It’s been another fairly sizeable gap since my last missive, and it feels like a lot has happened in that time. For a start, our beloved local pub The Gun in Homerton (run by very close pals, Nick & Hanna), has been forced to close for good. I’d originally intended to devote an entire mailout to the sad passing, but feel like the venue has already been suitably laid to rest by all manner of recollections and images across social media in the last few weeks.

I was lucky enough to DJ at the insanely busy send-off, alongside friends and regular such as Nick himself, Tia Cousins, Jean Young, Cherrystones, Harri Pepper and several more who all gave an incredibly broad account of the freaky ‘pubstep’ that came to define the pub and its dedicated following. The entire night was recorded (all 12+ hours of it!), and we’re trying to work out how to do it justice, as it is an incredible musical document.

In the closing weeks, I did also host a couple of Thursday nights with the admittedly arbitrary hook of a Sub-100BPM music policy. I can’t promise that everything that was played did indeed meet the criterion, but it was a fun excuse to invite some friends to play nevertheless (Thanks to Debonair, Matt Walsh, Nadia Ksaiba, Emma Rudge and Ilan of Night City Life infamy). I recorded a mix to promote the night, which can be found below.

I’ll be trying to help the Gun team to continue to spread their gospel, starting with the b2b set Nick and I will be playing at Field Maneuvers this year. The Sputnik will be under the Gun banner for the opening Friday night of the festival, and we’ll be warming up proceedings for Tia, gun alumni Vladimir Ivkovic & Lena Willikens and Daisy Moon. I attended the festival as a punter last year, and played a couple of times in the distant past, and have always found it to be an incredibly relaxed and friendly event seemingly built on a foundation of fun, first and foremost. If you can find yourself a ticket, I’d highly recommend it. I even got a taxi home with a few friends on the sunday night last year, and was asleep in my own bed by 4am!

Something else that came to fruition a month or two ago was a special mix that I made for Moon Garden, a new outlet set up by Jamie McCue of the esteemed Silent Season series and label. Funnily enough, we’d been discussing the idea of me contributing a mix to the latter as far back as 2017, and for various reasons I never got it together to record anything. But listening to Jamie’s own recent mixes set off a lightbulb in my head, and inspired me to try making something with the minimal, dub-techno and electro influences that I haven’t necessarily been able to fully explore in the past.

It’s indicative of the new lease of creative life that I’ve permitted myself in recent months - what I’ve found is making me happy at the moment is keeping my listening habits as agnostic as possible, and making mixes with a specific brief or outlet in mind. Although I am starting to become interested in the idea of DJing again, I really don’t want to limit myself to a particular sound in the manner of my Volte-Face and BleeD releases. If you fancy hearing me in a mode that you’ve probably never me heard me in before, then I recommend that you take a listen below.

I’m conscious of sharing too many mixes in one post, so I’ll be back again shortly with a recent radio show that I recorded for Introspective Electronics, as well as a special ambient journey for the Deep Breakfast Series. There’ll also be a couple more IRL gigs(!) to share, but all in good time. Thanks again for reading.

Casper

PS special shout-outs to some of the fantastic artists that I’ve caught live recently, most notably Michel Banabila, Spiritualized, YPY & Valentina Magaletti, Alessandro Cortini, Marta Salogni, Eli Keszler and Monopoly Child Star Searchers. Next up will be the likes of Beau Wanzer, Naomie Klaus, Tobias and Jin Synth in the coming weeks.