I am over-the-moon with joy that one of my favourite musical artists Grouch is coming to the Audio Alchemy Retreat in May to share his music production knowledge! This guy has inspired me so much, I feel the need to tell the whole back story, with some creative embellishments for good measure ;)
Taken by Caspian Kai at Envision Festival Costa Rica 2016
It was February 2011, I was a few weeks into my first ever Australasian tour, and had just flown into Nelson on the South Island of New Zealand at about 10pm. After a 2 hour drive up a steep winding mountain road in darkness, I arrived at Luminate Festival in the Canaan downs. It was tipping down with rain, I was wet and exhausted, but thrilled to finally be at my destination, 11,500 miles from my home in Scotland.
After getting shown to my tent and navigating my way through the dark fields to the source of the distant beats, I walked out from behind the speaker cabinets to see about 1000 ecstatic dancers going utterly wild in the downpour, bouncing, writhing in ecstasy, spending more time in the air than on the ground. Beams of light shimmered across their bodies and refracted through the raindrops, illuminating the ancient beech trees with shifting fractal patterns.
The music was the most refined, technically advanced, trippy, groovy, exotic beats and bass I’d ever heard. Deeply tribal, but also ultra-futuristic, dark but playful, highly charged but also relaxed, humorous yet mischievous, clever and cheeky. An ingenious unity of opposites that was irresistible to move to, managing to transcend every dance music cliche in the book and create a totally authentic experience from one moment to another.
I’ve had some peak dance floor moments in my life, but this was different, like a dream, like I’d unlocked a new level in this musical journey we call life. I felt like I was being musically upgraded, that some archaic codes were being activated in my DNA. These frequencies were unlike anything i'd ever heard and they were going in DEEP.
My mind was lighting up with symbols and patterns, new knowledge taking root in my brain with each passing beat. I felt like I was under a spell, magnetised to the dance floor, laughing and crying, tracing shapes through the aether, dancing like a lunatic. I was getting lucid geometric visions despite having had no plant-medicine assistance (rare!).
Who was this dreadlocked wizard on the stage? And what the f_ck was he doing to me?
It was of course Grouch - or Oscar Allison to his mum - the New Zealand born producer who has been excelling at psychedelic music in all of it’s forms for the best part of 2 decades, lighting up dance floors the world over with an unmistakable sound that is all his own.
Legend has it that he spent much of his youth in “hippy drum circles” on the paradisiacal beaches of New Zealand, hammering out tribal rhythms on his djembe for days on end, while the great nature spirits of the land gathered to watch and listen. Some say he has tapped out more beats than there are grains of sand on the Earth, and that his timing is tighter than a gnats nose.
One day, while dutifully attending to his work as a rhythmic ninja, the Gods decided to bestow a great musical secret on his impressionable young psyche, a secret so powerful, so psychedelic, so dubtastic, that it would alter the course of electronic music forever.
Like the Ring of Power or the Philosophers Stone, this secret wisdom would help him transform into the magical musical weapon he is today. But the Gods put one condition on this great gift: he must always stay humble, and pretend like he’s “just some regular kid” from New Zealand who likes to make beats.
Whatever he is, and whatever he knows, he has been one of the most influential musicians to me since then!
Taken at Solasta Festival 2017 in Tenessee by me
I approached him shortly after this mind melting set, trying to suppress my inner fan-boy from spilling out in embarrassing ways, I wanted to get to know some of his production secrets, but I couldn’t really think of any good questions except “Hoooow????”
We both played Luminate and Alien Nation festivals and kept in touch throughout the year. He taught me some tricks via Skype and actually inspired me to start offering online tuition services myself (which led to the creation of @audioalchemy in 2016).
I made a remix of his track Reverse Entropy for Enig’matik Records, and in Feb 2012 when I returned to Australia, I met up with him in Melbourne and we spent a day making weird noises and beats together.
Due to time constraints, we each took these sonic seeds away and planted them in our studios, growing them into what became Lumination (Hedflux Mix) and (Grouch Mix). I’ve since had the pleasure of performing along side him at various locations in Australia, the USA and Costa Rica as well as releasing our Collaborations EP in 2015.
Artwork by Hakan Hisim
Before taking the psychedelic trance world by storm, he was producing dub, hip-hop, breaks and drum & bass, and these early influences are now coming back around in his latest project Grouch in Dub which fuses broken beats and psychedelic sorcery with stunning live instrumentation, vocals and mind bending bass manipulation.
The seminal track Soul Provider is a timeless gem that really embodies the Grouch in Dub sound. I witnessed his dub set at the Oregon Eclipse festival in 2017, and it was absolutely the NEW peak dance floor experience of my life!! I’m sure many who were there will attest to it - it was WILD!
So as the world patiently awaits the release of his new album, he is busy forming a full live band to take on the road, we can only imagine how ridiculously awesome it’s going to be.
I am super-stoked - no really, actually stoked-to-pieces, stoked HEAPS - that he is coming to our retreat in just 3 months time to put on his teacher-hat and give us the download on his secret frequency science.
This is a rare opportunity to learn from one of the best in the game. The Audio Alchemy Retreat is on the Big Island of Hawaii from May 2-13th. 7 days of workshops, 3 days of adventures, and a celebratory festival to let loose on the last day.
To learn more about retreat experience itself, check this post from my man @opulence