Midweek Mixes (29/03/23)
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.
Matthew Neequaye - Going To London
The track that kicks off Matthew Neequaye’s latest mix — Neutron 9000’s ‘Drift Factor’ — establishes a sonic mood that corresponds exactly to both its title and the photograph that illustrates it: London tower blocks at dusk, blurred as if watched from a passing suburban train, a hint of solitary birds in the sky. The following tracks are further mood-setters, building on that lilting opening with more intention and energy but hardly releasing the tension. “Turn off the light,” a vocal intones as a church bell rings, “take a deep breath and relax” — but I wouldn’t call it relaxing necessarily. There’s a kind of tough purposefulness to this whole first section that for me only partially breaks with the dreamy Detroit track nearly half an hour in.
Next, T.O.S.’s ‘Slide Rule’ eases us into a more bumping midsection that glides along with some encouraging vocals, catchy basslines and one track that sounds a bit like Cajmere’s remix of ‘Lonely’ if it were re-remixed on Obsession Music. This leads into the closing stretch, revealing the mix overall as a warm-up set as it shifts up a gear to finish. Indeed the groovy closing track — the latest Gemini-esque number from Paraguay-based producer Wil Do (an earlier fav of mine being, of course, ‘Gemini’) — acts as the perfect handover track for the next DJ to hit the ground running. It’s exactly what I saw Matthew do expertly on The Beach at Dimensions last year.
Timmerman keeps things fast and funky in these ninety minutes of high energy tonkers for Brussels party Gay Haze (which provided one of my highlights of Listen Festival almost exactly a year ago). Where many of today’s DJs would likely get sucked into a relentless trancey vortex, he preserves enough of an exploratory and fun house and garage sensibility to give the set continuously fresh movement.
Check what sounds like some acappella action just past half an hour in, with Shampale Cartier reading the crowd (“Miss Girl over there/Walking around as if she’s some kind of princess”) over a filtered disco-techno track in the style of ‘In The Bush’, before the full version of ‘I’m Talkin To You’ finally comes in for the extended library session (“You look like Barbra Streisand/In a cheap Diana Ross wig”). It’s this kind of crafty (and crafted) DJ move that’s the mark of someone thinking carefully how to trip a crowd out while keeping things fun, and without relying on cheap tricks.
That’s what makes this whole set a joy, and even when things do in fact get trancier later on, in the nick of time he takes a left turn into invigoratingly punky — dare I say it, electro-clashy — chug, before closing with Psyche’s evergreen “Unveiling The Secret”.
musclecars - Live @ Honcho Campout 2022
New York duo musclecars take us from dreamy psychedelia (like the Winter Version of ‘Sueño Latino’) through R&B old and new (from Jill Scott, Tamia and Sounds Of Blackness) into instrumental jazz and batucada, peaking with Martha Wash’s immense (and uncredited) vocal on the acappella of Black Box’s ‘Everybody Everybody’. This is what I’d call a MOMENT and I can only imagine what the vibe was at the Hemlock Nights stage when this dropped.
Sadly (for me) it’s immediately followed by a version of ‘Follow Me’ aka one of my least favourite house tracks. Its message is inspirational but the musical package for that message, at least in the original Aly-Us track, is, I will always maintain, abysmal. At least the gospel choir on this re-version can sing in tune, but by the time they come in that opening piano and strings section — cloying, egregiously dissonant — has already totally killed my vibe. You can’t win them all! (See Kirk Smith’s ‘Textures’ for another widely venerated — and not dissimilar — track that simply makes me want to claw my ears off.)
Putting my personal grievances against that one track aside, I can tell this set would have been a rich, cosmic trip for those festival goers looking for an alternative to the more full-on club music happening at the main stage. Even in the rather more mundane setting of my flat it has been providing much spiritual sustenance this past week.