"... it felt like we were right on the cusp of something."

Dear friends,

I hope you are safe, healthy and in all way nourished.

I was supposed to travel an hour North from Marseille this week, but the fires that have affected the region made it impossible. I am home, unlike the 325,000 people that have recently been evacuated in France and Spain due to wildfires. I am healthy and safe, unlike the estimated 14,000 excess deaths in Europe related to extreme temperatures. In the last days, I was receiving regular voice notes from people still dealing with the flames around Barjols and I feel like I am writing from what is apparently now called the age of the "pyrocene".

This newsletter contains:

1/ words about Everything For Everyone, a cli-fi novel featuring raves,

2/ a calendar with my Europe gigs until September,

3/ updates regarding the grounded tour to Asia and Australia,

4/ track IDs from recent shows,

5/ and an overview of the income/spendings related to the newsletter.

The last two sections appear behind paywall. Thanks to Aaron, Afoma, Alexandra, Aline, Anne, Anne Marleen, Antoine, Bastien, Benjamin, Christoph, Christopher, Cole, Eleonora, Ehren, Fenna, Gabler, Graham, Griffin, Gus, Hun, Jean-Marie, Jeff, Joe, Karen, Karim, Kayshap, Kyle, Linda, Linn, Matt, Maximilian, Nick, Ollie, Ophélie, Pierre-Alexandre, Reuben, Roberto, Sam, Sarj, Simon, Sinan, T H, Tom, Travis, Troy, Trym, Ugo, Willow and Yixuan for supporting Fictions and Reflections and everyone else helping out in numerous ways!

And before I forget, here’s also the lastest edition of my radio show, which features music and tales of Marseille: 

1/ Fiction of the month: Everything For Everyone

M.E. O’Brien & Eman Abdelhadi’s Everything For Everyone is presented as an oral history documenting the New York Commune (2052-2072). Rich in abolitionist aspirations, it’s the type of novel that has digested the verso books universe but isn’t just theory. There’s an introduction about methodology that affectionately mimics academic lingo but the imagined interviews are pleasant and easy to read.

The first conversation is with a sex worker (in this context, a skinner operating in a holistic therapeutic practice referred to as “skincraft”). It explores violence, trans-identity, extreme weather, hunger and it ultimately gives the book its title. O’Brien asks: “What does the commune mean to you?” and Kelley answers: “It means we take care of each other. It means everything for everyone. It means we communised the shit out of this place. It means we took something that was property and we made it life.” 

As I began reading the novel, my heart was all entangled with the heavy complexities of the polycrisis. From stumbling across kitten corpses in the streets of Morocco at the end of June, dealing with a parent’s severe mental health crisis when I came back to France and traversing Mad Max scenes at European festivals the following days—the heatwaves were of historic intensity and even the most privileged and protected social circles I gravitate in no longer seemed immune to collapse.

In an interview with Beatportal, I confessed that despite my intentional involvement with the dance music scene, I still struggled with a lingering sense of cognitive dissonance. In my recent sets, I’ve been playing a voice note from Jan Loup in which they reflect on the rise of fascism and describe the organisation of parties in this era as an act of both “ultimate dichotomy and ultimate necessity”. Though such paradoxes may sometimes sound complacent, reading the novel made these hopes palpable in a different way.

Speaking from a future where the internet has been destroyed, interviewees in the novel mention raves as catalysts for the making of a desirable collective project: “The parties became a bit of a hub around healthcare and people finding housing and stuff. We’d always invite reps from the communes to talk with the kids who’d come to dance. [...] After Hunts Points started distributing the food, it felt like we were right on the cusp of something. I would like to think our parties played a role bridging everybody, or at least everybody who liked to dance.” With the limited control we currently have over the infrastructure we live—and dance!—in, let alone, the global situation it led to, it's inspiring to imagine a world where things are in some ways kinda better (even though they are also in in many ways kinda worse).

The same dance enthusiast describes how old shipping freighters had become international dance clubs!! Could there ever be a more Nono dream? 

Likewise, a character talks about not having flown in over 20 years and how they regularly take a high-speed train from Gaza, then a clipper train to New York: “the whole thing takes a week or so”. (This reminded me of an activist friend of mine who recently travelled from the UK to Palestine by train, flying only between Cyprus and Israel.) Everything For Everyone came out in 2022 and foresaw the war on Iran, a war which is just one of so many reasons to not only imagine, campaign for, but also enact a world beyond global oil dependence.

At times, technological utopianism simmers under the novel, but it does a decent job at connecting the dots between extractivism and different forms of oppression, not least mobility injustices. This, too, saved me during weeks of feeling lost and lonely. I’ve been wondering if certain media outlets have lost sharpness on these issues? In 2023, The Guardian gave voice to Greek residents fighting fires and watching in amazement as sunseekers flew in. While pictures of wildfires are still making the headlines, there is sometimes a disturbing denialism running through the story that they’re presented in or alongside. Not too long ago, the same publication gave voice to a superstar DJ in what sounded like a quasi-mockumentary. According to Alok, simply not owning a plane is the way to be sustainable. (... and even Atmos hopes "that technology could eventually" make flying "really" sustainable.)

A character in Everything For Everyone cites Fourier: “Do not be misled by superficial people who think that the invention of the laws of Movement is just a theoretical calculation. Remember that it only requires four or five months to put it into practice over a square league, an attempt which could even be completed by next summer, with the result that the whole human race would move into universal harmony. So, your behaviour should be governed from now on by the ease and proximity of this immense revolution.” The French philosopher had been worried about the material deterioration of the planet and criticised industrial capitalism in as early as the 19^th century. He was among the first to observe the premises of climate disruption, notably because of deforestation. 

The thing about the cli-fi that I often mention in my newsletters, is that even the most dystopian visions of our future describe events which, more often than not, happen earlier in reality than estimated in the novels. In the oral history, An Zhou notes: “The forests I grew up with are gone. [...] Once they were [...] these cathedrals of such majesty.” But this final point may be reached way before 2069. And about Miami, the Bahamas, Port-au-Prince or Antilles, An Zhou confesses: “I can’t think of it without crying. We will never get those places back.”

Forms of gathering and dancing seem to, however, survive and thrive in the novel’s imagined 2072. In an interview, an organiser describes the “Jakarta Circuit”, “a dance party scene. It’s big all along the rim of the Indian Ocean. The music is a wild mix, evolved from these dance barges that would run back and forth along the coast from Karachi, running through Colombo, Chennai and Kolkata, and then turn around in Bangkok. This scene was made by the kids that would take the barges back and forth, and then crash in the shanties and communes along the circuit.”

I am planning to visit these places in the next six months. But with the wildfires raging all around us right now, I’ve been wondering, once again, if this is where I should be directing my energy, attention and intentions towards? Not because I’m afraid of dying, nor because I feel a duty to save the world. Maybe it’s because, given the material conditions I was born into, the means of transport I use to visit these places is far from enough to reduce my impact on them.

Is the very question of transiting or partying in this—or any!—moment of history even the right one? And if the question of how we do it might be more relevant, I think it is equally open-ended. Everything For Everyone does the elegant dance of opening doors, never closing them. No redemption in sight. But, for a few fleeting moments of captivated reading, fiction healed where my own imagination wavered. 

2/ Summer - part 2 

06.08 - Fata Morgana, Coutarnoux, FR 🇫🇷

You may want to kagi/duckduckgo/ecosia the location for this festival which is called Grotte de Champ Retard. Friends who previously visited the event mentioned that the decoration was immaculate too and the line-up certainly is. Event sold out but I can help with a weekend pass. We’re driving with ojoo through France the following day for part. 2 of that weekend.

07.08 - Guyenne Festival, Pays de Serres, FR 🇫🇷

A small-cap festival which barely posts on social media, pays every artist equally and sold out in an eyelash blink. DJ Travella, Parasite Jazz, Donna Leake, Marylou and many more. I’ll stay til Monday morning.

20.08 - Dharma Techno, Louhans, FR 🇫🇷

This festival is tied to the retreat that inspired us to organize ours last year. There will be meditation and music for 5 days.

22.08 - We Out Here Festival, Somerset, UK 🇬🇧

I am closing the Grove on Saturday after i-sha, Shackleton, re:ni and Blawan. I will also be at the festival from Friday til Sunday and excited to hear more than just dance music. This event, too, appears to be sold out but I can try to ask for friends tickets. 

04.09 - Draaimolen, Tilburg 🇳🇱

CCL, Marylou, rRoxymore and I recently did our Wheel of Fortune b4b at Freero and it was fun to play music with friends for friends, rather than trying to record the best set of the century. As for friends, FreeRo and Memori both made me wonder if there was such a thing as seeing too many friends at once. I’m sorry I’ve not been able to say hi, let along catch up with everyone and being an introverted croco doesn’t help the equation either. 

3/ Asia and Australia: what’s shaping and how you could help

• My first gig will be in Armenia on October 3^rd and I’m looking for something on the way in the previous days. This could be in Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Turkey or neighboring countries on the weekend of September 24^th til 27^th.
• I am planning to be in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan (potentially Uzbekistan or Kirghizistan) in October.
• I am planning to be in Nepal and India in November.
• It is still unclear where I will be in the following two months though natural and national border constraints should lead me through China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. I am also likely travelling through these countries again on the way back during Spring or Summer 2026.
• I am looking for a sail boat or cargo ship to cross from Kupang (Indonesia) to Darwin (Australia) in January or February. I know this is cyclone season and, yes, I know Australia’s border policy makes this passage extra complicated. If your cousin is a brave sailing captain who happens to be around there at that time or if you’re best friend works for one of the freighter companies that transports cargo from Asia to Australia, pleaaaaase write to me :)
• I have a gig confirmed in Australia the first weekend of March and the other ones will shape around it as soon as I know how and when I can cross. As I mentioned in March, I received a grant but right now, it still looks like the economics of the project are fairly fragile and accommodation in Australia (but other places too!) is a concern. If you know of friends of friends who could help, i'd be grateful. I'll be sharing the economics of the tour as it unfolds in my ongoing attempt to remain transparent.
• Finally, I'd love to receive music, fiction or any recommandation from or about the places I'll be visiting. Not only do I intend to continue writing this newsletter, but I'd also like to record radio shows on the way.

It's been a lot of work planning all this and i'll try my best to share all the resources that could support any similar endeavour or beyond.

4. 2026 - part 1

January - Ubu (Rennes)

For the first time in years, I’ve been bringing records to my sets again in 2026 and I’m increasingly enjoying it. I played all night long in a club where I used to dance a lot over 15 years ago and brought some vinyl that I had bought when I was still living in Rennes. This purring roller remains so fresh!