Midweek Mixes (16/06/21)
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.
NB my radio show Flamingo will be broadcast today at 16h GMT on Rádio Quântica.
Truly Madly - Dimensions Mix 242
I doubt I can tell you anything about Truly Madly that you don’t already know, so in lieu of a load of praise for the man himself I will give you four of my favourite things from this stunner of a mix:
The first transition, which happens within the first 3 minutes of the mix and is over in a flash. It involves a beatless bassline from the second record and you can hear a miniscule adjustment that’s only just audible as the second record starts creeping into the mix. This is the kind of transition I absolutely love - it’s crafty, it’s human, it’s unusual, and it grabs your attention right from the word go.
The transition at 18 minutes, where the combination of the two tracks - each in themselves classy and classic - very briefly creates a groove that (with apologies to Truly) is pure Mannheim minimal house circa 2008. It’s like 20 seconds of ‘Orbitalife’ smuggled into the middle of an otherwise highly sophisticated mix and I love it.
The glorious beatless interlude at the midpoint of the mix that acts as a breather before the second half gets underway. I’d like to hear resets like this more often in mixes and at parties too, once there are any - they can be real moments of drama and energy.
The insane tune at 37 minutes. It has a bit of everything: deep acid bassline; skippy garage beat; a piano motif that manages to be both bittersweet and jaunty at the same time; vocal samples (some, it seems, in Italian, and others in English); and then, before you know what’s happening, a guitar motif joins the piano and makes everything about 100x more balearic. It’s a tune so immense that Truly does what any right-minded DJ would do and only mixes out of the final dying moments.
Out Of The Blue - A Liquid Statement
This is what you might call a ‘listening mix’, to distinguish it, I suppose, from a ‘dancing mix’. I’ve listened to it constantly since it was first published earlier this year and this week I stuck it on again, because by now it’s become a sort of comforting companion, there when the kick drums aren’t doing it for me or if I just want a bit of mindspace. An overheard conversation in the street in a foreign language might remind me of Sheila Chandra’s vocal gymnastics on ‘Speaking In Tongues III’ and it prompts me to put this mix back on when I get home.
Out Of The Blue was the artist behind last year’s debut release on Italian label Nottetempo, which impressed for its blending of different tempos and timbres within a dance music template. ‘The Tease’ was one of the dancefloor bangers of a year in which dancefloors were barely to be found, its happy-sad harmonies summing up the longing that I and many others felt for moments of sticky-floored ecstasy.
A Liquid Statement shows off the artist’s broad set of influences from the non-dance world, revolving primarily around jazz, jazz fusion and related in-between-genres experimentalism. The unifying theme of water is present not only in sounds of water but also in the ebb and flow of the mix, which is expertly paced and sequenced. There are carefully balanced tensions between organic and synthetic, tuneful and rhythmic, reflective and purposeful.
There are also moments of real melodic drama - like the ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ motif of Wolf Muller & Cass’s ode to ‘Miyazaki’ early on, or the faintly Orientalist broken beat tune that appears near the end of the mix, sounding like an outtake from the recording sessions for Bowser’s Castle. Incidentally, the placement of these tunes in the mix as a whole achieves the sort of long-arc symmetry I love to hear.
To cut an already long story short, this is a mix to savour and treasure. It provides the sort of sustenance and reassurance that we all need, especially of late. Here’s hoping for more material from Out Of The Blue in the future, be it mixes or more original music.