break down this amazing song!!

[@alexwilcoxx]

glad you enjoyed :)

[@grizcuz]

That thing at the start regarding timing is called metric ambiguity. I didn't know the name of it until relatively recently having heard it used on all kinds of techno/house etc records over the years. There's a vid on here with that title that explains what's happening.

[@TheBroDotTV]

Wicked love it!

[@Trickeyshoe13]

good work man

[@vnayini]

Appreciated today's takeaway - producing live to humanize a track. I've been producing mostly with mouse and keyboard up until now, but just this past week got started with Ableton Push. It has really felt like a breakthrough and has brought more excitement to the process and more life to my tracks. Love your videos and I always look forward to the insight your analysis provides!

[@alexwilcoxx]

Varun Nayini thanks Varun :) glad you’re digging it. Tell a friend!

[@vnayini]

@@alexwilcoxx acid line: "oh, i guess we're still going" - pad: "alright, yea fine" - lmao :)

[@way310]

Half way in, but still a great vid! They definitely recorded all of their tracks live, there was an interview with James Stinson where he talked about how thats what separated them from the other people producing techno at the time (Drexciya did not use samples either). Another thing to give it that "live" feel might be the Roland R8.

[@J_Dubois]

addicted to these, please do more techno, electro etc

[@alexwilcoxx]

E S I gotcha! Tell a friend! ;)

[@J_Dubois]

@@alexwilcoxx i will!!

[@gabbers76]

Hi Alex, thanks you for the work done in your videos...Musicalement, Fabrice from Nice in France...

[@alexwilcoxx]

Of course :) Glad you enjoyed it

[@hitek_dreamz]

Great vid, more electro!

[@alexwilcoxx]

got the entire The Other People Place album on here

[@Asiosky211]

very good breakdown. a bit too "bar by bar" for a track that was produced live on hardware but damn you nailed it

[@bewdwyre9211]

Loving your content gets me hype to open Ableton

[@alexwilcoxx]

hell yeah

[@bewdwyre9211]

@@alexwilcoxx congrats for the performance opportunity. Could you do us a traumprinz/dj healer breakdown chum?

[@alexwilcoxx]

@@bewdwyre9211 performance opportunity?

[@bewdwyre9211]

@@alexwilcoxx Ellen Allien :) she's dope

[@alexwilcoxx]

@@bewdwyre9211 Oh yeah - super pumped :) thank you

[@zrzvtadam]

Great breakdown videos, I especially like the electro stuff. One feedback is that the difference of the track volume and your voice is a bit much, similar levels would be perfect but still great work and thanks!

[@alexwilcoxx]

Yeah, I need to get a little less lazy with that! hah, glad you're enjoying the videos :)

[@jasonwood9499]

Love your videos