Morning Stretch Mix

Something to wake you up to the new day and the new season

Hello out there. Made another mix. I have really been enjoying making these at home, working with and figuring out the DJ equipment. I have a basic DJ controller/mixer and have been using Traktor (for those who care). Regardless, it’s been cool working with it and it’s a lot of fun to improvise on with plenty of room for creativity. I haven’t played a proper show in over two years, I hope to remedy that in the next year, however I often think how would I present the music when it’s time? Performing electronic music can be tricky, especially when you often combine a lot of instruments and sounds together and it cannot easily be recreated. Also, it’s a pain in the neck, not to mention stressful, to have to set all that stuff up and hope it all turns and works together. Nothing worse than troubleshooting that right before you are supposed to perform. All of this is to say that, I think I am leaning towards using the DJ software to perform. It offers the chance to have fun and “perform” without the headache of equipment and large cumbersome setup. We will see though, I often change my mind. I am working on a record though and if it all goes to plan will be released on vinyl, which is exciting, and I really want to play a few shows to promote it. Blah, blah, blah

Enough of that, let’s get back to the mix.

I wasn’t really sure where to go with this one, I am trying to not feel like I should have to mix only certain styles. I have a far-ranging musical taste and have problems committing to genre. I often worry that it’s too all over the place but I hope if someone does tune in regularly they begin to expect the unexpected. I am trying to let go of those kind of thoughts, just do what you want to do. This mix in contrast to the last one, is a little more lively, slowly ramping up the BPM, in anticipation of the warming weather. Spring is a hopeful season, I think we all need a little hope despite how hard it feels to be with the gaping maw of such a brutal present and future. While I worry that I have become more and more bitter as the years go by, I still like to think of myself as a hopeful guy and I love the springtime, it might be my favorite time of year. Nothing better than sensing when the weather starts to turn and you just want to be hanging out outside.

Suzanne Ciani - The Eight Wave - Starting us off is a track from the pioneering American synth player and composer, Suzanne Ciani. Ciani is acclaimed for both her artistic and commercial work. She’s designed some iconic sounds, including for Coca-Cola the sound of a bottle being opened and poured which was used in radio and tv commercials in the 1970s. Her solo albums tend to be of the new age variety. The Eight Wave is from her third album, The Velocity of Love, released in 1986 and features contributions from Greek composer, Vangelis. Melancholic synth pads and melodies, weave through the mix begging the listener to contemplate, what exactly is the eight wave?

Ashra - Deep Distance - Another New Age-ish track, this one of the krautrock variety. What is Krautrock? is it a genre, a scene, a sound? It’s all of it but mostly a vibe or approach. So many of my interests in music converge and have their roots in Krautrock; techno, electro, drone, minimalism noise, new age, post-punk, psychedelia, general weirdness, etc. If you’re not familiar with the term krautrock, it’s a blanket term for the boon of bands in late 60’s and 70s that came from post-war Germany and it includes groups like Kraftwerk, Can, Neu! and Tangerine Dream. Ashra, was a group formed by Manuel Göttsching, out of his previous ensemble, Ash Ra Temple. Ashra, differed from Ash Ra Temple in that it was more focused on electronic music, less rock. It was still psychedelic, but it a different more mediative way, still good music to listen while on drugs (great music without drugs too). Deep Distance is the third track out of four on their debut album, New Age of Earth, and reflects the hopefulness of the hippie, new age-y artwork on the cover. It is a bright, uplifting, airy track, with a drum machine the smoothly drives the song along.

Kruder & Dorfmeister - Definition - Released back in ‘93 from their EP, G-Stoned, comes the origin of “chill beats to study to”. Slack break beats loop underneath interpolations of Take Five, flute solos and acid jazz modalities, seducing the listener into a cannabis cloud and melting them deeper into their couches. The Austrian duo seem pretty self aware with the artwork of the EP being a direct homage to the Simon and Garfunkel artwork for Bookends, complete with gargantuan dilated pupils.

Tricky - Suffocated Love - In grade 8 my math teacher was very into trip-hop and perhaps trying to bond with me and my new found interest in playing guitar, leant me a bunch of her trip-hop cds. I remember this CD and the Sneaker Pimps being amongst the discs loaned. It was far and away more mature than the music I was listening to at the time, heavy metal, but it left a lasting impression. I remember some of the lyrics being a lot beyond my scope as a teenage boy growing up in rural Nova Scotia. This track is from Tricky’s debut, Maxinquaye released in 1995. The production is made up beautifully layered samples from The Chantles , “Look into My Eyes” and Gladys Knight and the Pips “The Going Ups and Going Downs”, over which Tricky and his collaborator Martina Topley-Bird, tell a story of a relationship, driven by sexual attraction, where the protagonist knows they are being toyed with but is into it.

Lee “Scratch” Perry - City Too Hot - Released in 1977 by reggae producer and sonic innovator Lee Perry on his own Upsetter label. Known for his with such artists as Bob Marley and the Wailers and The Congos, Perry’s influence reached far beyond dub and reggae, producing tracks for The Clash and appearing on albums for artists like the Beastie Boys. His unique and eccentric approach created truly original sounds and textures. This was recorded in and towards the end of his legendary home studio, “The Black Ark”, in Kingston Jamaica. Perry would approach the studio and its tools in a very ritualistic way, this is from Michael Veal’s 2007 book, Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae.

Perry was known to run a studio microphone from his console to a nearby palm tree, in order to record what he called the "living African heartbeat."He often "blessed" his recording equipment with mystical invocations and other icons of supernatural and spiritual power such as burning candles and incense, whose wax and dust remnants were freely allowed to infest his electronic equipment. Perry was also known to blow ganja smoke onto his tapes while recording, to clean the heads of his tape machine with the sleeve of his T-shirt, to bury unprotected tapes in the soil outside of his studio, and to spray them with a variety of fluids including whiskey, blood, and urine, ostensibly to enhance their spiritual properties.

Perry’s studio also lacked a lot of the high end equipment that other commercial studios in Jamaica had at the time. Perry’s just had vibe, mashing sounds and textures together on a four track. I think that’s what drew me to his sound and this song in particular. It’s a looping rhythm track, with the bass juiced, with all these echoed percussion swirling around it. Perry’s vocals just repeat a simple mantra and it sort works you into this hypnotic frenzy. The lyrics deal with Perry’s, perhaps growing, stress of being in Jamaica, for in 1979 Lee allegedly burned down Black Ark and left . Here is an excellent little video of Perry at work with his house band, “The Upsetters”, producing a track. The approach by dub producers like Perry is hugely influential to how electronic music, remixing and DJing evolved; working with loops or in static rhythmic vamps, you can create whole songs with just mixing different parts in and out. Dropping the bass here, having just the guitar there, and adding delays and reverbs, you can produce endless possibilities and variations.

SEES00000 - 02 Ral2222 (Radio Edit) - Don’t know too much about this artist/producer other than they are from LA and opened up for Mk.Gee. I just dig how it’s produced, blown out and fuzzy. Kind of like the last track.

King Geedorah - Fazers - The first track off Tthe second album from producer/rapper sui generis, MF Doom, released under the alias, King Geedorah. Just a real cool, classic 2000s underground hip hop production, get a break and a couple of cool samples going, a little tape dirt on it and let the vibes fly. Has style galore.

Verckys & L'Orchestre Veve - Matinda Comono - While this might sound like it’s from the Caribbean, it’s from the Congo. This track can be heard on the compilation, Congolese Funk, Afrobeat & Psychedelic Rumba 1969-1978 by Analog Africa. It is a collection of tracks from the Congolese saxophonist, composer, band leader, union leader and record executive, among the many hats he wore, Georges Kiamuangana Mateta, aka Verckys. Dubbed “Mister Dynamite” by James Brown in 1974, Verckys was hugely influential to the development of Congolese and African Popular music. This track just goes hard. Here is an excellent account of his history.

Willie Colón & Héctor Lavoe - La Murga - Released in 1972. Colón was born in NYC to Puerto Rican parents while Lavoe was born and grew up in Puerto Rico and in the early 60’s moved to NYC when he was just 16. He eventually linked up with Colón by joining his band as a vocalist and ended up recording several hit songs and eleven albums together. Lavoe would go one to have a successful solo career and is considered one of the most important vocalists in the genre of salsa. Unfortunately he struggled greatly with addiction and depression. He tried to take his own life by jumping off a hotel balcony in 1988 after being diagnosed with HIV and the recent deaths of his father, son and mother in law. He survived the attempt and recorded an album before he succumbed to complications of AIDS. Colón outside of music got involved with politics, running for office and working for several candidates, including Michael Bloomberg. Interestingly he endorsed Clinton in her senator campaign of 2008 before going all in for Trump in 2016. He also went to police academy in 2017 and became a Sherif in West Chester County. That’s one way to spend your retirement as a successful salsa musician. Well, despite the rather grim futures that lay ahead of them when they laid down this track, they really killed it here. The horn blasts at the beginning really set the stage for a fierce salsa track with punchy rhythms and a blazing cuatro solo. Lavoe sings, seducing a woman to dance, La Murga.

Depth Charge - Shaolin Buddha Finger - Depth Charge was the alias of English musician J. Saul Kane, who sadly passed away last year. A huge fan of Kung-Fu movies, Kane incorporated samples from movies before it popularized by the likes of RZA and the Wu-Tang Clan. He was such a fan of Kung-Fu movies he was involved with a company in the UK that distributed martial art flicks, called “Made in Hong Kong”. In addition to his pioneering use of cult movies in productions, he is credited with creating “big beat” with his 1989 track, Bounty Killer. Big Beat is the style that broke through with major commercial success in the 1990’s with artists like The Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers. Shaolin Buddha Finger, like Kane’s other productions it is densely sampled , collaged from kung-fu and western movies, funk records and sound effect libraries and all treated with a hefty does of dubbed out effects. His productions are very organic and despite using machines and samples, have a liveliness and swing to them like they are being played lived.

Herbie Hancock - Hang Up Your Hang Ups - From one of Herbie’s funkiest records, Man-Child, and the last to feature the Headhunters. The album adds electric guitar to his palette. The scratching guitar of Funk Brothers member, Wah Wah Watson, leads the way on Hang Up Your Hang Ups, the frenzied jazz-funk opener to Man-Child.

Francis Bebey - Ndolo - An angular, somewhat dissonant (but also happy) and funky track by the pioneering Cameroonian musician, Francis Bebey. He is one of the first African musicians to combine traditional instruments with electronic keyboards and drum machines. He is probably most famous for his The Coffee Cola Song, which was referenced by the Arcade Fire on their track Everything Now. Below is a great little video of Bebey explaining his flute technique that he learned from African Pygmies, it’s quite an amazing sound.

The Vernon Spring - Mother’s Love - Closing out the mix is this beautiful rendition of an all time classic by Ethiopian pianist, composer and nun, Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam from UK musician, Sam Beste aka The Vernon Spring. Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam collection of recordings for Éthiopiques, Éthiopiques 21: Piano Solo, is one of my all time favorite records to put on. It’s so just deep, kind, and intentional. Guaranteed to put you in a good and relaxing mood. Sam Beste cover captures the sublimity of the original.

Below is the Éthiopiques compilation for Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam. I highly recommend checking out the compilations that Éthiopiques offers.

Thanks for reading and listening. I hope you got something out of it.

-Z