Drum & Lace Field Notes 19

Autumnal Dissociation & right timings

Happy Monday and October everyone,

The seemingly endless month of September is finally behind us and I was thinking about how incredibly insane, inane, upsetting and dizzyingly-full those thirty days were. It is always a month where everyone settles back into a routine post-summer, but a lot of the month had me feeling like a spinning top, trying to simultaneously stay upright to keep up AND find a comfortable place to land without knocking something over. Essentially metaphorically treading water while simultaneously feeling like I wasn’t doing enough. Oh and did I mention we also adopted a cat? Like things aren’t already mad enough, lol.

I came across a video this weekend talking about how social media supposedly hit its peak in 2022 and has since then seen a steady decline in use. Does that mean that people are spending more of that time with people in real life? Or are they just spending more time on another app? This clip also seemed to imply that this opens up space for more ‘slop spewing’ apps to come along, which is.. regrettable. Who knows. But I saw hope in it and just keep thinking about an experience I had this summer of seeing a group of younger teens playing cards (without a phone in sight) while at the beach bar in Italy this past summer. Personally, I have found that ever since I’ve started actively writing this substack & staying offline for longer periods of time, my imposter syndrome has decreased significantly and my feelings of self-worth haven’t been as challenged. I find myself being more present throughout the day and have been driving Ian/my house crazy lately with my recurring question ‘where did I leave my phone?’. Again, taking this as a win!

That said, regrettably the last week has not been the best example of this but it can be blamed solely on the fact that two film scoring related releases just happened to come out a week from one another. As I mentioned in the last Field Notes, the first being the drama ‘All of You’, which is now streaming on Apple TV+, and the second being documentary Prime Minister, which is now streaming on HBO Max. On top of them being out, soundtracks for both are out now on all music platforms, and I have been so pleased to see how well received both of these releases have been. Thanks to anyone that’s watched either film and/or reached out about it!

Listen to All of You here // Listen to Prime Minister here

I’ve been particularly surprised by ‘All Of You’, as it first premiered over a year ago and has felt a bit like ‘the small sensitive film that could’. It just goes to show that you can never really know what is actually going to take off, and you sometimes just land on that 'right place, right time’ thing. Both of these films feel very timely for different reasons, and I’m just happy for people to finally be able to see both! I walked to our local cinema today, Hackney Picture House, and they let me have one of the film posters for ‘All of You’, picture with the other randoms from lately at the bottom of the post.

Something that’s been keeping me busy behind the scenes and what has been exciting in the last week is the announcement of the lineup for the next Solstice Solidarity Synthesis. The lineup is truly stacked with some great electronica time around and I’m quite excited for December 17th, once again at The Old Church in Stoke Newington (London). The proceeds from the concert this time are going to a charity that is local to London called City Harvest London, who’s objective is to save surplus food and distribute it to folks experiencing food poverty in the city. This feels particularly pertinent given the holiday season which overlaps with the Winter Solstice. The lineup consists of (in alphabetical order) - Drum & Lace, Elisa (DJ Set), Louf, rhubiqs and Sinemis. Tickets are available now on Resident Advisor (here), with Advance tickets at £17, General Admission and door tickets are £20. See the poster below for more!

In other artist-related news, I took some new press photos in late September, just before the leaves started falling & the fields in the Walthamstowe Marshes started turning into mud. Incredibly awesome to take photos in one of my favorite places near me, and to be working again with the amazing Marieke Macklon. Now, I am working on refining the visual components and graphic elements for my next upcoming release, which will be out early next year! (I’m the worst but) That’s as much details as I can give you and I’m sorry if this ‘coming soon’ bs is a pet peeve of yours. Below is a photo as a very vague sneak peek of it all.

I am truly trying to be patient and actually allow myself time to get everything ready. I constantly struggle with not oversharing, even if it’s not fully come together. It’s just hard when the music is written and you’re just sitting thinking ‘can people hear it already!’. I have made the mistake in the past to not allow enough time for all the elements of a release to come together, then struggling to maintain unrealistic deadlines (and putting pressure on collaborators). So this is for the best, I think? I also understand that when working with a label, that is juggling a lot of other artist and a packed schedule, things just take time. Being over-the-moon about the label that is releasing this new music is one of the many things that is making the wait worth it!

Lastly, I have a few things up For Your Consideration for this year’s GRAMMYs, so if you’re a voting member please consider - ‘Marmo’ by Drum & Lace in the Best Dance/Electronic Recording category, and ‘Grosse Pointe Garden Society’ by Ian Hultquist & Sofia degli Alessandri in the Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media!

In spite of all of the above and what feels like the never-ending social commitments lately, I spent a wonderful day at a very wholesome pumpkin patch in Sussex yesterday, definitely autumnally dissociating from the state of the world / state of concern that I find myself in every day. It was terribly quaint, down to the pick-your-own pumpkin patch that was really more of a really well manicured field. I did then spent part of last night in an online rabbit-hole of AI and limiting information, but that’s for another time.

But now I turn it to you - how is everyone balancing keeping yourself sane and present for the people you love while also acknowledging and acting as a decent human in society? There are amazing moments that act as moments of resilience and community that deeply affect me, such as seeing people showing up for democracy at events such as multi-day protests in Italy or the incredible turnout in Amsterdam yesterday. This video also made me cry last night - we lost a really incredible human last week, you’ll be missed Dr Jane Goodall.

I leave you on a reminder that tomorrow is an incredibly strong Super Full Moon, the first one of 2025, so if you’re like me, you’re likely to be a bit of an emotional mess. If you’re not, good for you and don’t listen to all my woo-woo shit. But if you’re into it, this full moon in Aries is a great time to focus on community and to remind yourself you don’t have to do everything on your own (note very much that I need to take, oops.) So mobilize, get your community together, make/have dinner with some friends.

That feels like a lovely place to leave off for today- sending everyone all the best October vibes. Go jump into a pile of leaves, or something.

xoxo,

D & L