This website was founded back in 1998…or maybe it was 1997.

The plot was to focus on networking; to create a kind of hub for this sound i was hearing in my head.

My friend Volo & i geeked out endlessly with very crude html concepts, lots of free music. Back then i was experimenting with:

• slowing down drum & bass, or half-timing it into some kind of wierd hip hop.
• making downtempo feel heavier and more extreme
• using pschedelic bass noises in bizzare ways, almost like the vocals in death metal
• trying to take trance/techno records and make them sound less robotic.
• adding more live drummer feel to programmed beats
• adding more electronic music creativity to “rave music” (tape splicing, tweaking big old school patch bays and vintage modular synths..lots of physical manipulation of recording equipment)
• verbing lots of genres, basically. then re-verbing them again and again.

There was a really cool crossover scene in California at the time, for some reason i didn’t have a proper outlet for releasing music, so i kind of just gave it away, and focused on community: creating events, overseeing sound systems, just trying to bring the noise in a positive way, merging the punk rock DIY mindset with pretty much any sub-sect of counter culture that came along.

Anyhow, the website went through lots of transitions, and thanks to Jon Buril @ idiom lab, got a major update right around the time i released ‘Underground Communication’ on OM… the plan was to get way way way more political, and develop Bassnetwork as a kind of live discussion forum and news exchange. Other plans existed as well, but touring got so completely hectic and nonstop that 2 years flashed by and very little music got released, very little noise got made on the site, and only little bits of progress were made on bassnetwork, or any kind of multi-dimensional blog thing.

Meanwhile Myspace picked up and i ended up posting things there, but am always so weary of Rupert Murdoch, and just any kind of 3rd party machine…so Daysha came along, and with the help of several dozen bassnectar-ers (thanks directly to Elliott, Lia, Dave, Kalani and Ralf!) the reigns were basically handed over to rebuild a very expandable, automatable creature with vast potential in outreach, intra-webular development, and so forth. [daysha sez: majority of the site is open source, so uses technology that is free for all :]

So we are kind of launching this BETA test…it has a lovely new face, and minor updates and adjustments here and there, but really this is just kind of the nest, or the laboratory itself. Most of the features we have planned out are yet to be added and applied, but expect a LOT more activity both online and on the road, with this pulsing website as the central processing station.

I could go twitter about this, or facebook about it, or myspace about it, or email about it, but eventually it can all stream through here with loads of exclusive, direct music launches, multimedia packages, forum discussions, and real-time information exchanges.

It’s about to get hectic again with tour kicking off in May, and we will be not only pushing the new releases on Amorphous Music, but also getting a gang-load of follow ups through various channels set to spike, so as always stay tuned, and feel free to get in touch.

MUCH LOVE!

L