I met Jed in the late 00’s. He was about seven years old. At the time he spoke of his searches for vinyl from a far-off time he’d heard village elders call the ‘nineties’. He approached his quest for grungy britpops with an energy and passion like no normal human. Now, ten years later, aged 14 ½, Jed puts the same energy into a ridiculously good, generous, and comprehensive weekly newsletter. Thank you, Jed, and thanks for letting me join in this week.
To make this mix, I just played records all weekend, picked them in as arbitrary a manner as I could. Then I looked for them on Spotify and put them in an order. It’s funny hearing it back on Spotify as some – like Marcos Valle, or the Staple Singers, for example – are maybe too compressed, or not particularly well mixed for streaming. Check them on vinyl, or even CD, if you can.
Joyce Heath kicks things off with a track I’m sort of obsessed with from the Sky Girl compilation. I find it inescapable. Lynne Ramsay had it on the soundtrack of her last film, and I really liked hearing her on the radio this year – if you can find a repeat of this anywhere, check it out.
I’m a massive, completist fan of Colleen. The track selected is from her latest album, but calls back to her early music box work I reckon. Here’s a nice videoof her current live set up (heart the chart!) and a link to a great mix she did a couple of years ago.
The Naum Gabo edit is an enduring favourite, and a record I was kindly given in a meeting at work. It turned out an account director I was working with ran the record label that was about to put it out, and we had talked about a club I used to go to where Jonny Wilkes (half of Naum Gabo) DJ’d at. The remix is by the real talent behind DFA. Thanks for the record, Simon, it’s still being hammered ten years later.
Mission Control is from a perfect mix CD I bought back in from ‘Y2K’ (when Jed was born). I now have the vinyl pack too. It’s all timeless stuff. Buy the CD. I’ll refund you if you don’t like it *Boris Johnson pinkie promise*.
Skipping ahead (a lot), it turns out that the Staple Singers cover of Talking Heads was more of a collaboration than a cover, it seems. I bought this about 15 years ago, expecting something like the Curtom Staple Singers. I hadn’t read the credits, and obviously it was nothing like it. I fluked an all time banger, and you should definitely buy the 12″.
The penultimate track is buy a wholly unique act from DRC. The groove is unlike anything else I have in my collection, and a friend of mine made a belter of an edit of it – pitched high with a squelch added in! He runs another generous and interesting blog. Download the free EP!
Last up is Sylvester. It’s the instrumental I have and love – but the vocal version available on Spotify is great too. Here’s the original demo as a treat – another brilliant Dark Entries release. If you get into this track, you might want to check treatments by Eli Escobar, Pyschemagik, Smagghe & Cross. But I know what you’ll go back to everytime…
Anyway, thanks for listening. And thanks Jed for the comprehensive and generous effort every week. Futures.