After The Smoke Is Clear 728
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Below this write-up, you’ll find the track list, complete with artists, albums, and the city they represent. If you’re using the Mixcloud app to listen, hit the “…” to check out the track list. Above this there’s usually also a video from the Twitch stream where I slapped the mix together.
Most weeks I go live on Thursdays to DJ on Twitch. Come through and say hi, hang out and listen to music. I’m streaming often on weekday afternoons: working on ATSIC on Thursdays; listening to the Canadian new releases each Friday or Saturday to make picks for the show; or talking with artists for Fly In Formation interviews on Tuesdays. I’m trying to do some streams working on my own music when I can find time. The Thursday Making of ATSIC stream where I spun this week’s mix is posted under this.
I did two mixes back to back last week for a couple of reasons. The CKXU station where my show airs twice weekly was running its annual FUNdrive, so they needed a special episode from me for my Monday night slot. This year the theme of the week for the fund raiser was Dino DOOM - so really I should have done some elaborate remix project with DOOM beats and Canadian emcees mashed up, but instead of that, I decided to attend to the other reason this mix got made: I had, and still have, an incredible backlog of music I bought over the summer and still haven’t played on ATSIC yet.
Aside from the huge pile of boom bap and ever growing stack of trap music I have collecting on “ATSIC unplayed” playlists on my computer, I’ve been saving a bunch of love songs. Love songs are especially tough to impress me with, so the ones that I end up choosing and buying are perhaps being held to an even higher standard than the other lanes. People have been singing and rhyming about love and sex for a long time in a lot of different ways, and a lot of the stuff I hear just sounds like retread. As a result, there are tracks on this playlist that go back a year or few, because that’s just how long I’ve been waiting to have enough good music to play beside it in a mix where it makes sense.
For the CKXU fund raiser radio version I do a lot more begging between songs, which probably ruins any mood the music was setting, but most people hearing FM are probably on their drivetime or somthing like that anyways. This online version on Mixcloud has the mix mostly uninterrupted by my shouting or much sample dropping.
Listen to the music. Go buy something.
Fly in Formation is back for weekly interviews now until December. The week to week schedule is still a surprise usually announced just before the interview happens - but I’ll always be talking indie Hip Hop with someone worth talking with. You can watch every interview I’ve done up until this point on Youtube - Leave a comment, hit like, or show some love and run up the playlist - it’ll help the algorithm show this content to more people, which will get more Canadian music in more ears.
I buy every track I play on ATSIC (unless it’s sent to me). Streaming barely pays, so it’s essential to support indie artists by buying their music, tickets, or merch to keep them creating. Listening to #ATSIC on Mixcloud is free for you, and makes sure that each song you hear pays the artist at least SOMETHING. Spotify pays 0.006 CAD per stream, and that’s only if the song hits 1000 plays in 3 months. Assuming a song gets 1000 spins, that means it takes around 125 Spotify plays to earn an artist the same .76 cents they earn from my 1.29 purchase on iTunes. Spotify is also now investing the billions they earn into weaponized AI drones, which is just awful, frankly. Fuck those guys - I use it because it’s the only realistic way to keep up with all these drops from all these artists, but I never listen to anything more than twice on there - because I go buy a digital single of anything I like that much. You could to, and the musicians would thank you.
Shows like After the Smoke is Clearalso need support. If you appreciate discovering new music without the algorithm, or if you appreciate my efforts to get indie artist’s music in more ears, consider donating via PayPal to help me buy the tracks and keep the show going. Every dollar helps indie artists and ATSIC alike.
If you can’t donate, that’s all good — people who can afford it are paying, and you get to enjoy a free show while I earn a living. Do me a favour though, and help spread the word to other people who love Hip Hop! Shoutout to everyone who is already supporting financially, by sharing the show, or by coming through in comments and chat to help build community.
Stay up.
