Brock Van Wey has never been a guy who hides his feelings. Every piece of music he's written or interview he's given or DJ set he's played is overtly coloured by his emotional state at that very moment. It's what defines him as an artist. "It's all about showing a part of you, a part of your heart and soul," he told us in 2009, "and hopefully some who hear it feel the same way you do, and it creates that connection that is the ultimate beauty of music." Van Wey has given people plenty of opportunities to connect. Since he started out in 2007, he's released around 40 albums and EPs. His style deals mainly in deep strains of ambient of electro-acoustic compositions, although his roots as a DJ on the San Francisco rave scene in the early '90s have sometimes surfaced in more beat-driven records. His label, Quietus Recordings, is "dedicated to releasing and communicating the deepest, most personal, and innermost realms of electronic music," and none felt more personal than Tanto, a record Van Wey recorded and recently released after the passing of his cat of the same name—his "brother and best friend."
Van Wey's RA podcast comes at a time of significant personal upheaval. He recently learnt that his Chinese visa would not be renewed, after spending 14 years teaching as an English professor in the eastern city of Shaoxing. He explains more below, but he said that the process of recording a mix (his first in some time) afforded him some much-needed catharsis. His 70-minute session blends passages of quiet theatrical beauty with the heated release of drums, and, of course, there's not a moment with an absence of emotion.
