This weekend I have mostly been investigating the question – what is living? Is it a simple question of being alive, breathing and all that, or is it about moments when we ‘feel alive’, real living, some feeling of transcendence, some otherness beyond mere animal function? Religious language and alternative culture both like to use the word high to describe the feeling I am searching for. There is a higher calling, there is whatever your choice of almighty is, who is usually on high; or the simpler, more self indulgent, interior modern version – getting high. Maybe my version is somewhere in between the two, not drug induced, not created by some immovable belief, but still something more real than frustrating, cold, controlled, C21 life. So where can I find such moments on a slow grey, low grey, mid February Saturday? I find one in a simple, shared moment of collective joy. Adrenaline-fuelled fun at Stamford Bridge, me and my boys and the Didier Drogba goal two minutes into the FA Cup fifth round tie against Cardiff City. Then again after the match as we watch, as they say in London parlance, it all kick off outside a pub on the Kings Road. Bricks and punches and traffic cones fly before the police horses arrive, more adrenaline and testosterone enhanced living. Like some throwback to our days as hunters, like some escape from the confines of modern society created for our controlled, patrolled, regulated, snooped-on city life. As the Barbour-clad boy in the brown flat cap screams “Let’s have it…” into his phone before rushing into battle he knows at this moment that he is really living. Then again that evening at The Garage in Islington, watching Georgia Ruth, a harp-playing girl with her cello-playing side-kick, covering Leonard Cohen’s classic Chelsea Hotel Number Two. There it is, as she warbles in a not unpleasant fashion, the line about giving head on an unmade bead as limousines wait in the street, everything is higher, alright, it all makes sense, there is no need for anything more. “We are ugly, but we have the music,” she sings. And perhaps that’s it. Perhaps Leonard, all that time ago, when he wrote the song for Janice Joplin, was already the proto-Buddhist. He already understood, life is still relatively ugly and brutal and far too short, or at best, most of the time, a little boring and frustrating. But every day, we can find moments of transcendence, of goose-bumpy, hair-raising beauty, in collective joy, in the threat of violence, in song, in sharing with friends and family. And that’s the higher something. The moments that are worth so much more than money. That’s the living that is so much more than being alive.

In this episode: Air remixes, album tracks from Massive Attack, Hot Chip, Fourtet and Animal Collective, plus Holy Ghost covering Friendly Fires and some great deep house music. [setlist] Rick Poppa Howard – I Won’t Lay Back Holy Ghost! – On Board Hot Chip – Alley Cats Air – So Light Is Her Footfall (Breakbot Remix) Stimming, Ben Watt & Julia Biel – Bright Star (Sunset Mix) Massive Attack – Saturday Come Slow Emika – Drop The Other (Scuba’S Vulpine Remix) Animal Collective – Doggy Four Tet – This Unfolds Phonique Feat. Erlend Oye – For The Time Being Anthony Collins Feat Justus Konche – Come On Over Glimpse – If I Was Your Girl (Simon Baker’S Piano Workout Mix)

In this episode: new tunes from LCD Soundsystem, Foals, Wolf + Lamb and Hess Is More, loads of proper house music. [setlist] Lcd Soundsystem – Drunk Girls (Holy Ghost Remix) This Ain’t Chicago – Ride The Rhythm (Danny Mekanik 21st Anniversary Version) Coyote – Moving Foals – Total Life Forever The Beatdown Soundmachine – More Love (Ltj Experience Mix) Wolf + Lamb – Lowdown Ganga – Light Erland & The Carnival – Disturbed This Morning Hess Is More – Broadway Ukelele Tinashe – Zambezi (Body Language Remix) Donnacha Costello – It’S What We Do (Kink & Neville Watson Ruff Dub) Kuniyuki Takahasi – Night Forest (Kuniyuki Oriental Dub)

Another 6 1/2 hour set. Epic. It’s the new way. The new discipline. VFM & OMFG come as standard. There is no sign of people tiring of depression fatigue. It’s all systems go mad party even though or because it’s still deep under grey February. I am so loving the Wolf + Lamb label and Moodymanc and Mathias Tanzmann, for the record, or the records, or the CDs, or whatever the format. I am getting there with the muscle memory, after the move, new steps, new numbers, 344 is my new night best friend, and the city stretching out like sinews, like arteries, so dense, so immense, when you step outside your flow it reminds you, this place is so much bigger than any of us, this night is so long and so orange, this place is so much more than me or her or us or any of us or even all of us. This city is a monster, a machine, a muscle, a body, a cortex, flashing synapses of movement and memory. Still, all smiles before bedtime. I am pleased to say I am back to being a really good DJ. And that’s enough for today.