MUSIC

Actress marks an auspicious 20th year releasing music with a vinyl edition of his RA mix; a near hour-long collage or braque of some 100 unreleased cuts trawling his HD and traversing its depths of brisk 313 techno, silver haze synth noise and flashes of neo-classical beauty. Trailing ’Statik’ back in spring ’24, 'Дарен Дж. Каннінгем' is practically on par with the album for levels of engrossing and gritty noirish atmospheres, scattering a breadcrumb trail of puckered keys and teasing rave signals that go deep into the forest of his mind/sound at a strident pace that buckles into offbeats and practically stumbles, groggy and spangled to the close. As with all his work, an underlying, artful narrative thread ties it all together in an abstract storytelling style that has served him incredibly well thus far and continues to pique the imagination of listeners across the fields of hazed electronics and dance music who may not necessarily listen to one or the other style, yet can’t help but be snagged by his restless equilibrium of those vibes.

The 006 on the imprint is "Versions Vol. 2" a new mixtape written and produced by NPLGNN Messing around with a big bunch of samples NPLGNN chops, resynthesizes and assembles them in a no-nonsense sonic collage flux 100% Sound-System fuckery Around 42 mins through MCs toasting, pitched amens, dub glitches, screwed recordings and moody red-eyed interludes

Originally released in 2018 in a very limited series of 50 cassettes the 003 of the Japanese legend Yousuke Yukimatsu is now repressed and restyled for a 2024 150 units edition. Six years later Yousuke has skyroked and now known all around the world for his amazing DJ skillz and unique music taste. We told you so back then and we are so happy to see that happen. --- 2018 press release: Founder of Zone Uknown, Dommune selector and recent affiliate of Asian Dope Boys, Yousuke Yukimatsu (Osaka, 1979) is a key figure in the Japanese electronic culture. If you see him playing is impossible to don't get caught by his unique and somehow visceral style of DJing. For MBE series he recorded 90 minutes of music made strictly by Japanese artists offering us an extraordinary wide-eyed perspective on the far east electronic culture. Imagine to be in Osaka or in Tokyo in an overcrowded obscure underground small cave listening to some sweating freaks playing distorted noise, or sitting on a bamboo mat in a machiya while Shigeo Tanaka is playing the yumi, or being in the Hozen Ji temple reaching the ascension with the chants of the priests, or getting lost into a cyberpunk scenario with DJs spinning dark techno into a foggy warehouse with just a low strobe light on.. well you can just get a glimpse of what this tape is.

Madteo is next for Accidental Meeting’s mixtape series, recorded live at an AM party at Spanners, London. NY drenched house oddities and disco curveballs, all served up raw, rough & ready in Madteo’s trademark style.

Our mixtape-style selection of clips from tapes recorded live at soundsystems playing during London's Notting Hill Carnival between 1984 and 1988, originally broadcast on NTS Radio in 2018, is the latest to be committed to cassette as part of our 10th anniversary series. Featuring sounds from the likes of Jamdown Rockers, Saxon, Java Nuclear Power, Killerwatt Turbotronic, Stereograph, Sir Coxsone, Volcano Express, King Tubbys and more.

This program connects the dots between various lone wolves and outsider units operating on the outskirts of the nascent international mail art / audio cassette trading network of the 1980s and early 1990s. The selection zeros in on tracks that feature a tense, hypnotic dread using early drum machines, sampling technology, and blackbox electronics pushed to their limits in home recording studios all over the world. All tracks are sourced directly from painstakingly collected handmade original cassettes.

Originally made as a contribution to the Blowing Up The Workshop mix series, subsequently given a cassette release in 2019, now finally receiving a limited vinyl LP pressing. "A trip across the frequencies of Bristol's pirate radio stations via cut-ups of broadcasts, taken from the late 1980s to the early 2000s ~ also a love-letter to my childhood, an audio document of the years I spent growing up in the city."

Mixtape celebrating the 12" singles of Studio One Both mixes recorded from vinyl

Originally made as a contribution to the Blowing Up The Workshop mix series, subsequently given a cassette release in 2019, now finally receiving a limited vinyl LP pressing. "A trip across the frequencies of Bristol's pirate radio stations via cut-ups of broadcasts, taken from the late 1980s to the early 2000s ~ also a love-letter to my childhood, an audio document of the years I spent growing up in the city."

A subjective mixtape by Dj Salinger. Mixed, recorded and assembled by Dj Salinger in a state of deep melancholy. Mastering by Franz Kirmann.

Franz Kirmann is a French music producer living in London. He has made albums for various labels including Denovali, Bytes, Mercury KX. He also writes music for film and TV and is a lecturer in music production at Point Blank Music school.
 

2023.8.13 Recorded at Recording Studio, Acoustic Research Center, Ohashi Campus, Kyushu University.

A 96 Minute Mix of all unreleased music by 21 contemporary artists. Featuring Molinaro, Carlos Niño & Friends, K15, Greg Beato, Legowelt, Afrikan Sciences, Hieroglyphic Being, Julion De’Angelo, 2000Black and many more. A journey through sounds, spheres, moods and dynamics dedicated to the unity and empowerment of the independent artists. Mixed, Cassette only, NO DIGITAL 'Love this sound' is where we find comfort in our favourite songs. Yet so much more can be enjoyed once one takes the journey of music exploration. This is something that does not come natural to most, but fortunately, Sassy J puts in the long hours to curate many musical trips. Expeditions in the boundless world sonically connected by years of music evolution, or the immediate arrival as though linked by sonic wormholes. A lust for musical growth fuels Sassy's quest for the identical but opposite, similar yet contrasting, energised and chilled sound that all fit perfectly together. Sassy J's eclectic selection taps into the sub conscience emotions music can reach. Is it meant to guide, provoke thought, bring happiness or ponder on misfortune whatever it does it all happens here at Patchwork. The popular echo chamber preaches to its own choir, whilst freedom of sound forces one to question if they will ever really know all what music can possibly be.

Kelly made you a mixtape. It’s an eclectic mix of ideas, recorded and produced at Transistor Sound Studio in Marin County, California. “I want to share what I’ve been working on,” Kelly explained. “It’s not a proper album, and it doesn’t have the same vibe all throughout. It’s a collection of different ideas, which is how I used to share the music I loved with my friends.” About half of the songs represent his influence directly from hip-hop, crate digging, record collecting and the art of sampling. The original beat-driven drums and looping melodies provide the backdrop for future emcees to record over. “When I first decided that I wanted to make my own music, it was with drum machines and samplers,” Kelly shared. “I’ve always been inspired by the sounds on hip-hop records. That’s where my musical aspirations began.” Fans of Kelly’s previous work know that he’s capable of creating the kind of classic records that are often the subject of sampling. The mixtape contains a few new original tunes, instrumental versions of his known b-sides Trouble and It’s Not That Easy, and a soul stirring acoustic version of Impressions of You, which was originally released on Kelly’s debut LP The Tales People Tell in 2019. Kelly is working with Colemine Records to release the mixtape exclusively on cassette. “Owning a physical copy of a song and using a specific piece of equipment to hear it – that was a huge part of my musical upbringing. This is a selection of different songs on a tape. It’s how I want people to experience it.”

Coming from the city of Gao, on the edge of the Saharan desert, Malian producer Baba ‘’Babsy’’ Konate is one of the key figures in the development of "Gao Rap", a regional genre of modern autotuned Songhoi music. After presenting some of his work on our Gao Rap compilation from 2018, Tounga is the first release of the artist’s solo work, gathering a decade of tracks that merge sweet autotuned vocals, crunchy drum loops and plucked digital harpsichord, in a playful testament to 2000s PC music, with the sample packs of a modest FruityLoops project. The result is familiar yet otherworldly, drawing from an abundance of distinct cultural expression: folkloric takamba from the Songhai, Hausa film soundtracks from Northern Nigeria, Hip Hop from Bamako and Ragga from Niamey. After relocating to Bamako and learning the art of production from his brother (the acclaimed guitarist Oumar Konate), Babsy traveled to Gao with a mobile studio, setting up shop in the center of town, soon inundated with rappers wanting to record. These ephemeral studios laid the foundation for the emergent new genre, shaped by Babsy's signature sound of fluttering melody lines and lush vocals. His productions soon became synonymous with the regional style of modern Gao music. Global audiences might place Babsy's compositions alongside trap or soundcloud experiments, with collaged pastiche, hyper kitsch, and lo-fi aesthetics. This mix of disparate influences is best heard on tracks like the upbeat ‘’Erness Fassa’’, a dedication to a close friend, that sports a vaguely Caribbean flavor with elastic, highly addictive spacey beats, or the hypnotic programming and quivering synth pads of "Tounga", where Babsy asks Malians in exile to remember home and to their families they left behind. Though the sound may converge with familiar genres, Babsy's tracks are soulfully earnest, with love ballads, praise songs and advice. Tounga perfectly illustrates his ability to take whatever's around and experiment in free-form innovations, forging a style that’s both his own and a new direction for Songhai music.

"Always take from the past - avoiding the empty longings of nostalgia - with a view to understanding the new place it might hold in the future. Good Morning Tapes has done just that, and with the 90’s revival in something of a full swing, the label finally gets the chance to release a pivotal 10 year old mix that didn’t just ignite a curious wave of reflection and appropriation, it marked a culmination in the shifting sonic sands for its creator Mr. Alexis Le-Tan. His name needs little light thrust upon it in these hallowed cosmic halls, with his enduring and ever present mixes being a staple for those that know. Back to Disco Valley is arguably his most important mix - it both recontextualised a dirty and forgotten sound of the past, and facilitated a wave of new freedoms for those wishing to look backwards in order to move forwards. Most importantly it planted the seed for everything Full Circle to come. Back to Disco Valley is above all else a personal reckoning for Alexis and Joakim, it marked a moment when many problems inherent in a trapped older sound - with a sublime yet dated history of its own - could breath fresh life in the present day; a new slower realm was born. The slowing down of dance music is nothing new, and certainly where peak time beats have existed a spiritual shadow that revels in a slower ethereal space to dance has never been far away. Stylistically on one level, Back to Disco Valley might seem to build on what Baldelli or Loda were doing many years ago, and it certainly has that effortless charm, but it goes much further, not just in its re-appraisal of the frenetic fast paced sounds of Goa, but as a signifier of where many wanted to head on the dancefloor - towards a slower oasis - incorporating new releases and modern sounding rarities along the way. Indeed, in selecting the 33rpm dial rather than that marked 45, Full Circle at once opened up the new space inside a music some of us went bananas to 30 years ago, and at the same time made sense of a crucial yet forgotten heritage; a confession became a badge of honour. Coming back to Full Circle and its genesis: it was only a matter of time before the old Goa records would come back down from the racks and spawn a new life, and perhaps whilst Le-Tan cemented something a lot of us knew, Back to Disco Valley somehow liberated many of those early records from their stylistic shackles initiating a creative project that - along side the collaborative work with Joakim - has released a wave of inspirational edits and re-imaginations. Full Circle - in all its conceptual & metaphorical majesty - really has come to represent the most stylish of takes on past sounds, both in the realm of selection and re-working. It is certainly true that Back to Disco Valley - sounding now as it did then (to the select tuned ears that got to listen) - reflects a perfect meeting between an off-tempo past, present and future, being more than a functional assemblage, it revives many a lost memory, inspiring a new batch of ideas, and always looking back with a purpose.

Consummate selector and veteran of a pair of mixtape percies for The Trilogy Tapes, DJ Sundae racks up the rarities for a killer new edition for Good Morning Tapes, a recording of his set for Alexis Le Tan’s Oddity Radio, Paris. Sundae’s selection skills are already a thing of low-key legend and on this new one he picks an arc from sylvan synth glydes to punky reggae dub via ample armfuls of spirited music, each cut a stepping stone to the next in a proper example of DJ as storyteller. Aye, you can forget about any easily identifiable gear and expect to snag the attentions of earnest spotters licking their nibs for hits of rustic folk, proggy psych, druggy grunge and punk hymns that give way to brooding bass music and stepping post-punk.