when you end a pattern with jux(rev) it’s hard to predict what will happen. it might make it sound amazing. it might make it sound awful. it might make strudel crash.
jux(rev) is a roll of the dice but it’s usually worth rolling. it makes your pattern play forwards in one ear and backwards in the other. it can make it sound like the sounds are orbiting around you: it can place you inside the music.
jux(rev) is a crutch I learned from Alex McLean, also known as yaxu, so I make sure to say thanks to him every time I use jux(rev)
Over time, I have noticed many other people pick up the same habit. It has become so habitual that it has become a ritual. Some say (myself included) that writing thanks yaxu after a jux(rev) can bring you good luck and increase the chances of it going well. jux(rev) is a roll of the dice and thanks yaxu increases the odds.
I’ve seen yaxu enter nudel with the username sorry yaxu a couple times as a little riff on—
For sure, Alex is a huge role model for me and I think he knows that. He’s also an extremely humble person and at times seems allergic to praise / credit. He came out of many months of lurking on my discord server just to state that he didn’t make something that was attributed to him. He also refused to stay silent when there’s been some— When something wrong has happened or is happening, he— He’s not afraid of being the person that speaks up when something needs to be said, in my personal experience.
Yes, Alex is one of the founding figures of live coding and algorave.
But Yes, Alex sometimes shies away from / regrets being a role model / elder of the scene. He says:
sometimes I feel that because I’m getting older, I’m no longer able express an opinion about things because people take me too seriously. I’ve had a couple of people get pretty angry at me for saying what I find interesting/radical about live coding. When we were younger, @adeward and I were pretty forthright about it: https://slab.org/2015/07/28/the-generative-manifesto-august-2000/
Live coding wasn’t really a thing then, but we were all about making everything from scratch and exposing processes. I am still following these principles and finding new places to explore. I’d like to continue expressing what I find fascinating and (still) radical about this, while still running events that create space for totally different approaches.
I’m still getting my head around this, but it seems people sometimes have too much respect for their ‘elders’, to the point of paradoxically getting angry when their ideals/interests don’t match their own. Really I want to discuss and explore making stuff without my opinions somehow having extra weight just because I’ve been around for longer. Again it’s paradoxical that I’m not sure if this can make sense to earlier career people without coming across as arrogant.. But I just want to make mistakes, challenge assumptions and make space for alternatives while making broken music..
In pastagang, lack of hierarchy seems important. But so does making space. And it seems as if the pastagang community has made space for thanking yaxu every time we jux(rev), just as yaxu has made space for all of us
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