While I do enjoy Arseni's style of DJing, I cannot help but have... negative thoughts about collaboration with it.
Not that I MUST collaborate with it, no one is out there forcing me. But on occasion it is the only one I know who is willing or able to b2b with me at some of the events I wish to play at which require each artist to apply with a partner due to the complexity of the deck or the 3+ track requirement - I can use a deck, I just prefer to play vocally, but I can only vocalize three different tracks at once.
The issue I have with it is that our styles differ drastically and my artistic vision is much more serious that its. It of course disagrees with that assessment, stating that its music is just as serious as mine. Frankly the best response I have to that is "This is an untrue statement and you are more than aware of that."
I do not typically mix songs. I rely primarily on my own beats. Occasionally I will mix in a single line from a pre-existing song or take inspiration from a pre-existing song.
Arseni relies almost entirely on mixing pre-existing songs and sound effects together (alongside beats, of course, but the focus is on the pre-existing songs.) This alone would not be "un-serious" enough for me to feel it clashes too much with my vision. But Arseni has this...
...I do not want to say it in such a derogatory way because it is NOT inherently a bad thing...
PASSION for human music. It plays like a human DJ, if a human DJ had been alive for thousands of years and had thousands of years of human music to draw from.
So while I am trying to hit dark hard demonic bass lines that will shake the bones of the dead, I am also listening to its stupid fucking authentic 1600s golden age of piracy sea shanty remix. Which I will admit is a hit with human beings and demons that spent a lot of time on Earth. But. It does not fit. I do not think it fits anyway. I have received feedback of "it fits very well it is so good" but I do not care.
Which is why I am very upset that we (together, not just one of us, both together) were invited to play a double header at this spot in the Abyss which does a spring festival each year. Apparently this is a big deal. Arseni was very excited, because it is a big deal festival, and because it is a themed event and the theme is "oral sex" because of course it is. It was very excitedly bothering me in my room while we were practicing, choosing human music about sucking dick. I almost tapped out there because it was annoying me.
But it really wanted to play, and it got sad, and I felt kind of bad, and also I could see that maybe I was being a little unreasonable.
So. I told it I would do it, but it better not tell anyone we are playing together because I want a whole new crowd to give me whole new feedback. I even made it surrender its plus one ticket to me.
...I gave our plus one tickets both to Isaiah because I do want Isaiah to be there and I trust that he would not invite anyone to come with him that would piss me off. I did not tell him that I would be playing with Arseni. I just said I was playing with "some other being, I do not know" because I was kind of embarrassed since he has been trying to get me to play nice with Arseni for months now...
I can't believe I got tickets to this thing dude. I love my boyfriend. Aethriel has been brooding these past few days like its annoyed about something and finally I'm like babe. You're so stressed just tell me what's going on and it tells me its been invited to play at a big deal Abyss event which is, and I quote "oral sex themed", and it's just stressed about doing well at it and not "fucking up" to which I was like. You're gonna do great!!!!
It told me that I can invite someone else if I want but that it would prefer if I could pick someone who can be "serious" and "not distract me / embarrass me since the tickets allow the holder to access the green room, where all the DJs will be" whatever that means, so, I picked Azazel, because he's usually pretty serious about stuff and I highly doubt Aethriel would think he's "embarrassing" it. Honestly I think it just really didn't want me to invite Toby.
I have no idea who it's playing with, but I got a good look at one of the flyers and next to Aethriel's stage name, it also says "+ Cleopatraa" so I assume that's the stage name of the other being who is playing with it. I have no idea who that is, to be perfectly honest. But I'm sure if Aethriel agreed to collab with them, they're probably pretty good.
I think it's gonna go awesome. I think Aethriel needs to chill the fuck out, and I think it's gonna feel a lot better after it just gets up there and plays. I also think it would benefit from me sucking its dick in the green room after. It is a blowjob themed event after all.