SELECTED WORKS #021
Efficient Space, Soundcloud, Reading Lists, Dublab.
Hey there,
I’m in Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, for the weekend. Last night, I DJed for four hours at a lounge bar in the central city - mostly playing local street soul, swingbeat and new jack swing + some bossa nova & mpb. Today, I’m off to a waterfront music festival called Beacon. Ben UFO, Roza Terenzi, and Marcellus Pittman spent the last two weeks in border quarantine facilities so they’d be able to play at is. We’re shaping up for a great day.
Although the local coronavirus situation has been more or less under control since June last year, I still find it very hard to square my day to day experience with the realities of what I see happening overseas, and what my friends offshore tell me. When you have the freedom to safely enjoy yourself, it’s hard to not, but at the same time, it isn’t the greatest feeling when you remember what is going on beyond our borders. I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say here. I think I just want to acknowledge the complicated realities of the now. And with that, let the newsletter continue.
WHAT I’VE BEEN DOING:
I profiled Melbourne’s Michael Kucyk and his excellently curated Efficient Space record label for Bandcamp Daily. My profile also includes a guide to ten essential releases he’s put out over the last five (?) years. A world well worth diving into. (Read here)
After a few months wait, I decided to upload my Closer: Street Soul & Swingbeat from Aotearoa New Zealand DJ mix on my soundcloud page. Some of you will remember NTS airing it late last year. If you don’t want a story to be forgotten, you have to keep retelling it. (Listen here)
WHAT I’VE BEEN READING:
Andy Sharp, The English Heretic Collection: Ritual Histories, Magickal Geography (Repeater Books)
Thanks to Marcus Scott for recommending me this one. Andy Sharp’s The English Heretic Collection: Ritual Histories is an anthology of stories abstracted from fifteen years of in-depth investigation to England’s strangest landscapes and perhaps strangest people. If you like the idea of reading about the occult links that sit beneath the ley-lines of popular culture - countercultural histories, ghost stories, and magickal psychogeographies, this one is for you. I had no idea Winston Churchill was a druid. (Order here)
Andy Cush, Meet the Experimental Musicians Who Built Their Own Streaming Service (Pitchfork)
Unsatisfied with the corporate streaming model, an idealistic group of avant-garde improvisers created a small-scale alternative—and want other artists to do the same. Pitchfork’s Andy Cush talks to members of the Catalytic Sound co-operative about what they did, why they did it, and what might come next. Fascinating. (Read here)
WHAT I’VE GOT COMING UP:
A couple of weeks ago, NTS aired the first part of a two-part mix series I put together recently. This one is devoted to ‘90s/early 2000s hip-hop from Aotearoa New Zealand. On Wednesday the 31st of March, Los Angeles’s equally excellent online radio station and community hub Dublab is airing the second part, Summer In The Winter. More details (here).
THAT’S ALL FOLKS!!!