Here’s my latest mix for NTS Radio. End-of-summer balearic, Latin textures, 60’s-inspired lounge, a bit of funk, and Bill Nelson doing his best proto-Enya impression. If you like it, you can download an mp3 version here.
Also, I know it’s been quiet around here–I’m knee-deep in a few projects right now but am looking forward to sharing more music soon!
Tracklist:
1. Junko Ohashi – テレフォン·ナンバー
2. Ichiko Hashimoto – Le Beau Paysage
3. Quarteto Em Cy – Vida Ruim
4. Il Guardiano del Faro – Lei
5. Yoon Sin Nae – 이 밤을 즐겁게
6. Yukihiro Takahashi & Steve Jansen – Betsu-Ni
7. Sonia Rosa – Te Quero Tanto (I Love You, So)
8. The Slipstream Group – Bygones
9. Zabadak – Butterfly
10. Lena D’Água – Jardim Zoológico
11. Lydia Lunch – Spooky
12. Steely Dan – Do It Again
13. Maryn E. Coote – One Who Cares (Original 82-14)
14. Bill Nelson – Realm Of Dusk
15. Nuno Canavarro – Wask
16. Claire Hamill – Autumn: Leaf Fall
A classic. While Hosono needs no introduction around here, I’m realizing that Tatsuro Yamashita has perhaps not been given enough air time. For the unfamiliar, Yamashita is iconic in his own right, not just because of his classic Japanese Christmas favorite “Christmas Eve” or his enormous output but also because of his signature early-80’s take on a wall-of-sound expansiveness crossed with a deep love for the Beach Boys, relentlessly clever songwriting, and of course, mirror-polished synth programming. Shigeru Suzuki is perhaps best known for his work with Happy End and Tin Pan Alley, and is also a wildly prolific session musician, who’s contributed to over 588 recordings as of 2006.
Which brings us to Pacific, for which each track was composed by one of the above three. It also includes plenty of of contributions from–you guessed it–Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi. Though YMO’s self-titled debut was also released in 1978, from what I understand Pacific came first, and feels very akin to much of the exotica and fusion that Hosono had already been fixated on across several projects. Still, Pacific is clearly the product of a handful of masterminds having fun together: its unabashed tropical nostalgia acts as a jumping off point for flitting between genres (lounge, funk, disco, rhumba, smooth jazz, Latin fusion, synth pop), all delivered in full-color with jaunty, winking songwriting.
Even with vaporwave and its kitsch-scraping genre contemporaries behind us, Pacific holds up as well as ever. It’s only in closer “Cosmic Surfin'” that we get a taste of the more hard-edged, crunchy electro that became YMO’s signature sound, and fittingly, a different version of the song went on to appear on YMO’s debut the same year. I highly recommend listening to this as much as possible before fall rolls around.
Here’s my newest episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. Funk, synth pop, and lots of vocal harmonies. If you like it, you can download an mp3 version here. Enjoy!
Tracklist:
1. Deniece Williams – Free
2. Shinichi Tanabe – Hell’s Gate Island Theme
3. Marju Kuut & Uku Kuut – I Don’t Have To Cry Anymore
4. Koo Dé Tah – Over To You
5. Dee C. Lee – Hey What’d Ya Say?
6. Jennifer Vyban – Miracles
7. Mami Koyama – Love Song
8. Love, Peace & Trance – Hasu Kriya (Single Version)
9. Brenda Ray – Another Dream
10. Velly Joonas – Käes On Aeg
11. Astrud Gilberto – Dindi
12. Syoko – Sunset
13. Minako Yoshida – Gogo No Koibito
My newest mix for NTS Radio is meant for springtime walking around. (Mom, I think you might like this one.) I’ll be posting an mp3 download version in a week from now. I know it’s been a little quiet around here–I’ve been tied up with another project, but am looking forward to sharing more music next week. If you like this, you can download an mp3 version here. Thanks for listening!
I spent the weekend after the inauguration at the New York Women’s March and finishing this mix. I wanted to use all American dance music as a way of recognizing the enormous creative debt we owe to people of color and the LGBTQ community. Since I’m not great at cross-genre mixing (yet!), this veers mostly towards disco. As such, I was also thinking a lot about the recently departed David Mancuso as I worked on it. I recorded this live, so I hope you’ll excuse some imperfect mixing and enjoy some very perfect songs. If you like it, you can download an mp3 version of it here. Thanks for listening!
Tracklist:
1. GQ – Lies
2. Finis Henderson – Skip To My Lou
3. Scherrie Payne – I’m Not in Love / Girl, You’re In Love
4. Vincent Montana Jr. & The Philly Sound Orchestra – That’s What Love Does
5. Kenix ft. Bobby Youngblood – There’s Never Been (No One Like You)
6. Karen Carpenter – My Body Keeps Changing My Mind
Feeling heartbroken for peers, friends, musicians, and artists who have been affected by the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland. Like so many others, I’m unable to imagine what my life would be like without DIY, and often illegal, spaces for art, music, and living. These spaces are increasingly vital as cities become prohibitively expensive, and the news coverage that blames the victims of such a terrible loss is deeply upsetting. To echo others: this could have been any of us.
In the spirit of cultures that will, by necessity, continue to build beautiful things in marginal places, I wanted to share a favorite disco record (though to be fair, this record was a heavily produced chart-topper, not a homegrown experiment). This is one of my favorite records to dance to, and is also a rare instance of a disco LP that’s solid all the way through. Impeccably tasty production–hard to say no to this one. Please keep dancing!
A lot to be excited about here: dense, textural Japanese new wave with heavy funk and no wave influences. Tropical and African textures and a big band brassy sound bring Talking Heads to mind, while the playful cultural splicing and occasionally dubby production feel akin to Yasuaki Shimizu. In particular, “Watashi No Suki Na Kuni,” though much denser and more guitar-driven, suggests the relentless march and weightless, nonchalant vocal float of “Shinzo No Tobira.” While the bombastic and dance-oriented tracks are immediately attractive, I think the record’s hazier, more subdued moments are some of its strongest: the more pared down and moody “Exotic Dance” lets incredibly detailed percussion come to the forefront, and the closer, “Oriental Oriental,” despite acting as the final word on a very raucous record, has all the unhurried silvery chic of an Avalon-era Roxy Music instrumental. Try it; you’ll like it!
Note: though the music has held up very well, this recording is fairly beat up and will not sound good on laptop speakers.
I was deeply saddened to learn of the death of David Mancuso, founder of the Loft party, disco enthusiast, instigator of the record pool system, DJ, audiophile, activist, and New York legend. Mancuso devoted his life and resources to creating safe spaces for many, but especially for the gay community, to dance to the best music in the best possible environment. He rejected beatmatching and mixing in favor of respect for sound quality and unaltered recordings played in their entirety, he prioritized dancing by refusing to overcrowd his parties, he avoided slavishness to genre, and he pushed back against inflated alcohol prices and club profiteering by instituting a BYO policy. He also fought in the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs’ longest administrative trial to date against their insistence that he get a cabaret license (which he ultimately avoided by not selling food or beverages). He believed a DJ should have good taste, push the envelope, and use songs to spin narrative arcs, but not show off or get in the way of the music. He drew inspiration from time spent outside as a child, having grown up in an orphanage in rural upstate New York:
“I spent a lot of time in the country, listening to birds, lying next to a spring and listening to water go across the rocks. And suddenly one day I realized, what perfect music. Like with sunrise and sunset, how things would build up into midday. There were times when it would be intense and times when it would be very soft, and at sunset it would get quiet and then the crickets would come in. I took this sense of rhythm…”
In the spirit of David’s work, I wanted to share a record that, though not a canonical Loft favorite, embodies the ecstatic, high energy disco for which the Loft is known. I wish very much that I could share Feeling So Good, the original LP that produced one of Gyan’s more famous singles, “Disco Dancer,” but it’s all but nonexistent (jen@listentothis.info if you have a decent rip you’d like to trade!). Several tracks from Feeling So Good appear on this compilation, though everything I’ve heard from the record is excellent. I’m realizing as I write this that it’s a bit odd to make two very remarkable, very different people share one post, so I hope this comes off alright.
Kiki Gyan was a Ghanaian musician and child keyboard prodigy who went professional at the age of 12, dropped out of school (“There was too much music in me, I couldn’t stay in school”) and was recruited to the British Afro-pop band Osibisa when he was 15. He toured internationally with the band until beginning his tenure as a very in-demand and expensive session musician in the best London recording studios before he was 21. His musical skill earned him a reputation as Ghana’s answer to Stevie Wonder, and he went on to make a series of very ambitious disco records, aiming at international stardom. Drug abuse interfered, and despite numerous attempts at intervention and rehabilitation, Gyan quickly declined, became unable to make music, and died at 47 from AIDS and drug-related complications. It was a terrible loss in many ways.
24 Hours In A Disco is entirely long tracks, befitting Gyan’s style—his wicked musicianship and joy predisposed him to long-form relentless disco funk jams that were tailor-made for the dance floor. These are songs that impossible to sit still through.
Thank you Kiki, thank you David—here’s to hoping that love saves the day.
Listen to my sixth episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio below. I thought a lot about musical migration as I was making this: cross-pollination as a result of colonialism; exotic fantasy, escapism, and essentialism; and Brazil, both as a place of origin and as a source of inspiration. If you like it, you can download an mp3 version of it here. Enjoy!
Tracklist:
1. Carpenters – Invocation
2. Fé De Sábio – Crepúsculo
3. Isabelle Antena – Otra Bebera
4. Yellow Magic Orchestra – Shadows On The Ground
5. The Beach Boys – Til I Die (Alternate Mix)
6. Caetano Veloso – Gua
7. Mudd – Summer In The Wood
8. Orchestre Raymond Droz Avec Pierre Cavalli Et Son Orchestre – Passarinhos
9. Light House – 南太平洋
10. The Coconuts – If I Only Had A Brain
11. Googoosh – Sahel Va Darya
12. Brenda Ray – Another Dream
13. Miharu Koshi – 逃亡者
14. Nightingales Recorded by Jean C. Roché – In A Waste Ground Beside A Stream In Provence, June
Listen to my fourth episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio below. I tried to make a make out mix, but I think it got too heavy-handed to be actually sexy and might be better suited for roller skating or something. Slo-mo disco, sleepy funk, breathy vocals. Lmk if anyone successfully soundtracks a make-out session with this. You can download an mp3 version here. Enjoy!
