Midweek Mixes (01/12/21)
A run-down of some of the mixes and radio shows that have been soundtracking my existence – from the box-fresh to the tried-and-tested, all guaranteed to brighten up your week.
Eli Verveine @ Monument Festival 2021
Monument Festival takes place in the middle of a forest a couple of hours out of Oslo, and the enchantment of that setting can be felt in every selection Eli Verveine makes in this three hour morning-into-afternoon recording. Anyone familiar with her mixes - like the towering Comfort Noise radio show from all the way back in 2007 - will have a good appreciation of the depth of her collection and her skill at weaving different strands of it together, but hearing it done live like this adds another layer to the wonderment. It feels slightly wrong to pick a single moment out of a set that should so obviously be consumed as a whole, but I can’t resist mentioning the mix into ‘Death Is Not Final’ towards the end: patient, poised, and lightly devastating. Classic Eli Verveine.
Chima Hiro - Rhythmic Culture 080
Chima Hiro’s Nyce & Slo radio show (which I covered previously here and here) is now broadcasting on the new Lisbon-based online station Radio Futura, though listening back isn’t yet an option. While we wait for that, here’s an hour and a bit of house music by turns joyful and moody, bringing together classics (check Mr G into Kenny Larkin for a particularly crafty mid-break blend of these two perennials) with fresh tunes from Omar-S, Kyle Hall, Senga Ferreira and Jon Dixon.
Full tracklist here.
Hassan Abou Alam - Hypnotic Groove Mix #370
I first heard of Hassan Abou Alam through his recent It Spills EP on Naive, the wonky but funky title track of which I’ve been playing out a lot. The same qualities I like in that EP - offbeat but coherent choices, quirky harmonic logic, fit drums - are exactly what I like about this mix for Hypnotic Groove, which already in the opening stretch probes into all sorts of curious soundworlds: folky ambient, dub and dubstep, glitch, breaks, IDM…it’s a craftily put together melange of body music that works its own kind of magic. The mix gets way more upfront later on and with it loses (for me) a bit of its charm, but its a good calling card for Alam’s range. I hope to see his liveset some time here in Lisbon.