Midweek Beats + Pieces vol.7

Yumiko Morioka, Connan Mockasin, Radio Al Hara, Years Gone By, etc.

It’s Wednesday, it’s the middle of the week. You know what that means, time for more of a generalist recap of things I’ve been doing, listening to, reading etc. I’m gonna keep this intro short and sweet. Today’s photos are a mixture of promo shots and pictures I took on the Nikon F60 with Portra 400 film. Please enjoy.

WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING:

I profiled the the classically trained Japanese pianist, composer, and songwriter Yumiko Morioka for Bandcamp Daily. In 1990, Kyushu Island’s Voice Records released MIOS by Synergetic Voice Orchestra, an open-eared band project Yumiko orchestrated with a bunch of Tokyo street musicians. Thirty one years later, Berlin’s Metron Records have reissued MIOS and plan to reissue more records from Yumiko in the future. You can read the feature here.

Yesterday I dug up an archival feature I wrote about the Tokyo-based New Zealand singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Connan Mockasin for Boiler Room TV (back in 2014!). If you missed my mail out, you can tap in here. Connan and his dad have just (or are just about to) release a joint album through Mexican Summer Records.

I spent the weekend Auckland for some work and a little bit of pleasure. While I was there, I shot a quick fashion editorial for Avondale rapper and musician Tom Scott’s Years Gone By brand. For the shoot, Tom asked our friend Surly to come along and model his new quarter zip pullovers. Surly is a multi-genre producer and DJ as well, and has released some utterly blindsiding footwork-meets-jazz music, most notably the Trip To Warsaw EP. You can see an outtake from the shoot above. For the rest of it, tap in over at Tom’s Instagram page here.

I’m pretty sure I’ve posted about this before, but the other week I recorded a new mixshow for Palestine’s wonderful Radio Alhara. Loads of lush contemporary Balearic sounds and a few interesting curiosities. It’s up for streaming on my mixcloud page now. You can listen here.

WHAT I’VE BEEN LISTENING TO:

Various Artists, YGB Guided Meditation Tape (Years Gone By)

The good people at Years Gone By and their extended community have put together a genre-spanning compilation album to help with fundraising for getting Auckland musician Christoph El Truento’s very unwell brother home from Europe. It’s a beautiful selection of soul, rap and beats on the lusher side of the spectrum.

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING:

Meet the people making bangers for kids TV shows, by Nicolas-Tyrell Scott (The Face)

Avid TikTok users like Jerrard. L note that the quality and sustenance behind older cartoons is particularly apparent when compared to today’s marketplace.“ I feel like children’s TV back in the day was a lot richer,” he says. But he thinks that today’s infants and youth will still have a wide pool of nostalgia to delve into as they grow up and reminisce in years to come. ​“I don’t know much about children’s TV now, but I’m sure there are some shows with cool songs or characters that will have a strong impact on them too.”

With millions of streams and a nostalgic TikTok audience eager to relive their childhoods, music from kid’s TV shows is having a viral moment. From Teen Titans Go! to The Backyardigans, Nicolas-Tyrell Scott meets the creators behind the magic. Read more here.

Enji’s Mongolian Jazz Valentine, by Shy Thompson (Bandcamp)

For Enkhjargal Erkhembayar—Enji, for short—the past year has been one of deep introspection. Her livelihood upended by the pandemic, she suddenly had a lot more time to consider her path forward and to ruminate on how she ended up where she did. “I grew up with my whole family and people always around me, and I had to face the situation of being alone and truly seeing myself,” she says. When she took that time to self-reflect, she saw her sophomore album, Ursgal, staring back at her. Shy Thompson tells her story for Bandcamp Daily. Read more here.

Five things that inspired Koreless’s debut album, Agor, by Felicity Martin (Dazed)

We live in the middle of nowhere here, and one of my first exposures to music was my uncle sending up these pirated, trancey Cafe Del Mar compilations. I didn’t know where Ibiza was or anything like that, this music would just arrive without context with janky photocopying so you couldn’t read it. I was struck by the fact that there wasn’t an artist behind the music, the vocals were very anonymous but would be front and centre. You don’t know who the person singing is, and it’s almost angelic. I’ve always had that approach to vocals, where there’s no real words, but more of an angelic presence. I'm hesitant to call it choral, but more like a ghost or something?

How Ibiza, careers advisers, and memes came to influence the long-awaited record by the Welsh producer and FKA twigs collaborator. Felicity Martin has the scoop. Read here.

How Sun Ra Taught Us to Believe in the Impossible, by Hua Hsu (The New Yorker)

In 1969, Esquire canvassed a range of celebrities, including Muhammad Ali, Ayn Rand, and Leonard Nimoy, for suggestions about what Neil Armstrong should say as he set foot on the moon. Most people provided grave warnings or made jokes. Sun Ra contributed a poem: “Reality has touched against myth / Humanity can move to achieve the impossible / Because when you’ve achieved one impossible others / Come together to be with their brother, the first impossible / Borrowed from the rim of the myth / Happy Space Age to you . . .” Space exploration inspired Ra; it seemed to be proof that humanity was destined to harness its technological potential.

The visionary jazz artist sketched an “Astro-Black mythology” that aligned ancient Egyptian history with a future human exodus “beyond the stars.” Hua Hsu writes about Sun Ra as only Hua Hsu can. Read here.

BONUS:

Sydney’s Low End Theorist’s Theory Therapy imprint has a new ambient compilation coming out soon. You can pre-order Out of Season here.

Ma3azef’s It’s Not Complicated compilation album is out now. All proceeds will go to Medical Aid for Palestine and Grassroots Al-Quds. Check it out here.

DJ Karen Nyame (KG) has joined the regular roster at Capital Dance FM in London. She’s broadcasting from 12-4pm Tuesday to Saturday. More details here.

FIN.