Midweek Mixes (24/01/24)
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.
I’ve had dubstep on my mind recently. Last Saturday I played at Outra Cena and took along a handful of records I bought back in the long and perhaps dubious tail of dubstep circa 2007/2008. It was fun to wheel them out again and, to be fair, they sounded fucking great. I also played a load of techno and electro at an exhilarating (for me) 135bpm! The set was recorded so I’m going to see what it sounds like.
This week’s selection of Midweek Mixes have a very tenuous dubstep theme even though only one of them really features anything approaching dubstep. The first two are united by a decidedly non-dubstep production by Joe (43) and the third is the one that kind of has a bit of almost-dubstep in it. Yes, I’m reaching, but I’m not a journalist, OK? Just enjoy the mixes. — they’re great.
I’ll own up to passing over this podcast when it first came out in August 2022 purely on the basis of Bella Boo’s cutesy chosen DJ name. Of course this was a ridiculous reason for not listening, but sometimes we are ridiculous. Thankfully, almost 18 months later, I came to my senses and decided to give it a listen, not least because it includes ‘God’s Chariot (SH Remix)’, which I released through Welt Discos earlier that summer. (Sidenote: to date, Stephen’s remix has raised over 2,000 EUR for the organisations Afrorack and Gladt, which is pretty dumbfounding.)
I’m very happy I did listen to the podcast, because not only is it excellent, it’s also comfortingly familiar in terms of style, pacing and mood. It’s my kind of mix, made from my kind of music, and while I spend a lot of my time admiring and analysing the work of other DJs, it’s not often I feel this much of an affinity with the specific way they’re doing things. Here I hear a lot of what I aim for in my DJing, from the deftly musical transitions (prioritising harmony and phrasing over duration), to the way she often uses only half a track to bridge to the next one, all while thoughtfully blending the new with the old.
Bella Boo decided to foreground Swedish producers in the mix, so Jesper Dahlbäck and Cari Lekebusch (in his Mr James Barth guise) both make an appearance alongside the newer guard from Studio Barnhus, and then there are international house legends like Baby Ford, DJ Bone and Mike Dunn. A modern classic — Joe’s ‘Tail Lift’ — makes a welcome cameo halfway through, and Bella carries its percussion-forward vibe through the beat tools that follow. I simply love this kind of DJing.
Perhaps ironically it’s in the latter part of the mix, where SH’s remix sits, that I lose a bit of interest. This is the more peak-time/big-room section and, while it’s done with just as much attention to detail as the first hour (check the crafty transition out of Bambounou’s ‘Cascade’ into ‘God’s Chariot’), the tracks she includes are less my bag. In a club I’m sure I’d be convinced, and I hope I get the chance to hear Bella Boo doing something like this live this year.
Tsuri - Live @ LISA (08/12/23)
This is two hours of Tsuri — a Lisbon favourite of mine who has featured on Midweek Mixes before (here) — playing at new(ish) mini-club on the block Lisa. I wrote about seeing DJ Sotofett at Lisa late last year (here), and last weekend I went back to catch Hélder Russo and Kyle Hall. It’s a comfy spot with a very cool programme, and now they’ve begun uploading some recordings from the club on their soundcloud.
Tsuri’s set features the usual goodness you’d expect from him, from gnarly acid house (Marcus Mixx shows up twice in the first 40 minutes) to sumptuous disco and all sorts in between. My favourite stretch takes us from ‘Without Makeup’ through a version of ‘You Should Be Dancing’ with extreme flanging on it (I’ve been assured by the man himself that this effect was not over-enthusiastic DJ filter abuse — he would never! — but is actually part of the version he played) and into, you guessed it, ‘Tail Lift’. He chases all this down with ‘Work That Motherfucker’. Get in.
Nick Craddock - Live(ish) @ Outra Cena (12/01/24)
Another live(-ish) session from a hot new Lisbon club, this is a re-recording of Nick Craddock’s recent closing set from This Side at the OC, which I wrote about last week (here). It matches my memory of the set, galloping along at a fair clip — a solid 145bpm — and ping-ponging between broken, angular grooves and rolling 4/4. Most of the tracks feel like new bassy club music from the UK, Florida, Mexico City and wherever else, and a glance at the tracklist seems to confirm this. It’s the kind of stuff I enjoy hearing out but never look for at home and therefore am in absolutely no position to analyse.
So I won’t. I’ll just say it sounds fresh, fun and bursting with energy, just like it did on the night. Nick rarely lets anything play out for longer than 3 minutes but it never feels rushed, because he’s a really good DJ with a sense for pacing and serious skills in the mix. The moment of classic-sounding electro in the final half hour of the night — possibly Stojche’s ‘Equator’ — takes me back to the club, and it makes me want to hear an entire serious-business electro set in that room.
(This is also a good opportunity to revisit the show Nick did for my EOS residency, here).