Midweek Mixes (10/01/24)
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.
The first Midweek Mixes of 2024 features a standout Honcho Campout set by Succubass that I missed while I was working at the other stage on the Saturday night. That’s the beauty of having all these recordings — finding out exactly how much fun you missed out on! There’s also a gorgeous new deep house podcast from Leeon and a recording of the warm-up from Paris queer collective La Culottée’s last party of 2023.
Succubass - Live @ Honcho Campout 2023
I was over at The Grove gearing up for my long Saturday night shift while this was taking place down at Hemlock Hole. The contrast between the peaktime linearity of The Grove and the sultry, almost minimal meanders of Succubass’s set could not be more pronounced. She opens with swirling double-/half-speed dub, bass and ambience, with weird noises and soft vocals that give little away while and crank the tension. (You can hear the appreciation from the Hemlock crowd, hollering away as usual.) The wild BPM shifts, handled deftly, only heighten the sense of disorientation — check minute 28 for a concise illustration.
And then it comes, the release. Just past 35 minutes, a crooning voice with acappella backup:
The very first time that I saw your brown eyes
Your lips said “Hello” and I said “Hi”
The crowd SCREAMS. Half-recognition dawned on me when this came in on the recording, and then a sublime ‘click’ when I realised where I knew the tune from: UK boyband East 17’s 1996 hit ‘If You Ever’ featuring Gabrielle, released when I was 10 and still indelibly engraved on my memory 27 years later. What I didn’t know was that East 17’s song was a cover of a 1992 tune by the American group Shai, nor that the acappella from that original had been repurposed in 2015 by New Zealand dubstep producer Epoch for this extraordinary version. With it, Succubass cashes in on the meticulous work of her opening half an hour in a masterstroke that’s both seductive and a little haunting.
It’s emblematic of the Hemlock Nights programme as a whole and I have to keep reminding myself that this was peaktime on a Saturday night on one of the festival’s two main stages. Succubass doubles down on this move with the next tune, which features a massively pitched down voice insinuating sweet nothings in a deeply unsettling fashion. “It’s electrifying,” slurs the voice, and for one vertiginous moment I wonder if it’s a surreal take on ‘You’re The One That I Want’ from Grease. It’s not, but that’s the Hemlock Hole magic for you: anything is possible.
Succubass executes an extended mix out and soon we seem to be listening to some kind of Cadenza-era minimal house. It sounds like a cut from Luciano’s Tribute To The Sun LP but I refuse to go back and check because that album made me angry enough the first time round. The SC comments nail the frankly bizarre mood:
Over the following hour we are then comprehensively freaked up and down as Succubass traverses a panoply of genres, eras and moods, my personal favourite being the piano/harp-led funky beatdown number just before 90 minutes. She isn’t afraid of a palate cleanser either, embracing beatlessness or even silence as an opportunity to pause and start along another path — check the tempo reset at 93 minutes, for example.
After all this wizardry, Succubass gives us a soft landing with the sumptuous embrace of Homero G’s all-time-great ‘Satisfaction’, a record I cherish dearly, and which I haven’t heard out for over a decade. I can’t believe I missed hearing it in person at Campout, but at least with this recording I can try and visualise it: the “sweet abyss” of Hemlock Hole on a witchy Saturday night, the crowd besides themselves as Succubass finishes and takes all her flowers.
Before I get into this mix, I should make my position on solos clear: I’m the kind of DJ who mixes out of ‘Runaway’ at exactly the moment Loleatta Holloway says “Come on Vince, play the vibes”, because I categorically do not want to hear the vibes. And don’t even start me on saxophones. The only sax solos I actively enjoy hearing are ‘Careless Whisper’ and ‘I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)’. In fact, the only instruments I like less than the saxophone are things like bagpipes and accordions, which, mercifully, have never really made it into the dance music canon. (Even that most Scottish of synth devotees, Jesse Rae, seemingly never actually employed the bagpipes in his music).
So I came into Leeon’s new mix for Phonica a solo sceptic. By my reckoning, in order it features solos on: piano, electric piano, some kind of talk-boxed synth, sax (strike 1), electric piano, sax (strike 2), vibes, sax (strike 3 you’re out!), vibes, trumpet (you’re lucky it’s not a sax) and, to finish, a flute (I’m done). AND YET, I love it. I’ll admit that I would probably enjoy it even more with a couple fewer saxes and flutes, but that’s just me being stubborn. I even actively enjoy some of the solos — take the sax on the huge track 50 minutes in, for example, which adds some complementary jauntiness to that nasty bassline without being overbearing.
The bookends of the mix read like a love letter to Fingers Inc., drawing on unexpected corners of Larry and Robert’s sprawling discographies and matching these to other Another Side-descended sounds. Second track ‘Juke Joints, Liquor Houses’, out last year on Heard’s own Alleviated label, has a strong DJ Sprinkles vibe to it (which is the same as saying it has a strong Larry Heard vibe to it), while Glenn Underground takes 2001’s ‘Praise’ for an uplifting ride. As for Robert, near the end of the mix Leeon plays Argentinian duo Silver City’s take on ‘Right Now’, Owens’ collab with Freaks — a nu disco note that brings some welcome swagger to proceedings.
For me, the real achievement of this mix is the rise and fall in dynamics throughout, all within a relatively strict genre palate. The chilled opening selections lay the foundation, gradually ramping up into the piano uplift around 43 minutes, and before we know it we’re in full-on NYC Downlow mode. After that peak section, the back half of the mix is all about branching out into other textures/moods but keeping it house: some unexpected but highly effective acid, a wonky vocal that sounds like a baby burbling to itself, the aforementioned nu disco moment — all mixed in inventively and at just the right moment.
The final transition might just be my favourite, Leeon filtering out ‘Right Now’ into the trills and squawks of the closing track’s flute solo, unadorned and unashamed. Have I been converted?!
Ceyda Yagiz & Trusspe - Live @ La Cullottée, Paris (22/12/23)
This is a recording of the warm-up at Parisian queer collective La Culottée’s end of year party, delivered by residents Ceyda Yagiz (who has featured before here) and Trusspe. The first hour gives us slowburners in the vein of Slow Motion or Mechatronica White — methodical grooves, punky vocals and cosmic electronics, Music Box drum workouts (I love that one just after the hour mark) and a LOT of gated voices — and then the pump gets going in the second. I prefer the space and intrigue of the opening part but that’s the way things go on a club night.
(Levon Vincent’s headline set from the same night, up temporarily on SC, is a reliably uneven listen.)