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MIX NOTES

On The Other Ocean – This is just a small portion of the 23-minute-long side A of experimental electronic composer David Behrman’s debut album in 1977. I found the following description from some liner notes online:

On the Other Ocean’ is an improvisation by Maggi Payne and Arthur Stidfole centered around six pitches which, when they are played, activate electronic pitch-sensing circuits connected to the “interrupt” line and input ports of a microcomputer, Kim-1. The microcomputer can sense the order and timing in which the six pitches are played and can react by sending harmony-changing messages to two handmade music synthesizers. The relationship between the two musicians and the computer is an interactive one, with the computer changing the electronically-produced harmonies in response to what the musicians play, and the musicians influenced in their improvising by what the computer does. The recording is of a live performance.

Sorceress (acoustic) – I’ve been telling anyone who will listen to keep an ear out for New Zealand young gun Jordan Rakei, who is sizing up to be the Southern hemisphere’s answer to James Blake. He just released his new album “Wallflower” on Ninjatune, which contains the full version of this song.

High & Dry – Multi-instrumentalist Roman GianArthur is best known for his work with Janelle Monae’s Wondaland Arts Society. This is from his latest release, a six song EP of Radiohead / D’angelo mashups called “OK Lady”. The D’angelo is pretty buried here, but if you listen closely to the chorus, you’ll hear the background vocal riff from D’s “Send It On” from the Voodoo LP.

Duet – Gonjasufi is Sumach Ecks, a California weirdo who makes beats, teaches yoga, and once rapped under the exceedingly normal name Randy Johnson. He’s also down with Flying Lotus and that bunch. This is an LP cut from his 2010 solo debut “A Sufi And A Killer”, produced by The Gaslamp Killer. The track is pretty simple but I dig the bluesy groove and the dubby delays.

Sais (Egypt) – This trippy, astral excursion is the work of Lonnie Liston Smith, seminal figure in the Jazz Fusion scene and considered to be one of the Godfathers of Acid Jazz. He played with most of the cats from the 60s associated with this sound, including Gary Bartz, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, The Jazz Messengers, and Pharaoh Sanders (playing on the gorgeous “Thembi”, for one). He formed the Cosmic Echoes in 1973 and released this on their 1974 LP “Cosmic Funk”. Mtume wrote it, but was not present for the recording.

Super Rich Kids – This is still one of my favorite Frank Ocean songs to date, from his 2012 debut “Channel Orange”. The Benny & The Jets riff chugs along methodically, and Earl Sweatshirt’s lazy rhyming really complements the aimless ennui that is the songs subject matter.

Can’t Hold It – A mellow bit of bass from Name Brand Sound & Sonar’s Ghost. This came out in June 2017 on the First World Records 5-song compilation “Selectors Assemble”. It seems UK heads are calling this type of sound “bruk” – an evolution of broken beat. I just dig the complexity of the drum programming.

Four Eighteen – A smoked out Jazzy groove that gets periodically and severely punched up by some epic synth sounds. Cid Rim is Clemens Bacher, a Vienna-based drummer and producer of dope things. He’s joined here by fellow weirdos Dorian Concept & a guy that calls himself The Clonious. I like to think these cats are carrying on the experimental tradition of dudes like David Behrman, who’s 1977 track opens this mix. Peep Cid Rim’s SOUNDCLOUD for more eclectic electronic beats.

Extra Time 1 – A solid Scientist dub of Johnny Osbourne’s 1980 hit “Ice Cream Love”. It’s on the “He Prayed” riddim, originally produced by Coxsone Dodd for Burning Spear’s 1973 Studio One debut.

Flute Song – Wildflower only pressed 80 vinyl copies of this meditative, Sun Ra-esque tune in December of 2017, but thankfully Giles Peterson included it on his latest Brownswood Bubblers compilation. Wildflower are a London trio consisting of Idris Rahman – Flute, Leon Brichard – Double Bass and Tom Skinner – Drums.

Easy Muffin – This is an older cut from Amon Tobin’s first LP, Bricolage, released in 1997 on Ninjatune. Critics at the time regarded it as a new kind of fusion of Jazz and Jungle. I just think it’s dope.

Jamaica Running – If Ed Grimley and Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo had a kid, and Thomas Dolby was the Godfather, it might just turn out to be Patrick Keel, aka The Pool. This is the B Side of his 1983 12”, and you may recognize the beat from LCD Soundsystem’s “Dance Yrself Clean“, which borrowed from it rather loosely, without actually sampling it. Peep the awesomely weird video for the A-Side HERE

Twilight – NYC-based producer and bearded white hipster dude I have seen at downtown parties and Brooklyn lofts for fucking decades, Quinn Lamont Luke, sometimes produces under the very-non-white-non-bearded-hipster-name Bing Ji Ling. He was also in the Phenomenal Handclap Band and has put out a number of solo records. He released this funky, stripped down cover of Maze’s 1985 chill out groove of the same name. A little Spanish guitar and some loose dropouts and it just kinda works.

Existencia (Acid Pauli Remix) – German DJ & producer Martin Gretschmann records under the name Acid Pauli and makes the kind of spacey, minimalist 12-min-long house that you hear playing inside some weird-ass octagonal tent at Burning Man at 8:30 in the morning. People lie around in clumps on dirty pillows and listen while the drugs wear off. This is not to say I don’t like it. I do. Everything in it’s right place.

Again (scratch 22 remix) – This is a remix of a 2009 song by Electric Wire Hustle – a funky electronic duo from new Zealand. It loops the beginning bars of Pat Lewis’s 1966 B-Side “I’ll wait”. If you listen to the source material, it sounds oddly identical to Funkadelic’s “I’ll Stay”, which didn’t come out until 1974. After some digging I discovered George Clinton had co-written the song and simply repurposed it for his own band years later. Aside from a few singles as a solo artist, Pat Lewis was also in a group called The Andantes, who sang backup for Motown artists like Isaac Hayes (“Walk on By”, for one). The Mo’ You Know…

Ongaku (HVL remix) – A very spacey abstract deep house cut by Mahal, remixed here by Gigi Jikia aka HVL, a DJ and producer from Tbilisi, Georgia. He holds down a residency at Bassiani, Tbilisi’s famous, cavernous nightclub built underneath a soccer stadium. One should assume it’s pretty much exactly like the club scene in the first Blade movie, right?

Stay – Tigerskin is Alex Krager, a German DJ and producer that dabbles all over the spectrum of house and techno. I buy tracks like this all the time – super mellow, minimal stuff – often from Berlin – that never quite seems to fit anywhere on my mixes. But maybe the last song on this mix is the perfect place.