The power of music as a transformative and healing medium is undisputed. It transcends cultural boundaries and touches the very core of our emotional and spiritual selves. Stepping into the forefront of this evolving soundscape is DJ and music producer Paul Nolan with the launch of Microdose Music, the world’s first record label dedicated to the creation of music for psychedelic therapy, healing, and overall wellness. This groundbreaking venture stems from a deep understanding of the symbiotic relationship between music and the human psyche.
As a DJ, producer, and qualified sound therapist, Nolan is no stranger to the power of melody. His experience, coupled with his journey through the healing power of psychedelics, has formed the bedrock for this unique venture. The journey started at the Wonderland conference where Nolan performed and received a wealth of feedback from frontline workers administering psychedelic therapy. They expressed the need for music specifically designed to aid their therapeutic process, and thus, Microdose Music was born. Amid an era where ‘functional music’ is becoming an accepted tool for academic research and FDA clinical trials, Nolan and his team are gearing up to change the sonic landscape.
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1 – What inspired you to start Microdose Music, a functional music record label?
I was approached to work with Microdose https://microdose.buzz last year for their Wonderland conference in Miami www.wonderlandconference.com
It’s a sensational event, where the brightest and most aware people on the planet as far as wellbeing, psychedelics, research, investment and business all gather, and mix in effortlessly with members of indigenous tribes from all over the world, all representing their lineages and
I was initially going to speak on a panel, and then I was asked quite late in the day to fill a music performance slot that opened up, meaning I pretty much had to write an album on two weeks notice! Cue one of the most interesting fortnight’s of my life, culminating with an on stage performance using both Volta https://www.volta-xr.com/
for audio reactive visuals, and d&b soundscape for an immersive, 360º spacial audio performance. www.dbsoundscape.com
Through that process, Richard Skaife, who is chair of Microdose, approached me with another idea – to start the world’s first record label that was truly dedicated to music for psychedelic therapy and functional music. It was a complete no brainer, and the performance I gave that evening in Miami, became Dissolve, the album that’s about to be released on Microdose Music.
Subsequently, we put a team together, with Richard serving as Chairman of the Board, Nick Earles, who is a lawyer with experience in cannabis and psychedelics, and now working for Defected in their legal department, heading up the legal side, and myself as label manager.
2 – What challenges did you face when setting up Microdose Music and how did you overcome them?
It’s definitely been an interesting time! In one sense, in terms of Richard, Nick and I (the founders) being all on the same wavelength, it was effortless. The clarity of the vision between us all in terms of both what we wanted to create, and what needed to be brought to life, was crystal.
The most challenging part has been the more practical element – finding the right partners to help create the various distribution and promotional rails to manifest that vision in reality. We spoke to several interested parties, and yet, something would come up, or a deal didn’t feel right, and it wasn’t until we found our amazing partners at Label Worx did it really start to click into place.
From then on, it’s been a really beautiful ride into slowly but surely birthing the label and everything that comes with it into the world, and we couldn’t be happier with the start we’ve made
3 – ‘Dissolve’ is described as an autobiographical masterpiece, could you share some insights into the experiences that shaped this album?
All art is an expression of subjective experience. This is no different. This is a deeply personal album. I’m not a particular case. I’m not perfect. I, like everyone else, have experienced deep and profound trauma.
To lay the cards fully out on the table, my childhood was tough. I was profoundly bullied whilst at primary/elementary school, and what I experienced left deep wounds of inadequacy, self-doubt and self-limitation.
This trauma carried through into my adult life, and manifested in many ways, compromising my relationships, mostly in my intimate relationships, and in the most intimate relationship of all – my relationship with myself.
After a particularly painful breakup in 2016, I hit the wall badly. I realized I had been convincing myself that I’d dealt with my past, yet it was silently controlling my life, in all of the worst ways.
Nothing was working – none of my self-care practices…talking therapies didn’t scratch the surface. I felt like I needed something deeper, more profound.
That’s when plant medicines came into my life, and at the end of 2016, my life changed irrevocably after my first two ayahuasca ceremonies. Since then, these beautiful plant teachers have been a constant source of healing, tough love, beauty, inspiration, and unflinching honesty. I have grown beyond all measure. Dissolve is an expression of the last 6, nearly 7 years of my life and a deep commitment to support those on their path toward finding themselves.
4 – Can you tell us more about your background in audio engineering and sound therapy and how it informs your work?
I’ve always been obsessed with sound and music. That led me into electronic music and DJing in the late 90’s. Then, when my DJ career peaked in around 2006 I decided to go to audio engineering college, as I wanted to become more than just someone who played records. It was around that time that the role of the DJ changed, and you really had to be making and releasing music because it wasn’t enough to ‘just’ be a good DJ anymore.
I held a deep intention to move into the world of film music, composing for big Hollywood movies, TV, games, etc, as well as perfecting the art of electronic music production. That’s led me to play at the intersections of all of these worlds, and the results have been beautiful, and led me to work with the likes of Sasha, JunkieXL, Arthur Baker, Jeff Rona, Rob Garza from Thievery Corporation, and the list goes on.
After the psychedelic opening, I became fascinated in the more esoteric application of sound. I’ve always held a deep passion for how music connects, and unifies. It still stuns me to this day that we can capture air molecules vibrating around us with a piece of machinery, convert it into an electrical voltage, process it, then push it out, perfected, shaped and amplified, out of a loudspeaker, back into the ear, and it can make us dance, laugh, cry, smile…break through.
I wanted to understand on a deep, primeval, fundamental level, how and why that occurs. A dear friend of mine, Gavin Kendrick, had attended a sound therapy training course in Spain, a residential course that opened a gateway to understanding the more mystical, psychoacoustic application of sound, using the likes of tuning forks, singing bowls, gongs and most fundamentally, the human voice.
This gave me a perspective on the other side of the application of sound – one that physics can’t yet express or explain, yet we know it works on some deep level within ourselves.
It’s a wild experience walking the middle ground between the art, the science and the mystical. In the middle of all of it, is the truth that sound is an incredibly powerful technology, which we as a species have seemingly forgotten, and yet, are currently remembering.
5 – And finally, how do you feel about the future of music as a transformative medium in the field of healing and self-discovery?
I think my answer to the last question partly explains my view on this.
It’s incredibly exciting to see more and more people become more conscious about the power and potential of music and sound. It’s an incredible potential healing modality, and yet when misused, either consciously or unconsciously, it can be profoundly damaging to people’s well-being. For example, sonic-based weapons are a real thing, yet a single beautiful singing performance from one person can change your life.
In electronic music, it’s a very mixed picture. I hate to say it, but I must – it’s felt in recent years, as the scene has become bigger and more commercialized, the culture has maybe lost its way a bit.
When electronic music first emerged in the mid to late 80’s, there seemed to be more of an innate sense of the potential for this music to bring people together, to connect people en masse, and yes, to transform and heal – not only on an individual level, but entire societies. It’s pretty much an open secret that rave and ‘ecstacy culture’ mostly put an end to the epidemic of football violence that plagued the UK.
You watch footage of old clubs such as Quandrant Park in Liverpool, my hometown, and in 2023 you can feel the critical mass of humanity rising as one.
The healing potential of electronic music is still there, latent, and the potential is massive, especially as the technology around the creation of the music itself has evolved, as have the sound systems that reproduce and project the music into the crowds.
All we have to do, as artists, is become more aware and more conscious of what we are projecting out there onto the crowds.
DJing, club events and festivals are modern shamanic practices. If more artists and DJs are aware of this, the potential of this music to change the world is absolutely massive. Let’s face it, with the current state of the world, we need it more than ever.
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Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
