photo by Brooke Balentine

" Early days technology "
While scrolling through the photos I stumbled on this one, and it instantly reminded me of my old Nokia phone from around 2005..full of photos like this.
Probably not a match for hip-hop, but I can see it fitting dub, atmo, drone, maybe even some guitars.
No big story here — just me being selfish and remembering the old tech we used to enjoy back in the day.

Blatant c/p from the @johnmusichead
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Guidelines
To get the official “Non-Contender” pin:

• The track has to be original, maybe even started while staring at the image.
  
  
• Creative process is up to you, there are no bad entries.
  
  
• If you can, share a little insight.

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Deadline
26 of September- 0:00 UTC+1
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If there is no volunteer until the due date we will try to pick the next host via random pick until we catch one.

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Note:

This is not a contest, the picture might not be of any value, inspirational or visual but the memories might have some weight, hopefully.

Enjoy!

 

Last edited: Sep 12, 2025 at 12:24 AM

"Tékhnē OƑ The Earlץ Daץs",enjoy! :

 

Thanks @reticular for the friendly non-contest #14. My entry is called "The person you are trying to call is unavailable." It's a short sound collage with my own presets from Alchemy, Rapid, CeloX VSTi, and samples from Nokia and a voice reader.

 

Thanks @SpyFx ✪ ✓ for your contribution. I'm once again impressed by your conception and implementation of music. Truly dark, you can immediately feel the doom and horror emanating from this dark image. Great film score and high-quality sound and brilliant ideas, as we've come to expect from you.

Your music immediately reminded me of the 2005 film War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise. That's probably because the image contains the three-legged symbol, which, like the fighting machines, comes from space.

 

Wow love the pix! THX!!

 

https://whyp.it/tracks/310823/friendly-non-contest-14?token=A902x

chaos made in ableton

baby audio tekno 4 drumz , serum2 plux, spire basses, legend hz padz, pigments intro sound, uad hammond & piano, master: tc md4 stock
mixing: uad 1176 rev a, la2a gray , ssl e, stock reverb and delay sends. thanks guys

 

Last edited: Sep 13, 2025 at 10:40 PM

Great song @vuldegger, especially your magical bass. Thanks for your valuable musical contribution!

 

ambient track made on a digitone

 

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
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so for this one, theres not a lot to pull from for me in the image; just minimalism, nocturnal and fuzzy: so i used my memories to help, in 2005 i was in middle school. i use to skateboard a lot back then and wanted to go pro and i was also learning guitar around that time. i remember skating to my friends house almost everyday to either play basketball or kingdom hearts 2 on his ps2 with his neighborhood friends. hurricane Katarina happened in New Orleans, so a lot of the refugees came to my school from Louisiana. i use to listen to Cassidy freestyles and mixtapes and Young Jeezy, i also liked Deftones, Kanye West, The White Stripes and Still Tippin by Mike Jones a lot back then

i also remember seeing Fantastic Four, it had came out and Jessica Alba was the baddest girl i had ever seen in my life at the time lol, had a mad crush. i hadnt tried any drugs yet but i had friends who were older i would skate with who smoked weed all the time, drank 40’s and always had some party they were hyped for. you also wouldnt think it but they gave me a lot of good life advice, especially with girls - so i tried to make it sound like something that we would skate too, would play in a skate shop or would be on a skate part on YouTube back in the day. basically its dedicated to the skater culture i was apart of at the time that was very influential on me

i stuck with the minimalism of the pic and just used my Stratocaster, mic’d it to my 68’ Princeton Reverb (reissue) amp and hooked it up to my Big Muff Fuzz pedal. recorded all of the percussion on my Roland V electric drum set. theres a sample from a Cassidy mixtape to make it more hip-hop so reticular could picture it. more of a trip down memory lane for #14 but i like where i ended up

genres: grunge & trip-hop

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆​

 

I guess being that philosophical about an image and destiling the possible musical genre on inspiration sameone could catch....was a mistake :D.

I haven´t had this happen before, but i´ve red your memory and now listening to this track it makes me visualise situation growing up skating and smoking weed even tho i havent done it myself. So thanks for the memory!
I think in 2005 i stopped playing soccer "professionally" and remember getting some headphones for Nokia 6630, slowly getting computers and started blasting mp3´s on the 32/64MB(NOT GB!!!) sd card so it helped in highschool transportation days immensely.
I hoped the pic would call for some memories, it worked out.
Really great tracks so far!

 

Last edited: Sep 14, 2025 at 6:45 PM

@reticular I love the picture. It definitely reminds me of my midwestern teen years...

 

@capitan crunch - basically choosen it by gut feeling and wondered what music would come out.

Your track reminds me of that scene in Artificial Intelligence, underwater fairy statue. Lots of feels to it. thx

 

Last edited: Sep 14, 2025 at 9:20 PM

@reticular yeah true, we didnt have a computer till like 2007 maybe, me and my little sister use to go to the library and use it; or when i was at my friends house i would watch Youtube on his families - what i use to do for mp3's was use this site that converted youtube videos to mp3's, i had some cheap mp3 player but it got the job done. i also use to buy bootleg cd's since youtube didnt have as much music as it does now; there use to be people who had computers and would burn songs of new albums unto cd's and sell them from out the back of their car trunks - i didnt have a phone though

your intention was very useful though, good thing you added the memory part cause i didnt know if i could do it at first - thanks for hosting though man, was fun

 

damn, 9 mins...got completely zoned out
I´m using Ableton Lite atm, 8tracks limit really makes it...tight fit.

@Grape Ape - yeah, i though about it for a sec in therms what would be most inspiring and when i saw the image, i mean i can go all day from the memories of just the tech progress from walkman uptill now, i think i can make a track just by remembering what it feels to charge batteries for it etc., lol if you know what i mean, we really lived in the crazy times no matter if one is in 30s or 40s or even 50s 60s..it is nuts, exponential growth in 100 years. I was a phone "enthusiast" so i had like 50 phones before the first usable android, also LimeWire right?
Are you sure it was 2007?That sounds like 2004-5 to me specially bootleg cd-s from car trunks
anyway, yeah, crappy image but you pulled thru, you´re very welcome, glad i prophesied hosting this one ;)

 

Last edited: Sep 15, 2025 at 3:12 AM

^^^^
Hi good friends!

With permission from our great host & friend this month @reticular ,i did a quick remix of his track,enjoy! :

@reticular it was an honor to remix your track,thank you for the opportunity,you are such a great soul!

Hvala! & take care all Spyros(SpyFx)

 

@reticular i feel you, that makes sense. nice entry by the way, very easy to listen too despite its length: doesnt feel long. the sound design and sampling are also great; has a nice meditative feeling too it overall, reminds me of walking around NYC at night- though yeah youre right, what mightve confused it was i mentioned we got our own computer in like 2007. my uncle gave us his iMac when he get a macbook pro; before that we really didnt see a need for a computer, i know i definitely didnt, i wanted clothes and video games lol

@SpyFx ✪ ✓ nice job homie, i think thats the first remix of an entry anyone has ever done yet, has a Burial type of future garage vibe too it

 

@SpyFx ✪ ✓ - Majstorski! It really does have that Burial vibe to it, thanks, much appreciated!

@Grape Ape -thx, i think the samples are from nyc, some random youtube 90´s skaters, funny huh, glad you find it "drinkable", i think that has became my first goal not to beat the brain into submission which is easy to do in the daw, also it helps not having a kick and letting low end be unfiltered...2007 i just wanted tech one pair of jeans and i´m good...and COD2, CS1.6 too lol

 

https://whyp.it/tracks/311842/friendly-non-contest-14-early-days-technology

Although dub techno is sort of a go-to-stylistic in my home productions, I choose to went a doomier road this time. The green tint of the picture led me to this comparatively aggressive approach, drowned in reverb.

 

Thank you @9ty for your "Early Days Technology" contribution. I think it's a great piece because it's not overloaded, isn't tortured with the endless kick drum, but rather gives the listener plenty of space and time; it's even relaxing and stress-free.