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TTB Mix For The Astral Plane

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October 20, 2016
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Earlier this year, London’s NTS Radio celebrated its fifth year in existence, a landmark event for a young organization that has had an indelible impact on electronic music in particular and underground musics in general since it was founded in April 2011. In all likelihood, your favorite artists and labels have had an NTS show at some point in the past half decade and the station’s special programming – rapidly expanding into the live, a/v and performance sectors – is to be lauded. Like most special arts organizations, the people behind NTS are what makes the operation tick, which brings us to Tabitha Thorlu-Bangura, one of NTS’s star employees and one of its many unsung DJ heroes. The TTB show (also her alias while DJing out) runs for an hour every month and is consistently home to some of the best pop ephemera, contemporary folk musics, noisy gems and off-kilter club jams. It’d the sort of show where Terry Riley, Minnie Ripperton and Nidia Minaj share air time, a splatter of sounds that offers no particular preference to era, genre or geography.

Of course, much has been made about the legacy of open format radio in the UK (station founder Femi Adeyemi has even been compared to John Peel), but there are few shows that truly embrace that like TTB, with an ethos that is at once ultra-specific and completely egalitarian, a platform for emerging artists as much as it is a treasure trove of gems from past decades. Tabitha’s Astral Plane mix is an extension of that ethos, avoiding the poles of revivalism and futurism to reach an optimal creative fusion that is truly her own. It’s heady and hazy without genuflecting to much to either sonic niche, a genuinely transportive experience that occasionally erupts into bouts of noise and propulsive club sounds. On November 5, Tabitha is bringing Lechuga Zafiro, Bonaventure and Alx9696 to London, a fittingly eclectic line-up that should have dancers in a state of ecstasy from start to close. If you’re in London, we heavily recommend that night, but the rest of us will have to settle for Astral Plane Mix 127. Hit the jump for an interview with Thorlu-Bangura and a full track list.

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Dviance Mix For The Astral Plane

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September 22, 2016
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“Multiplicity is key in my vision of music.” Dviance’s music isn’t easy to categorize. The Lyon-born producer has released some of the most striking music of the past year, ranging from a hi-stress re-tool of CRIM3S’ “Milita” to a collaborative mix with N-Prolenta for Halcyon Veil that saw the two disfigure hardcore aesthetics with surgical care across 14 frenzied minutes. With almost a decade of classical guitar training under his belt and studies in musicology and sound design currently under way, a deep sense of musicality inhabits the teenage producer’s music despite its often dissonant leanings. That tendency towards dissonance is always in the context of a deeper spatial awareness though, one built on widescreen cinematics and a deep sense of how ghost melodies, bits of sonic detritus and disembodied glossolalia can foment deeply haunting atmospheres. It’s an idiosyncratic sound, but one that can find contemporaries in artists like v1984, SKY H1, Sentinel and other niche experimentalists.

Dviance’s collaborators, like fellow French artist Lauren Auder and the aforementioned N-Prolenta, also seem to fit into the outsider mold, artists balanced on the cusp of pop sensibility that nonetheless make deeply bizarre, insular music. For his part, rap music and various hardcore strains seem to temper Dviance’s music, a volatile synthesis that is almost presupposed as natural in his productions and mix work. His Astral Plane mix features hardstyle, noisy pop edits, a trove of foley effects and a few key originals from rappers like Jordy and Babyt33th. Whereas other collage minded artists might offer up a disembodied version of their myriad influences, Dviance’s compositions, both here and in previous editions for HV and the Absolute Zero show on Radar Radio, have a striking consistency to them, an unnerving sense of moving-in-all-directions-at-once that allows for a certain reticence to be grasped in the chaos. With no official releases on the horizon, Dviance plans to continue producing for himself until he’s satisfied with a body of work. Check out the track list for his Astral Plane mix below and find more original material at his Soundcloud.

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DJ JM Mix For The Astral Plane

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September 15, 2016
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If you’ve tuned into mixes or radio appearances by artists like Neana, Eclair Fifi or NKC over the past few months you’re likely to have caught one of DJ JM’s many percussive heaters that seem to be slowly percolating towards popular consciousness. “Make Partie”, an irresistible collaboration with Neana, is the most popular so far, a carnivalesque banger of the highest order that pairs the sort of elastic percussion favored by both artists with an arrangement of distorted sirens and bizarre digi-horn synths. Unreleased to date, the pairing of the Night Slugs rep with the Lithuanian producer DJ JM is fitting considering the latter’s deep bed of unreleased material, a collection of originals and edits that range from simple drum tools to relentlessly fun dancefloor bombs that recall a re-tooled 90s house sensibility in line with labels like Dance Mania, Strictly Rhythm and Henry Street Music. Unlike many contemporary artists though, DJ JM doesn’t attempt to modernize or add some faux futuristic bent to those classic sounds, preferring to double down on the wood block percussion, runway vocals and indefatigable sense of forward motion that makes them so unforgettable.

Besides radio sessions by the aforementioned artists, the best place to catch DJ JM tracks is his Tactic Signals show on Radar Radio, a collaboration with Tuan:Anh that shows off their love for the 90s dance sounds mentioned above as well as West Coast rap and dancehall. Still a relatively new program in the Radar arsenal, Tactic Signals has already hosted Bay Area production legend Traxamillion, a coup of sorts that shows a willingness to reach out beyond the confines of new/similar artists, and continues to improve every month. DJ JM can also be found on the next Nervous Horizon release via a collaboration with Tsvi, another fitting joint venture that should get more than enough play from artists both within and outside of their respective circles. That track isn’t in DJ JM’s Astral Plane mix, but plenty of other original material is including “Make Partie” and about 12 other tracks with the potential to win over even the most jaded listener. The instrumental to “Lose My Breath” by Destiny’s Child, Busy Signal’s “Text Message” and a bit of gqom make appearances, but the session’s main star is clear from the beginning, the whole affair not quite taking the air of a production mix, but clearly showing off a vault of unreleased material. Hit the jump for a full track list and be sure to tune in to Tactic Signals for even more exclusive DJ JM.

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Mina Mix For The Astral Plane

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September 1, 2016
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If you follow our FACT column or listen with any regularity to our show on Radar Radio, you’ll surely be familiar with Mina, the rising production star behind some of the bounciest mid-tempo hits of the last year and co-head of London’s Boko! Boko! club night and radio show. Coming off a busy Carnival weekend that included a number of gigs across the city and a surprise b2b session with funky legends Crazy Cousins, we grabbed Mina for Astral Plane Mix 122 and the result is an idyllic run down of original and likeminded material that links from funky, afro house and gqom to soca, dancehall and kizomba. With releases out on Lisbon mainstay Enchufada and Los Angeles-based Friends of Friends (a joint effort with longtime collaborator Lorenzo_BITW), Mina has quickly justified her place in the conversation over the past 12 months and if you haven’t heard her signature xylophone melodies peek through a mix this Summer then you’re clearly not going to the right parties.

At the beginning of August, Boko! Boko! (co-run by Mina, Tash LC and DJ Chin) released the JOY compilation, a kaleidoscopic effort rejoicing in ebullient dancehall, kizomba and more from the likes of DJ Bboy, Gafacci, Mapalma and more. From a curatorial perspective, the inclusions are decidedly in line with the crew’s jubilant aesthetic and two lighthearted Mina collaborations, with Lorenzo_BITW and Svani respectively, pull the whole affair together nicely. Tracks from JOY and forthcoming collaborations with Nané, Wanted, Boyfriend and the aforementioned Lorenzo_BITW are peppered throughout Mina’s Astral Plane mix, which flips the rule book a little bit and descends in tempo from the rhythmic chop of Ahadadream, Jay De Silva and Champion into more a lethargic riddim territory populated by Busy Signal, Popcaan and Beenie Man. Like everything Mina has done to date, the mix has enough bounce and funk to carry even the laziest dancefloors and if you’re looking for a mission statement from this rising London artist the look no further.

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Byrell The Great Mix For The Astral Plane

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August 25, 2016
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Photo by Nick Blu

Last Friday, Qween Beat’s inaugural Qweendom compilation hit the streets; 11 tracks from a who’s who of contemporary ballroom greats. The release runs the gamut of ballroom style, a mixture of hard-as-nails production, fierce vocals and a reverent sense of history that manifests itself in both subtle and literal ways. In that sense, no artist epitomizes Qweendom more than Byrell the Great and on “Bubble Drop”, a collaboration with Kassandra Ebony, WARREN B. and Princess Precious, and “Legendary Children”, the New York-based DJ effortlessly matches a distinctly modern production approach with classic sounds. Which is pretty much what Byrell has been doing since emerging as a producer a few years back, working extensively with the likes of MikeQ, Cakes Da Killa and Venus X to establish a position as one of ballroom’s rising production stars and most sought after DJs.

Specifically, Byrell is one of the top DJs in the kiki scene, a counterpart to the main ballroom scene that is younger and more oriented to fun, free flowing balls. Without making too many assumptions, Byrell’s production work often mirrors those characteristics and features samples from predictable sources like Masters at Work, Tronco Traxx and Beyonce, but also brings in Chedda da Connect, Nicki Minaj and Kanye West for a decidedly more modern sound. Byrell’s Astral Plane mix is, in his words, a “spell casting” of recent favorites, a Qweendom-heavy tour through modern ballroom with room for a collaboration with UNIIQU3 and inclusion of tracks by up-and-comers Capital K’aos, Quest?onmarc and TRICK$. We had a brief chat with Byrell over email and talked about the next step for Qween Beat, testing out Qweendom and his position, both internal and external, as one of the most in-demand ballroom/kiki DJs around. Hit the jump for our talk with Byrell and check below that for a track list we’re sure you’ll be repeatedly checking back on as you run through these 35 hi energy minutes.

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DJ J Heat Mix For The Astral Plane

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August 4, 2016
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Throughout the recent FADER cover story on Gucci Mane, themes of work and work ethic are persistent, providing a constant throughout the Atlanta rapper’s many ups and downs, prison sentences and creative high water marks. Regardless of how much Guwop’s life spiraled out of control in the period before his most recent prison sentence, he was still constantly in the studio churning out track after track. Young Thug credits Gucci for imparting his indefatigable work ethic on him and it’s hard not to imagine that his mixtape-a-month release schedule over the past decade or so has changed rap for the better. Born in Newark, but now residing in Los Angeles, DJ J Heat seems to approach Jersey Club in a similar manner, tirelessly working on his own bootlegs, collaborating with MikeQ, Brenmar, Gianna lee and K-Shiz and continually refining an approach that is simultaneously one of the hardest and most heterogeneous approaches to club music.

J Heat’s work ethic, and immeasurable talent for that matter, hasn’t gone unnoticed and in the coming months he’ll release his debut on London’s venerated Night Slugs roster, a rare US signing for the Bok Bok and L-Vis 1990 headed crew that felt like a comfortable fit even before it became official. After all, some of J Heat’s most successful remixes are of Night Slugs hits, from a much rinsed take on Kingdom’s “Stalker Ha” at the end of 2014 to a brilliant refiguring of Bok Bok and Kelela’s “Melba’s Call”. And beyond the relatively standard remixes of major rap and R&B hits, J Heat has remixed M.E.S.H. (twice), Tokyo Hands and Art of Noise, showing a willingness to experiment with contemporary material and left field samples that calls to mind early Bmore and the bizarro footwork of DJ Nate.

Having produced his fair share of ballroom and footwork, as well as work with vocalists, it would be diminishing to refer to J Heat as strictly a Jersey Club artist, but there’s no doubt that it’s what he excels at and puts the most time towards. 2012’s “NJ Transit Rhythm”, one of J Heat’s few original compositions to date, is a case in point, a sparse construction based around a distant train whistle that bangs as hard as anything to come out of Newark in years and maintains an eery presence throughout. With artists like DJ Sliink, DJ Rell and Nadus making waves across the US and internationally, the idea of a Jersey Club producer breaking out is far from unheard of, but despite his incessant work rate, J Heat has taken a more patient path, eschewing questionable labels like Dim Mak and Mad Decent in search of a more idyllic fit. In Night Slugs, he’s seemed to find that and while his debut for the label will likely bring a new fan base and critical acclaim it’s clear that it won’t be the beginning or end for J Heat.

Spaceseeds Mix For The Astral Plane

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July 28, 2016
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Originally coming to our attention through the 2014 Extasis Summer Compilation (which also featured Smurphy, Blaze Kidd, Wasted Fates and a host of others), Spaceseeds has remained an intriguing producer over the past few years, popping up here and there to release a pack of bootlegs or an original track. One of an increasing number of artists in the NAAFI orbit (Extasis is Lao’s label), Spaceseeds hails from Tepic and engages in exactly the sort of freewheeling approach that the Mexico City-based label adores, an anti-traditionalist style that takes pop, Caribbean musics and Central and South American rhythms and flips them into a prickly, but outrageously fun jigsaw puzzle of influence and innovation. It’s the sound found throughout each of NAAFI’s Pirata compilations and Spaceseeds placed three of his own efforts on the 2015 edition, mashing up Rabit, Que, DJ Marfox, Banda 52 and more on three gut punch bootlegs that are easily among the mixtape’s best.

Without only one official solo release to his name so far, also on Extasis, Spaceseeds’ catalogue is relatively small at this point, but if his mix work and occasional Soundcloud uploads are any indication the Mexican artist has a wealth of material in the bank. And with tracks like “Ela Parou”, “Lizard”, “Renuncia” and the host of unnamed material in his Astral Plane mix popping up more and more often it’s clear that original work is not just in the works, but very much on the horizon. Those tracks are deliciously broken, filtering baile funk, ballroom and noisy abstraction into singular works of dancefloor efficacy that seem to easily reference everything from Total Freedom-style CDJ manipulation to cerebral trance. In his Astral Plane mix, that approach takes on the characteristics of maximalism as colors, rhythms and textures seem to fly in and out of the mix with reckless abandon, not necessarily all at once, but in such an easy flowing fashion that it’s difficult to track of where one 90s R&B classic ends and the gqom rhythm you’re hearing began. The track list (after the jump) will be a helpful guide, but Spaceseeds is entirely on his own spatial plane when it comes to this mix and his original work in general.

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Radar Radio w/ Close Up of the Serene

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July 26, 2016
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With an in-house/DIY focused model, Milwaukee’s Close Up of the Serene outfit have jetted out of the gates in 2016 with key releases from Athletic Supply, Liquid City Motors, Pharo and Mercury Drums. Unlike more traditional electronic labels with clear divisions of labor, Close Up is more of a collaborative effort and virtually every release has featured work from each member of the crew, whether it comes in the form of mixing and mastering work, cover photography or, in the case of Athletic Supply, full on instrumentation and live assistance. Considering our past adoration for Liquid City Motors’ output and assistance with our own label operations (he has mastered each of our releases to date) and the quality found in each Close Up release so far, it was an easy choice to bring them on for this month’s Radar Radio show, which aired last night. The first hour of the show, helmed by the Astarl Plane DJ Team, segues from dancehall, reggaeton and rap into noisy manipulations from Rabit, Ceramic TL, M.E.S.H. LXV and more before heading into the Close Up guest mix, recorded by label head Max Holiday, which effortlessly weaves techno, acid and post punk, largely from the label itself, into a doggedly gorgeous hour of direct rhythms, anguished choruses and squelching basslines. All three tracks from Liquid City Motors’ excellent Untitled 2 EP, out now on Close Up, appear in the mix as well, sounding impressively in line with the rest of the label’s output and productions from legends like Joey Beltram, Robert Hood and Plastikman. Hit the jump for a track list for the full show, download the show here and look out for our next Radar show on August 22.

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Ziúr Mix For The Astral Plane

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July 21, 2016
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Industrial templates have come in and out of favor in club music for decades now, influencing the more hardcore elements of techno, finding a comfortable home with a certain dubstep contingent and providing a well of material for your neighborhood crate digger. More recently, acts like Coil, Nitzer Ebb and Suicide, who’s frontman Alan Vega sadly passed away over the weekend, have seen a resurgence in popularity among a certain internet-dwelling crowd, influenced by labels like Tri Angle, Mute and RVNG and bored by the paint-by-numbers house and techno that has come to dominate Room Ones the world over. With a background in punk and a defiantly unconventional approach to club forms, Berlin’s Ziúr is one of several artists leading the charge into a darker, rougher abyss, pushing an industrial-informed sound that fights back against the music’s (and Germany’s) fascist undertones while tearing down the notion that it’s a form for and by white cis men.

Released on July 1, Ziúr’s official debut came in the form of Taiga, four blazing tracks for Infinite Machine accompanied by remixes from likeminded producers Born In Flamez and Air Max ’97. Full of twisted melodies, distended vocal fragments and a barrage of samples and foley effects, Taiga is an immersive and at times battering release, stretching club sensibilities and challenging dancers to meet its fluctuating attitude head on. Previous remixes for Evool and Peaches showed the Berlin resident’s willingness to fuck up shadowy pop forms as the avalanche of metallic percussion and high-strung atmosphere feels right at home with each vocal. And considering that she often tests out her tracks while sound checking at a venue job, it’s no surprise that her production style feels just at home with Peaches as it does mixed with Kablam, Brood Ma and Kamixlo. As seen on Taiga, Ziúr’s music effuses a punk attitude and while an ever-larger group of producers look to the industrial end of the spectrum it’s easier than ever to pick out the real ones.

Tomorrow night (August 22), Ziúr will be performing alongside Kablam, Air Max ’97, Uli K, NI-KÜ and resident Iydes and Seb at London’s Tropical Waste night at The Waiting Room. Tickets are available here.

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Bushido Mix For The Astral Plane

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July 14, 2016
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Imagy by Bryan Young

Previous to this April, you were more likely to catch Bushido tracks in Rinse and NTS playlists than you were to actually have a chance to get your hands on them. One offs for Liminal Sounds and LuckyMe were the rare entries into the physical book while original tracks and bootlegs were peppered into radio and DJ sets by a number of influential DJs from Glasgow, Bushido’s current home, and beyond. That was until this April when Astral Black dropped Grandmaster Cash, Bushido’s official debut and a statement release that will surely go down as one of the year’s most played out. Having flirted with everything from cut up 8 bar to languorous dembow productions in the past, Grandmaster Cash brings what were previously abstracted reference points into a cohesive whole, full of bouncy bashment energy, meditated bass weight and driving club percussion. With the rap-minded Astral Black outfit behind the release, Bushido’s crossover potential is fervently harnessed on the debut and slick digital dancehall, sino-grime and elastic Jersey club all feel comfortable in the release’s glassy confines.

While it might have taken a few years for the first release to become reality, it’s hard not to eagerly anticipate more material from the Glaswegian, especially after hearing new material peppered into his Astral Plane mix. Often falling into the between space of several established sounds, Bushido’s tracks feel comfortably at home when paired with the likes of Copout, Ahadadream and Murlo, a dancehall-informed bounce that often comes out twisted into unforeseen shapes. And while it’s probably unfair to hassle Bushido for another release already, it’s hard not to feel the electricity of new material when running through a mix like this.

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