[Weekend] Beats + Pieces Vol. 65

HI-FI SCI-FI, CUPID, Mazes, NZ Street Soul, etc

Oct 12, 2024

Cover Art for DJ CUPID’s HI-FI SCI-FI DJ Mix.

Selected Works is a weekly (usually) newsletter by the Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa (Wellington, New Zealand) based freelance music journalist, broadcaster, copywriter and sometimes DJ Martyn Pepperell, aka Yours Truly. 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.

HI-FI SCI-FI: CUPID

Since the start of the year, I’ve been writing copy for Addison Chase, aka et.no.home’s HI-FI SCI-FI fashion label, online store, DJ mix series and event brand. For the fourth edition of their DJ mix series, they tapped in with DJ CUPID. Check her mix out below via Soundcloud.

Diana Tousi Pour, aka CUPID, is an Iranian-Kiwi DJ based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa. Taking her stage name from the Greek god of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection, CUPID started uploading DJ mixes on Soundcloud in 2023, in the process catching our attention at HI-FI SCI-FI with her hyper-contemporary sound. Since then, she’s recorded guest DJ mixes for Mouthful Radio and RE:TYPE COMMUNITY RADIO and opened up for DJ G2G (DK) and Bae Bae (US) at events organised by HI-FI SCI-FI and FILTH.

For her contribution to the HI-FI SCI-FI mix series, CUPID evokes the feeling of popular culture and the underground crossing paths down a neon-lit backstreet alleyway of the mind. Kicking off with a re-sampled sample of an obscure drug culture radio interview from the late 1960s, CUPID’s mix quickly explodes into a fast-paced flurry of cyberpunk techno, acid-drenched psychedelic house, hulked-out global club music and rolling jungle breakbeats. Haunted by the ghosts of hip-hop, R&B and top 40 pop, her avant-club soundworld is a testament to the power of knowing your history while staying grounded in the present moment. She’s taken us places. Let her take you somewhere as well.

MAZES:

Above is a collage of nine of the marble mazes I’ve built over the last two months. Will there be an exhibition? Am I selling these to people? What the hell is even going on? To be honest, at this point, you tell me?

JAMES ALEXANDER BRIGHT:

Earlier in the week, via my newsletter, I ran a profile of the Hampshire, UK-based singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer James Alexander Bright. If you missed it, you can check it out here.

LATE 20TH CENTURY STREET SOUL, NEW JACK SWING & RNB FROM AOTEAROA (NEW ZEALAND)

Four years ago, I recorded two one-hour DJ mixes for the London and Los Angeles-based internet radio stations NTS and Dublab, focusing on 1990s street soul, new jack swing and R&B recorded in Aotearoa during the 1990s. You can check them out here and here.

In a roundabout way, those mixes laid the foundation for the Melbourne-based label Gazebo reissuing Fuemana’s New Urban Polynesian album earlier in the year. While writing the liner notes for that project, I felt inspired to try and keep this retrospective reassessment going - which eventually led to my recent “Ten 90s Classics & Deep Cuts: R&B, street soul and new jack swing” article for Audio Culture - The Noisy Library of New Zealand Music.

Between 2.30 pm NZT and 3.00 pm NZT on Tuesday, the 15th of October, I’m going to be playing and talking about some of this music on Radio New Zealand’s Afternoons show with Jesse Mulligan. Until then, however, I wanted to dump a bunch of music videos from the era together in this newsletter for your viewing/listening pleasure. I’ve been posting about this stuff on Instagram lately. It’s been going over pretty well, so why not keep the party going?