Praxis Axis is a really stupid name which I came up with very quickly over ten years ago now, and at some stage it became too late to replace it with something better. It represents, broadly, my electronic music, especially the material which is too far removed from my (supposed) “art music” for anyone to believe that it’s all the same stuff. Even though I must insist that from my point of view it is. It IS damn it. Ok, I know you don’t get that; fine, that’s alright. But now maybe you understand why I use the stupid moniker. And I liked the rhyme. Actually I still like it. But there’s nothing to it besides the mouthfeel. Well, it is also great anagram fodder…
There are, though, elements in it which are less easy to employ in “serious music,” like being silly or funny. (Actually, even when I was young I thought, “that’s dumb” and I have never felt bad about writing non-serious serious music, though that’s another story). Axis Ax Rips also serves me in permitting any musical whim: I’m rarely *asked* to make more Ax Sir Ax Sip music, so it sits there waiting for when I feel like doing something comfortable, or crap, or over-adventurous, or whatever. The only real element of cohesion is that it’s almost entirely electronic.
The reason for that is not interesting: I play very few acoustic instruments, and the ones that I do I’m pretty poor at. Yeah yeah fellow electronic producers, laugh it up, I’m a stereotype. Actually I’m a reasonably broad-spectrum composer, and can assure you I do even music bro, but yes, my days of locking myself in a practice room with some fancy noise plumbing are long gone (not that I ever did that very well). But Axis Sax Rip would be a very different thing if I was a good player of real instruments, not a shit player of the musical equivalent of office supplies.
Honestly though that’s perfectly fine by me, I like where this has gone. It has offered me a pathway to rediscovering the aural delights of childhood exposure to late 70s electronic media music (especially TV shows, cartoons and videogames). It has allowed me to riff on one-time popular tropes like dubstep wubs, glitch hop flubs, breakbeat krugs and IDM tugs (I’m just making those up). It has enabled my reveling in post-African repetitions (that’s an in-joke), and my…sort of…, as some might say…, highbrow posturing (that’s an even more obscure in-joke, but apt, I spose).
Which (somehow?) brings me to the point: I’m putting out a new album. It’s called Moughe Diving. Rather than what could very well have been a haphazard collection, these are unified by being tunes for driving. According to me. That’s probably an important disclaimer, because god knows what you people listen to when you’re driving, and it’s time for you to learn what I think you should listen to when you’re driving: me, AKA Six Ax Pairs. Some of the time. Not when you’re not ready for it.
By the way, when I did this, it sorta occurred to me that I have not commercially released anything under the Six Ax Rip As title in the better part of a decade. I also realised I probably could have. Trouble is, now I hate too much of it. But I tell you what, there’s probably no reason I shouldn’t make some of it available. So along with this new album, I’m going to pop up a few new (old) tunes on my Bandcamp page for some crummy price that you and literally everyone else in the civilised world can afford. Oh yeah, I have a Bandcamp page now. No idea why I didn’t before, turns out I’m some sort of old idiot who doesn’t understand the digital world anywhere remotely near the bare minimum required for artistic survival in our present era. You will also find Moughe Driving on all major streaming outlets (Spotify, YouTube etc.) when it is released on the 20th of September, available for pre-order from iTunes and Spotify from the 4th of September, and available to pre-order right now from Bandcamp. The bonus tunes will turn up periodically, so follow me on Bandcamp if you want to get notifications of them.
Thomas Green Composer 