By 2007, I’d been living in Seoul for three years and had already spent a decade playing aggressive, bass-heavy music in dark clubs. Maybe it was time to chill out.
Years earlier, when I was looking to travel, I’d gone searching for danger — which is how I ended up on an adventure in Bangkok. But in 2007, I wanted something different. Somewhere calm. Somewhere still. Two places kept coming up: India and Tibet.
You may remember from Lost Dubs 008 that Maybe India was my imagined sound of a place I’d never been. Maybe Tibet comes from that same spirit — but this one ended up becoming part of something bigger. It was featured in We Love Dubstepno, the mix I recorded for We Love Techno at Joker Red in Seoul. A mix that, to this day, is one of my most played and favourited sets. Just last month someone discovered it, heard Maybe Tibet blended with Pinch’s Qawwali, and asked if it was an edit. It wasn’t — I was simply mixing them together.
What I’m trying to say is: I was clearly ahead of my time.
I called this “dubstep” because it lives at 140 (or 70) bpm — but it doesn’t have the aggression the genre became known for. Like the last few entries in this series, Maybe Tibet is chill, meditative, spacious.
And here’s the part that feels strangely poetic: I’ve never been to Tibet.
But Becky — born in Canada, raised partly in Niagara Falls — spent a significant part of her adolescence living in Nepal.
Maybe it’s because I once read The Celestine Prophecy, or maybe it’s because I truly believe there are certain people who show up in your life to help you become more yourself — but Becky is one of those people for me.
When I listen to Maybe Tibet now, I hear things I didn’t realize were there in 2007: depth, texture, and a sense of place I couldn’t have understood yet. Threads of musical fabric woven from experiences I hadn’t lived, but somehow were waiting for me years down the road.
This is what happens when music becomes a map before you’ve even seen the terrain.