Midweek Mixes (26/06/24)
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.
You’ll probably be wanting to hear how Waking Life 2024 went this past long, long weekend. Well, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to put it into words because it was such a big ball of everything: good, bad, ugly, joyful, raging, ridiculous, frustrating, eye-opening, exhausting, uplifting, mind-expanding… I guess everything you’d expect from six nights in the middle of nowhere surrounded by wonderful, talented, slightly mad people.
Some ideas I’ve had for writing about it:
Hits and Misses, except it’s only Hits because the Misses hurt.
10 records I’ve spent years wanting to hear in the Waking Life Floresta yet somehow failed to play, despite having four hours in which to do so.
Places to be horizontal at Waking Life.
An account of my artist transfer with Moritz Von Oswald, MVO’s son, Ivan Smagghe and Lawrence, given in David Foster Wallace-level detail, that ends with me arriving at the festival and gives no further information.
Let’s see if any of these ideas coalesce over the coming days or weeks. In the meantime, here are some good old Midweek Mixes, leading with one of my own because I’m proud of it.
This recording approximates without replicating my set at Multisex a month ago, which I wrote about here. It includes quite a lot of recent and forthcoming music from people I know and admire like Ali Berger, Peach, ELO, Goutham & Jeremy, Bouffant Bouffant and Photonz, alongside old favs from Bionaut, Hardfloor and Sole Tech.
As I wrote about before, I wasn’t sure how I’d fit in with the Multisex vibe, but having now played the party I felt confident recording my own take on it and got this done pretty spontaneously. It’s driving, sexy, a little nostalgic, heartfelt. I hope you enjoy it.
TRACKLIST
House Of Venus – Flying Carpet Ride [Go Bang!, 1990]
SW. – shaCAT'selecTRON70's [Kalahari Oyster Cult, 2024]
The Bionaut – Thrills [Blue, 1992]
Peach – Charmed [Psychic Readings, 2024]
Mutagen – Save The Planet, Chill Yourself [Is/Was, 2024]
ELO – The Feeling When [Nervous, 2024]
The Outsiders – Beyond The Ego (Ego Dub) [Moonworks, 2024]
Goutham & Jeremy – Substance [Unreleased]
Bouffant Bouffant – Colinda [Nervous, 2024]
Rumpus – Hypnotize [Skinnymalinky, 1996]
Hardfloor – Mahogany Roots [Harthouse, 1994]
Photonz – Inner Fracture [Labour Jacks, 2024]
Love Letters – I Call Upon (WTCHCRFT’s McLean Remix) [Bunker, 2023]
Sole Tech – Tech Man [Detrechno, 1996]
K Lost Acid Dubs – B1 [Art-Aud, 2022]
Ali Berger – Rhythm & Simplicity [Scissor & Thread, 2024]
Caramel Chameleon – d-_-b Future Is Blind [Dischi Nottetempo, 2024]
deep creep - Live @ Horst Festival 2024
I mentioned this set in my Horst 2024 recap, saying deep creep “went stealthily from almost Perlon-esque minimal house through to full on prog-but-pitched-down, in truly classy style”. I stand by that assessment, though regret my lazy tendency to describe any kind of minimal house as ‘almost Perlon-esque’.
Listening back, the opening stretch feels more mnml-y than Perlon-y, though actually what it is above all else is MOSSY. Kicks as soft as footsteps in leaf litter, an undergrowth of bass, snares like brittle twigs, lysergic synths imitating frogs and rare birds in the canopy…for the first half of this set you can practically smell the moss bursting out of the seams in the Moon Ra stage’s creaky ceiling.
ANYWAY, after that mulchy opening deep creep hits the accelerator and we ascend through what is actually some properly Perlon-esque shuffly business into the more driving second half. One of my favourite moments comes about 43 mins in, when the proggy bass of ‘It’s All In The Details’ by Bass Kittens, which I don’t really like, abruptly drops out to leave only crunched-up junkyard drum noises à la Jamal Moss, which I do really like.
And OH MY GOD is Jamal Moss secretly the leader of the cult of moss? #jamalmosshouse
Michael Upson - Live @ Genosys, Glastonbury 2019
When, two years ago, I wroted about a recording of Michael Upson playing all night at his own Love Muscle party in Leeds, I talked about him “telling a story about the full range of queer dance music history and scenes over the past 50 years”. On that night at Wharf Chambers he had six hours to tell the story; at Glastonbury back in 2019, when he played on the old Genosys stage, he had only 90 minutes.
Yet a lot of the story is there if you listen out for it, from classic Chicago and Detroit house (Fingers Inc.’s foundational ‘Another Side’, Hercules And Love Affair’s Inner City-referencing ‘Do You Feel The Same’) to disco and new wave oddities, modern morning music (a pitched-down ‘Play The Game’ by Kenny Hawkes), Canadian freestyle (Amy Jackson’s ‘Let It Loose’, though I’ve always preferred the groovier E.Z. mix), acid jack trax and then, 54 minutes in, a 100% certifiable now-we’re-rushing ‘Pbar moment’. (Or, more correctly, a ‘Downlow moment’.) You can tell Michael was enjoying himself by this point as he starts cutting in the hats from this huge garagey banger early over the previous track.
In the back half of the set there’s tribal drums, Aaron-Carl sleaze, I.M.S. and a couple of grating 90s house tunes that I don’t even resent since, just like in that all-night set, they clearly speak for an era of gay dance music that deserves representation even if I personally am not a fan.