Life & Work with Jaelen Horne of Atlanta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jaelen Horne.

Hi Jaelen, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I did not grow up with creative endeavors and music as an important part of my upbringing. Despite this, my father’s gifting of a PlayStation 2 “Slimline” console at age 4 gave me an immense appreciation for the amount of effort and talent showcased in video game scores. Thus, video games became a tremendous source of inspiration for me, to the point that at around age 11 I pirated FL Studio and tried to make hip-hop remixes of Sega Genesis music. It did not go well. A couple of years later, I stumbled upon UK Dubstep and Chicago Footwork, and my mind was blown by the influence of Jamaican soundsytem culture as an influence, especially the influence on bassweight. I pirated Reason 5 in homage to my black predecessors of the genre (Digital Mystikz) and have stuck to later iterations of the software since. Having made friends in Atlanta through online meme culture, the music collective Malware Cafe was born. Since then, I have been added to the Athens-based collective Nightshade Family and have completed a music fellowship with OneBeat, who are partnered with the U.S. Department of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Absolutely not, when it comes to creativity and ideas of “what I am supposed to be doing.” The underground electronic music scene in Atlanta seems to have doubled, or perhaps even quadrupled, since the pandemic. I feel as I have been mostly absent for the past couple of years due to me finishing my bachelor’s in neuroscience. Don’t get me wrong, I am destined to be a scientist. So I am quite happy with this accomplishment especially since I went 2 total years without being enrolled and still returned (shoutout Haley). However, I did feel pressure to be more conformist and to produce music and select tracks for my DJ sets that wouldn’t necessarily have been my first choices. I have learned that very little of that matters to me now: I want to make music that tickles my own brain in an exciting way. I am quite prepared to make decades worth of music that no one else likes if it means that I am happy. However, I still would like to compose for video games and movies one day, so at least the producers and directors will need to like those songs.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I have been producing music in Reason for 13 years now, and taught myself to DJ on a jailbroken 1st generation iPad when I was 12. I love dance music and love all the extremist variations of it. I love plenty of other genres of music, of course, but for the past few years the dancefloor and soundsystems have been my focus. Recently, I have turned to making “dance music for home listening” as a recourse for betraying myself, as I believe the best songs are the ones I would want to sit at home and merely soak in as a sound bath. I guess the things I am most proud of are some songs that are yet to be released, but definitely also my longstanding commitment to music.

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
Be very serious about what you do if you ever plan on being good at it. There is nothing wrong with having fun- there should always be an element of fun, no matter the discipline. But do not settle for being lukewarm for anything you plan to make a long-term part of your life. Dabbling is one thing and is certainly encouraged, but if you feel the conviction to hold on, accept that you will produce subpar (and even garbage) work in exchange for valuable learning moments and skills.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dreadsender/
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/dreadsender