Midweek Mixes (18/05/22)
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.
Note: my radio show FLAMINGO will broadcast today 16h GMT on Rádio Quântica.
Stephen Howe - SH101 Vocoders (Apr 2022)
Stephen’s show on Refuge Worldwide continues to deliver the goods, this time with a survey of vocoders in music from the late 70s through to today. What’s great about these shows is how they’re entertaining and educational in equal measure. In this hour I learnt how a vocoder works, what distinguishes it from a talk box (a rather mindblowing bit of insight), and how the immediately recognisable ‘robot voice’ of classic electro is made compared to the more tuneful vocoder effect of, say, mid-80s funk.
There are old favourites here from Laurie Anderson, Cybotron, Dark Matrix, Villalobos and 100Hz (among others), and new favourites that I’d never heard before from Rockmelons (a very cool sort of knock-off Kraftwerk from Australia), Roman Grey and Froyd.
Thanks Stephen for what is really proper radio.
(See also: previous shows on Freaky Chakra and UK bleeps and bass)
aNNA’s set at Dust Off two weekends ago in Manchester was a sort of anchor to which the rest of the night was tethered. Where Sam had played from jazz to freestyle to the Eurythmics in the warm-up, and where there was the anticipation of Nick also freewheeling for the close, Anna provided a 1am masterclass in patient groove building, finding energy not in seat-of-the-pants mixing or unexpected left-turns (what I relied on for my set), but in the slowly accumulated tension of loopy, quite reduced house that she would then release deftly in moments of euphoria. The crowd - me included - ate it up, and I remembered once again how important it is to a party to have residents who know what they’re doing.
aNNA’s latest show for Narr matches that set in terms of a coherent sound - here bleepy atmospherics and polyrhythmic percussion - but with perhaps a more home listening vibe. My favourite moments are the bassy drum track 25 mins in that’s followed by a big dreamy bit of ambient techno with the snare on the 1 and 3 (at least that’s how I choose to hear it). The show finishes with a song by Laurel Halo from 2017 - I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Laurel Halo tune before and this one, ‘Jelly’, is ace.