clintchoi

spent ten days back in thailand after six years and it was nice to enjoy some spicy somtum. finally can cross off meeting internet royalty moo deng and got to experience a bangkok music festival for the first time 🙏🇹🇭

i thought on and off about when i should get back into playing gigs, making mixes, and getting back into it for the love of party music. i’m just gonna do it now. Introducing: Sonrisa. It means smile in Spanish and while there are times to be serious, there is also time to really flourish in life. I’ll be DJ’ing under this stage alias for the foreseeable future 🙏 I made a running mix as part of Last Train Running Club 🏃💨 it’s out now! I’ll also be playing my first gig as Sonrisa in Taipei on Halloween and in Seoul next month ~ more details to follow soon! please follow me on @sonrisaformusic for my dj engagements ✨ Mix in the bio 🧬

august vibes set in. it was a lock and i couldn’t even fit all of the photos i took

i wrote on lofi climate about why those in charge of building generative music AI products are getting the philosophy of music AI wrong ❤️ i’m currently working on a follow-up article that will detail a thought exercise on how a potential public domain music monetization model could play out ‼️ check it out on substack, in my bio, and lmk what u think. Unsolicited opinions welcome 🫡 first picture: my plant gerald second picture: substack asset third picture: meme react pic

officially the beginning of my last summer in the UK 🇬🇧 mutuals and oomfies in the UK, i’m looking for a cool person to do a tenancy swap with for my room + private bathroom in hackney central area (just off Hackney Town Hall) £950 pcm ❤️ living room and location are worth weight in gold alrdy. If you know anybody interested, hmu 🙏 listing avail with @friends0ffriendz

Wrote my first thinkpiece for my publication lofi climate! Took the time to address being cynical of the music industry’s desperation, to make sense of superfans in its growth narrative. Spoke to some friends including @meghv and @matdryhurst for this thinkpiece ❤️ This first piece is complimentary for anybody currently subscribing. Check it out ~ link in bio ☑️

For those who work on music with us, we will now be offering boutique label services, music distribution, and strategic support to the Greater China region ❤️ It is of great harmony to share a partner with Kanjian Music, represented for Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau 🙌 Photo provided by: @clintchoi

photo dump: these last couple months

Just updated my personal branding for this year because nobody in the music industry just does that one thing. This year, I wanted to go with more color and I included elements from a photograph that I took out in København. If anybody’s interested in checking it out, it’s just my first and last dot com ❤️🙌 second photo is how I’m entering this year

Starting today, Busy As It Gets will now include boutique label services and music distribution. Pushing into a definition of what it means to be busy, to be moving, to be creative. Four musicians will be joining in this initial phase and we’re excited to partner with these artists and push music creation forward by whatever means we have at our disposal. It is a pleasure to welcome these artists into our pilot program: LOMELI (@lomelimusic) // Los Angeles, CA Sylvia Yau (@cousin.yau) // London, UK Derek Muro (@derekwavebreakr) // Los Angeles, CA Chocoholic (@toochocoholic) // Tokyo, JPN ❤️❤️

2023 was a mess. Beautiful, fun, disastrous, and with silver linings incredibly up close. Spent like a third of the year dealing with imposter syndrome, a weird breakup over a fling that retrospectively was not a good fit, people I thought were friends became less dependable, colleagues I thought were close but then realized they disposed of me the moment I did not serve their needs. Dealt with the initial discomforts of dealing with being an immigrant in a transient city. I still struggle with social cues. I hate the idea of driving even more. I experience mental anguish everyday over why things are the way they are. I’m disillusioned about English cultural norms. Cost of living crisis is becoming untenable despite doing better financially this year than I did last year. Job interviews I had with companies in London absolutely could not compensate me based on my value creation or worth. All my friends talk about leaving the UK within 2-5 years. I decided later this year that I am not choosing to remain or extend my stay in the UK. Despite all of this, things were also good as well. I prefer the slowness of life snapshots. I am beginning to appreciate silence in between the spaces of loudness. Instead of constantly discovering new music all the time, I chose to be particular about what I listened to and preserved what I loved. I made progress on the book I’m writing on and am closer as a result. Ambient music is actually awesome. Made new friends and learned a bit about myself. Built up confidence in myself. Met people all over the world and have been travelling abroad through my own volition since mid-October. Reminded myself of why I became an abolitionist in the first place. It was great to visit London, Brighton, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Paris, Istanbul, NYC, Mexico City, Bogotá, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and Seoul this year. Let’s hope thar 2024 is more chaotic. All I want to be is closer to my endgame. Cheers from the motherland 🙏

Book Update: I spent a year underestimating the toll and due diligence it requires to write cultural journalism in the form of contemporary music history and non-fiction. I write because this is a narrative that has profoundly changed my life and will continue to change the lives of everybody. I cannot be hard on myself and forget that I am writing down seven years of my lived experience in this text. I am near completion on the first third of the book, which painstakingly asked for cooperation to help fill in the blanks of an era I wasn’t even born in. I am not the most forthcoming person, being gunshy, so those close to me know how much gumption is asked of me when I ask for help. Our dwindling music media infrastructure becomes dire and some of the recent research I have been doing has communicated existential dread. Music is in a weird place right now that I expect this book to have moments of controversy. My thesis is strong, but will have a lot of scrutiny; I will be ready to defend my findings. I am finishing up a strong book proposal of my career to date and will be circulating it to trusted colleagues and friends in high places for feedback later this week before circulating it over to publishers and academic press for potential release. I hope to release this book sometime in 2025. Maison Margiela’s quote on anonymity will be included in the intro of my book. Lo-Fidelity: Beyond Beats and Aesthetic - How The Ambiguity of Anything Became Something.