Midweek Mixes (03/11/22)
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.
Jeffrey Sfire - Honcho Campout 2022
Here’s the first of what I can tell you now will be many Campout entries in Midweek Mixes. I’ve already been listening through many of the sets from this year’s festival and it’s only making me dream even more intensely about the possibility of making it to next year’s. Jeffrey Sfire is near the top of my list of DJs I want to see play, principally because our taste seems to overlap so much but also because his music is such a standout from the past decade. He gets it, profoundly, and you can hear that in this set too.
This was the opening set at the Grove stage one night and you can imagine the submerged, atmospheric opening drawing people in to the space as the night got underway. I feel like the moment that first 808 cowbell hits is when you realise what’s in store. The set flows between industrial/EBM, Chicago house, dreamy Italian introversion, camp Italo extroversion, freestyle, and - possibly my favourite moments - tracks that seem to combine all of this at once. The tune at 51 mins has fragments of New Order, First Choice, Liquid Liquid and others brewed together into a proto-house cocktail, while the rhythm track one hour in needs nothing more than a bassline, rolling hats, pre-‘The Climax’ synth lines and plenty of moans.
Other highlights include the Red Zone bleepy breaksy remix of ‘Where Love Lives’, the mix that sees the outgoing vocal sing “take me higher!” over the incoming crash of Exposé’s ‘Exposed To Love’ and - the point at which I would have utterly lost my mind - A Visitor From Another Meaning (aka Alden Tyrell)’s ‘Hills Of Honolulu”. (I first heard that tune on one of the Cybernetic Broadcasting System’s top 100s and the mp3 I still have from that time has I-F talking over the top about how his studio is falling apart around him.) He finishes with an edgy yet soulful cut-up vocal track that falls somewhere between R&B, ballroom and hyperpop, and you wonder where the set might have gone had there been another hour after that.
This Crack Mix from Jorg Kuning has a Villalobos-esque feel to it, all microhouse meets dub meets huge flamboyant moments, such as the fanfares and flangers of Davis Galvin’s ‘Rissp’ (mercifully slowed down a bit - and is it just me that thinks the bassline sounds like ‘Sweet Like Chocolate’?). That one of Jorg’s own tunes would then prove a suitable glue between ‘Rissp’ and Unknown DJ’s stonecold b-boy classic ‘Basstronic’ should come as no surprise. His music is chameleonic, both organic and synthetic, a kind of mutable lifeform that has found a home across all parts of 2022’s scattershot genre ecosystem.
As someone who loves ‘producer mixes’, it’s super satisfying to hear forebears of the Jorg Kuning sound throughout this session, from Steevio’s modular wiggles to Shackleton’s psychedelically spiralling percussion. And Ricardo does indeed show up towards the end, his collaboration with Vera emerging satisfyingly out of Isolée’s ‘Beau Mot Plage’. Jorg carefully layers Arthur Russell’s ‘Just A Blip’ over the top - totally the kind of move RV himself would make at 9am in fabric room 1 - before audaciously dropping in some vocal house to round out the mix.
Velv.93 - Kiosk Radio (22/10/22)
I met Velv.93 in a rainstorm car ride from Lighthouse Festival to Pula airport back in May and we had a good chat about music, DJing, Stockholm and other things. He sent me some tracks to listen to from his new LP, Vollsma, which, as you can see from the discogs comments, is something quite remarkable. This music goes beyond trite 90s signifiers to find a distinctive, timeless (yes) sound that is all texture, mood, substance. Indeed it’s artists like Substance, Autechre, the Thule and Börft clans and so on who come to mind.
This show for Kiosk Radio draws on a similar soundspace, but pulls it into a club environment. (Not saying that Velv.93 doesn’t make club music, though - he definitely does!) The mix is all about texture, density, drums that at times sound like they’re dredging through a swamp paired, on occasion, with shimmering harmonies. There’s even a little schaffely moment towards the end, for those who like that sort of thing.