Midweek Beats + Pieces vol. 33

Gayance, Mouthfull Radio, Brian Jackson, etc

Selected Works is a regular newsletter by the Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand) based freelance music journalist, broadcaster, copywriter and sometimes DJ Martyn Pepperell. Yes, that’s me. Most weeks, Selected Works consists of a recap of what I’ve been doing lately and some of what I’ve been listening to and reading, paired with film photographs I’ve taken + some bonuses. All of that said, sometimes it takes completely different forms.

WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING:

Gayance, real name Aïsha C. Vertus, produces and DJs music that emphasises shared joy, community and cultural connectivity across borders. Since 2013, she’s cultivated an open-hearted sensibility informed by hip hop, R&B, the late 2000s beat scene, London’s broken beat and garage movements, Detroit techno, Chicago house and an equally rich mélange of sunkissed sounds from across Latin America and West Africa. Last week I profiled her for Mixmag to celebrate the release of her debut album, Mascarade. You can read the full story here.

Mouthfull Radio (est. 2017) is an independent non-profit online radio station broadcasting from Aotearoa and beyond. Home to a growing digital community of hosts and listeners, Mouthfull presents a wide array of music from all genres, insights, tidbits, and conversations in the chatroom. A virtual space shared with real people in real-time. Last week, I recorded a mix of West London Broken Beat and New Jack Swing for Mouthfull. You can listen to it on SoundCloud here.

Rolling Stone Australia/New Zealand have just published a list of twenty iconic moments from the history of music in Aotearoa (New Zealand). Things like this are always funny, cause when you really start digging, there’s always more to add. Nevertheless, Tony Stamp from RNZ and I made some contributions to this. I feel like we managed to get a few important things acknowledged that might have slipped under the carpet otherwise.

Here’s the audio from my appearance on the 95 bFM drive show in Tāmaki Makaurau last week. We talked about the previously unreleased NZ hip-hop 2013 mixtape I co-complied with Mazdef and the article I wrote about it all for Audio Culture. Listen here.

WHAT I’VE GOT COMING UP:

On Thursday morning, as with most Thursday mornings of the working year, I’ll be live talking about new music on RDU 98.5 FM in Ōtautahi (Christchurch) around 9 am. Thanks as always to the breakfast host, Liam, for having me on. You’ll be able to stream the segment live here if you want.

On Saturday night, I’ll be on DJ duties at the Brian Jackson concert in Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington) at Meow. Cory Champion’s Clear Path Ensemble is opening, and it’s shaping up to be a really special evening. Brian might be best known for collaborating with the late great Gil Scott-Heron on such landmark soul / jazz / funk releases as Winter in America and Pieces of a Man, but his catalogue runs deep, all the way up until the present day. Tickets are on sale here.

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING:

The Untold Story of Elliott Smith’s Teenage Band: The singer-songwriter became famous for a style so intimate it resembled confession, but six recently unearthed albums made with his high school friends trace the surprising musical path he took to get there. For Pitchfork, Jayson Greene.

De La Soul on their belated streaming debut: ‘It felt like we were being erased from history’ - Speaking before the death of founder member Trugoy, Posdnuos and Maseo answer your questions on playing Glastonbury, working with MF Doom and utilising the power of an infectious laugh. For The Guardian, Dave Simpson.

Kate NV’s internet obsessions: Evangelion memes and creepy Minecraft videos - The Russian artist takes us on a tour of her weirdest and most wonderful online rabbit holes. For Dazed, Günseli Yalcinkaya.

Hi-Tech Therapy: AI's Arrival In Sound Wellness - Artificial intelligence can do a lot of things but can it resolve mental health issues? With AI-assembled rhythms increasingly being used for self-care, for Hii Magazine, Nyshka Chandran takes a deep listen.

Edward George’s latest ongoing work, Strangeness of Dub, is a multi-part radio broadcast at Morley College in London that entangles dub within various geographical musical histories, critical theory, queer studies, black thought, and African/Afro-diasporic knowledges dating back to the talking drum in West Africa. Inspired by these broadcasts, this conversation speaks to many of these notions, as well as the metaphysics of the record studio, decontructivism, and Clyde Woods' "blues epistemologies" having more to do with the confrontation of the plantation than the blues itself. For Dweller, Ryan Clarke.

Breaking Through: DJ Gigola: Get familiar with the eclectically minded Berlin DJ who brings a "DIY, punk-ass attitude" to everything she does. For Resident Advisor, Sophie McNulty.

WHAT I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO:

Recently released through InFiné, Al Hadr (The Present Time) is the debut album from the rising French-Algerian R&B singer-producer Sabrina Bellaouel. Ostensibly rooted in the jiggy RnB, wonky hip-hop and neo-soul traditions (a la Sade, Aaliyah, J Dilla, Timbaland), as Al Hadr unfurls, it becomes apparent that Sabrina also has a love and reverence for modern club music and the traditional Algerian Raï style. These are love songs for 2023, but they’re also explorations of faith and identity. Adding extra flavour to the party, dance producer Basile3, experimental club DJ and writer Crystallmess, jazz musician Monomite and pop singer Bonnie Banane pop up as guests throughout the album.

For the latest one on Osàre! Editions, label boss Elena Colombi sifted through eighty songs recorded by Emil Valev’s Violetov General group back during the final decades of the twentieth century. During the eighties and nineties, Violetov General reframed the possibilities, potential and man/machine beat of new wave through a darker and more mournful avant-garde lens, winning cult fame in underground scenes throughout Bulgaria, Berlin and Slovakia in the process.

Twenty-five years after the project’s inception, Gentle Reactor serves as a full retrospective survey of the terrain Emil navigated during and after the Violetov General years. There’s moments that remind me of RPG video game music and feel prescient of the dungeon synth sound, but at the same time, Emil’s music has a visceral sensuality. When you look beyond the sci-fi and fantasy sound effects and haunted-house/ghost train atmospherics that hover on the edges like fog, Gentle Reactor is essentially body music. Listen to it loud. You’re going to want to feel it.

Now, this is my idea of eccentric electronic soul. I’m not sure how I circled back to eighties Missouri City, Texas hardware producer Jeff Phelps’s Magnetic Eyes (1985) album, but I’m glad I did. I remember being thrilled when I heard this stuff in DJ mixes from the Los Angeles chillwave/H-pop pioneer Nite Jewel. A decade on, its analog drum machines, rubbery synths and soulful RnB / jazz fusion affectations continue to delight. Magnetic Eyes is electro that sits one step closer to techno. Depending on the angle you’re looking at it from, it might be Balearic as well.

FIN.