Midweek Mixes (25/05/23)
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.
Before we get into the mixes, a quick note to say this Saturday night I’m playing at Strange Brew in Bristol for the first time for the lovely Housework crew (tickets here) and then I’m making my way to Brussels to play Sunday evening at the appropriately named Sundaze. If you’re in either city come and say hi!
Just two mixes this week because one of them has been absorbing a lot of my listening time. Sometimes you hear something totally mind-melting and simply have to write an entire essay about it.
(Just me then?)
CCL is D-J-I-N-G. At any one moment in this mix you feel like they have two or three things on the go, parts interlocking, each new groove coming in hot on the heels of the last, afterimages persisting. It feels a bit pointless to talk about BPMs here since the whole conceptual drive of this mix is to explode the idea of BPMs, but talk about them we will. CCL describes the opening section as being in the “fast/slow 100/200bpm zone”, which is definitely where my most outré dance moves come out, before building to “170/80 release”. The maths doesn’t quite add up but that’s the beauty of this kind of collage-style DJing, also known as “juggling with a passionate urgency on the verge of collapse” (CCL quoting DJ Marcelle).
I won’t try to describe the mix as a whole here because CCL’s own words on their IG express it best. Let me just pick out some favourite moments, like the “Make him bark/Make him scream/Buffalo Bill/Yee-ha!” vocal 12 minutes in, a laugh-out-loud lyric especially when contrasted with the sludgey chug going on underneath. This is an acappella from 80s funk-rap band Indeep (of ‘Last Night A DJ Saved My Life’ fame) and whether CCL is layering it in or it’s been sampled in one of the tracks they’re playing is kind of beside the point: the gorgeous feeling of vertigo from the recontextualisation is the same either way. (This is something I’ve written about previously — here and here — with respect to Prosumer’s kaleidoscopic DJ sets.)
The next moment is less about novelty and more about sheer DJ brains. It’s around 24 minutes in and CCL is playing a 100bpm percussive workout from Japanese producer T5UMUT5UMU on Ugandan label Hakuna Kulala (another trademark of this mix is its totally borderless selection). This blends into another high-speed polyrhythm, now played on what sounds like a Gamelan and wind chimes, and with its (soft) four-to-the-floor we now really feel like we’re going at 200bpm instead. The next track (or track but one, it’s difficult to tell) brings us back down to halfspeed again, but now in 3 rather than 4, and with a load of new space in the sound field. A moody break courtesy of Batu at 29m30s provides a breather and the stage is now set for what’s about to happen.
At 30m20s the beat drops back in, still seemingly in 6 (or so we’ve been primed to think), but here comes something else through the middle of the mix and in the space of about 20 seconds we realise 6 is now 4 again: CCL has split the triplet time into quarters and brought us down from 200bpm to 134bpm, or 67bpm with the half-time dubstep lurch. Now THAT’S a power move. I have so many technical questions. Safe to say the construction of this transition — first the frenetic pressure of the percussion tracks; then the half-time drop that opens up space, full of potential for something new; the subtle shift into 3 instead of 4; then the break to unmoor us from the time signature (though not completely); and finally the quick and confident sleight of hand back to 4/4 time when the beat comes back in — is a true accomplishment.
The other moments that stand out for me are the more spacious organic ones in amongst the electronic frenzy. Commodo’s recent turn towards post-metal grime gets an airing 40 minutes in, a rare moment of tonality in a mix that otherwise focusses almost solely on texture. Once again this moment is announced by a highly sparse breather, giving it even greater impact when the guitars drop in. The gradual ascent into that ‘170bpm release’ is less my bag listening at home, but I can imagine myself being carried along with it at a festival (luckily I’ll get that chance at Honcho in August), and of course without all that build-up the pay-off in the final 10 minutes wouldn’t be quite as emotional: the arrival of vocals, harmonies and a slow lilting guitar are almost celestial after what’s gone before.
Telma @ Galeria Zé dos Bois (15/04/23)
Telma treats the Telma Fan Club (President: me, Members: all of you) to a new live recording, this time of her warming up for Marie Davidson at Galeria Zé dos Bois. The only reason I didn’t attend this live was because I was throwing my own party at the same time. Had I been at ZDB, I would have been dancing right from the get go as Telma opened with gnarly chug (love that ‘Macho Man’ tune early on), suavely moved into 80s porn film music 20 minutes in and kept building from there. The BPM climbs along with the energy but never too hastily. The sharper edged industrial and EBM tracks are tempered by smoother, deeper selections. Franz Scala’s ‘Salto Mortale’ sounds as fit as ever. By the time we reach the final stretch it feels like we’ve had a comprehensive introduction to where Marie Davidson herself is coming from, and as a headline artist I don’t think you could ask for much more than that from your warm-up DJ.
(See here and here for previous entries in the Telma Fan Club archives)