Well, it’s been a year to day and being honest i am amazed that Stompmag is still going. It’s not just that being ill makes keeping it ticking over awkward, it’s also the fact that things tend to just fizzle out and fade away. Thankfully StompMag didn’t.

First up the thanks, specifically to Liam “Deletia” Griffin and Rob “Hey You in the Bushes” DubCulture for their efforts in seeking interviews and news for the site. Muchos thanks to SubOne, Drokkr, Emmo, Latent Saint, Deletia, SertOne, Bolts and DJ Somatix for the mixes, to Josh G for the EP and all the people who took the time to talk to us in interviews and the like.

Also, massive respect to all the soldiers on the scene who keep putting on events, dragging bags of vinyl and soundsystems and assorted computer related gubbins to venues all over the country and booking some fantastic acts to play pretty much every weekend. Big ups the producers, DJ’s and promoters, the labels owners and gig goers for keeping things alive and always pushing them forward.

I think when people normally have a first birthday there is a gig or something to mark the occasion…but to be honest this kind of snuck up on me a bit as i have been busy with one eye on Ableton and the other on this Sopa saga (Part 2 of that article will be dropping soon).

I guess the best thing to do right now is explore what the plans are for Stomp over the course of the year. There will be more interviews and news, more of the usual, the StompMix series will be making a return in a more organic and natural form…mixes will appear when the time is right and when we find something and someone that can really sow a sonic tapestry. I think the first batch of mixes set a high bar and i never want the quality to dip.

Hopefully there will be some roundtable style articles, as i track down methods of production and hints and tips from producers on the scene and mash them all together in a big “How To” style article where i hope to cajole some of the heads to let us know some of their methods and techniques.

There is also a large and super secret project currently on the boil…something that i hope will provide an interesting end result that not only produces some interesting music in an of itself but also turns into a large scale community project and a handy method of promoting the talent level to be found in Ireland.

Now there has been plenty of things that need to be improved upon but all in all it hasn’t been the worst first year of a new blog and this year we plan on just going from strength to strength. So thanks for reading and feel free to get in touch if you have anything to say.

- SF