Sunday Funk Vol. 4 (+ Hangout Session)

Hi all, welcome back to the next installment of curated playlists from me. This time we'll look towards older releases and deep digs on Soundcloud. 

But first, in case you've missed it, here's an interview on Noisia's Resonance IV compilation featuring me, Mefjus, MISSIN, & Nitepunk on Bassrush. This one features a slightly manic dialogue from me about a certain brain-infesting, ghost-writing rat named George. I started writing this as a joke but then the answers began to probe into my psyche, so I let it. I'll just leave it at that.

https://www.bassrush.com/noisias-resonance-iv-remixers-qa-series-continues-mefjus-nitepunk-missin-gyrofield/

1. Lyves x Synkro - Body Close
2. Mount Kimbie - Before I Move Off

The UK dance canon is interesting because it also projects a pervasive feeling across other genres. These two tracks, intimate and emotionally delicate, seem to bridge a clearly electronic sensibility with a kind of songwriting that is totally acoustic and driven by human action. I find a lot of appreciation in music that reaches feelings of closeness and intimacy through unusual means, and it probably comes down to the underlying contrast of human-ness through the inhuman domain. Electronic music, by combining synthetic sounds and technique with human expression, opens itself to these gently paradoxical relationships. 

3. Calibre - Snoopers Dub
4. Alan Johnson - Fickle

I felt like I had to include this one because it was a lesser known Calibre track, released on perhaps the biggest stalwart of deep dark 170bpm music, Samurai Music. Through conversation that I'd had last weekend I also realized the commitment and persistent collective effort it takes to maintain a pillar in any niche genre, especially for a length of time like Samurai. 

Dub-influenced bass music also feels so much more linked to its Jamaican roots than other namesake dub genres that focus on the isolated sounds and effects of dub. I would say this is because of the continued influence of soundsystem culture in UK dance music, where these styles have flourished the most. While dub isn't a huge part of the Samurai sound, it does bring to attention their constant homage to tradition, often established by POC and Jamaican culture.

'Fickle' puts a huge emphasis on irregular negative space, delays, and Jamaican vox, a more modern example on this ongoing dance music tradition.

5. Dorian Concept - Promises
6. aprovoli - Sunchaser
7. Sam Gellaitry - NAME TO A FACE
8. Chuck Sutton - Somebody

These tracks bring me back to a time when I was surrounded by listeners and producers of modern electronic soul. As my trajectory brings me increasingly away from online spheres where I had my first connections with fellow musicians, and club music often occupies itself on monophonic sounds organized in the time domain, I frequently find it refreshing to re-familiarize myself with listening music written with diverse musical texture and layered harmony. 

'Sunchaser' retraces the swift grooves of drum and bass and jungle while keeping within the sound palette and composition of modern soul and hip hop. 'Somebody' boldly expands the depth and nuance of its sound selection with a great number of incidental rhythmic and tonal embellishments.

Hip hop, soul and funk were once the building blocks of countless dance records through sampling, and I feel that it would be best to enrich myself with these same sounds, though tinged with a modern electronic production, as a kind of 'mental sampling'.

9. Bellows - Untitled

Treat this track as a slight interlude to what came before and the ending to come after. I had mention last week of some tape loop pieces arranged in spaces of time and built in minimal forms. This track from Bellows' EP 'Sander' is a great example, as it also involves itself in the strange blurring of electronic tones with real sound sources, as small details scatter across the landscape of the track for as little as a single beat before submerging again.

10. Takaaki Itoh - Mover
11. Nala & Nikki Nair - Escape
12. LSDXOXO - Mutant Exotic (D. Dan Remix)

Finally we return to the domain of club music with three select cuts. 'Lottarump' sources distinctly organic sounds and amplifies them to techno-levels of grease while leaving behind a completely clean trail of negative space. 'Escape' pairs a raucous vocal with blown out synth shards, the affair balanced by sharp crisp drum work. And finally, 'Mutant Exotic (D. Dan Remix)' builds hypnotic layers of synthetic percussion with a distinctly analogue vocal, almost like it was played out of a loudspeaker and recorded back into digital. In the broad world of 130-140 club rhythms, gentle contrasts and feverish energies are what keep me interested.

There will be one last hangout session for this month, held on my Discord server this Saturday 17th Dec at 9pm GMT / 4pm EST / 8am AEDT. Once again we'll talk about the newest finds and happenings in our musical sphere, and in particular an overview of my musical understanding this year.

Join the discord here:
https://discord.gg/WZ5aMk8

Hope to see you there! Take care and enjoy the holiday season :)