Midweek Mixes (13/04/22)
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.
After a little hiatus for some rather intense weeks of travelling, playing, partying and generally LIVING LIFE, I’m back with some Midweek Mixes to get you through til the weekend. A couple of these choices are from people who I have been lucky to share some of these experiences with over the past month - that is, my nearest and dearest - and then there’s one from a DJ I’ve been curious about from afar, and recently finally got the chance to see play.
I still haven’t written up Nick’s astonishing KMA mix from last year but before I do that (in a long-form essay, no doubt) here’s this new one for Kellon’s SpillCast series. What I like most about it is that you can feel the same qualities in both sets even though that one was a 90-minute peaktime moment and this one is more of a home listening one (despite being full of bangers).
Nick’s an amazing DJ and he knows how to take his own style and adapt it to the circumstances - in this case for the now sadly defunct Spillway label. There’s a core engine of classic Detroit- and Chicago-influenced house and techno that regularly gives off sparks of electro, acid and UK bleep and bass. When Dark Matrix came in the first time I listened, around 50 minutes in, I broke into a massive smile that only got broader with the Ramu follow-up. Thanks Nick for sharing yourself with us through these mixes and radio shows. You’re the best.
Gwenan - Live At Dimensions 2021
Why is Gwenan not playing at Dimensions 2022? It’s the question on everyone’s lips and we demand an answer.
This set was a highlight for so many people at last year’s festival: midnight on Monday evening at the Beach stage, the ground prepped by a fantastic set of techno from Leah Floyeurs and everyone in it for one last fling. G softened us up with a series of palette cleansers - including Gregory Shiff and Murat Tepeli - before letting loose with the mayhem of Hi-Ryze and a whole string of Chicago-derived jacking bangers.
The way she then took the mood down carefully for 15 minutes - “rhythm king” / “mercy” / drum track - before hitting us with that mindblowing deep techno world-ender on the hour mark…and how else do you follow that up but with more world-ending choons? A friend said she spent the whole time dancing with her eyes closed, opening them only occasionally to watch G do her thing. I watched her too, and got the sense she was sneakily enjoying herself. She said after that she really was, and you could hear it in the music and feel it in the crowd. I feel a bit emotional writing about it now.
One final detail: both G and I played Wildplanet tunes in the second half of our sets at the festival, though G hadn’t yet arrived when I played on the Saturday. A little symbiotic communication through space and time that makes me smile today.
Picture it: Panoramabar, Sunday 27 March 2022, 9pm. Some people have probably been here all day; others, like us, did the morning session before taking an afternoon breather, returning in the evening to find the club absolutely heaving. Bodies pack the dancefloor, there’s barely room round the bar and don’t even think about going to the toilet. The only reasonable way to stick around in these circumstances is to get on it, so we - along with everyone else - get very much on it. I take my top off. Sedef Adasi has been playing at around 135bpm and, more to the point, finishes her set with ‘Waiting For Tonight’. The utter chaos of the rammed-out room coagulates for a sublime moment around that ‘oh-oh-oooh’ in the chorus.
You’re playing next. What do you do?
If you’re Gideön, founder-member of Block9/NYC Downlow/Adonis/R3 Soundsystem, you do what you always do (or so I’ve been told): play a meticulously put-together selection of restrained 90s(-influenced) house music, establishing a horizontal line of a groove that rarely wavers and in many senses feels like it could continue on forever. Tss-tss-tss goes the hi-hat. A piano here, a vocal there, but nothing that will overly perturb the sense of suspension in time. The craft and dedication to this particular sound are indisputable; but it also feels strangely like an intellectual exercise. I find myself longing for an unexpectedly sexy hug, or a slap round the face.
What felt nice about listening to this mix (as I walked through a sunny Madrid afternoon last weekend) was how fairly it matched up with my memory of that Sunday night in pbar. Musically and technically it’s an imposing achievement - what Gideön himself called ‘unflinchingly orthodox house vibes’ on his IG - but sometimes I think it’s important for the DJ to flinch, because it reminds them (and the dancers) that we’re all human.