Midweek Mixes (20/10/22)
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.
Mike Servito - .Freq @ The Lot Radio (27/09/22)
Curious about minimal wave but don’t know where to start? Mike Servito has you covered. He’s a collector through and through and this show comes across like he’s grabbed a few handfuls of records from this particular shelf (or, more likely, shelves) and trekked down to The Lot Radio studio with them, ready to show us who was who from 1981 (well, 1978 if we include ‘The Model’) to 1984 (well, 1989 if we include the last 30 minutes of the show, in which the icy cold wave melts into warmer, not to say gooey, synth pop).
Many personal favourites are present here - Propaganda’s ‘Frozen Faces’ leading into Crash Course In Science’s ‘Flying Turns’ is a particularly towering combination - and Mike isn’t averse to a thematic connection either: ‘Driving Blind’ into ‘Lamborghini’, for example, or ‘Touched By The Hand Of God’ into a ‘The Number One Song In Heaven’ finale.
I wrote out a tracklist for the curious:
Slava Tsukerman - Me And My Rhythm Box
Solid Space - Tenth Planet
Rational Youth - I Want To See The Light
No More - Suicide Commando
Chris And Cosey - Driving Blind
Severed Heads - Lamborghini
Propaganda - Frozen Faces
Crash Course In Science - Flying Turns
Crash Course In Science - Factory Forehead
DAF - El Que
Gabi Delgado - Sex Goddess
Fad Gadget - Lady Shave
Fad Gadget - Collapsing New People
Frank Tovey/Fad Gadget - Luxury
Depeche Mode - If You Want
OMD - Talking Loud And Clear
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Cue
Kraftwerk - Das Model
Grauzone - Eisbär
OMD - Electricity
Yazoo - In My Room
Moev - Crucify Me
Moev - In And Out
Clan Of Xymox - Imagination
New Order - Touched By The Hand Of God
Sparks - The Number One Song In Heaven
Sofie K - Work Out @ NTS (14/10/22)
Three all-time favs in this latest NTS radio show from Sofie K: Visage’s ‘Pleasure Boys’ kicks things off (I’m a fan of the Bonus Beats, which I put in my Mix For Tracy way back); DJ City’s ‘Nattens Tysta Timmar’ follows soon after, a pulsing Cocktail classic that, presumably (I don’t speak Swedish) is all about filthy nighttime activity; and later ‘Sfire1’ by Jeffrey Sfire and SOPHIE featuring Marcella, a tune to end all tunes and therefore the only thing that could possibly stand up to previous epics like ‘Sfire2’.
Sofie K recorded this show “directly from a cupboard in a Canada” so props for that, and props also for doing God’s work by still listening to Prins Thomas Diskomikses in 2022. (400 and counting according to Discogs!) The Norwegian’s version of Swiss singer Ethimm’s ‘Live Large’, which appears right near the end of this hour, is an ecstatically stomping epic that I might even begrudgingly enjoy if I heard it in a club.
Full tracklist here.