BC113 - Five Mixes: January-February 2025
From New York to the world
Vicki Siolos, via SoundCloud
I was tempted to call this one “New York Women: A Survey,” but Ciel is a Torontonian. She also takes up more playing time than the other four put together, so in that sense it’s a draw anyhow. You can hear all five sets on this SoundCloud playlist.
Ciel, Best Out of Town Year 4 (Field, Ontario, rec. September 1, 2024; uploaded January 15)
You see those numbers up there right—nearly eight freakin’ hours of this one, recorded outdoors at summer’s end, longer than the other four selections below combined. I didn’t realize it until I’d neared two hours and began to and wonder why the player seemed so far to the left. Not only did I realize then that I was in for this thing, but also that I had been consistently attentive to it the whole time so far, and was likely to be again throughout. A lot goes on, of course—for shorthand, let me quote Michael McKinney’s January mix round-up at Passion of the Weiss: “As the set runs on, Ciel inverts typical live-set construction by cranking the BPM down, moving from UKG rave-ups and hands-up trance to dreamy trip-hop, sludgy downtempo, and starry-eyed rock-and-roll.” I too like the downshifts into morning music—slower, groovy, songy—with about two hours left to go. But I’ll note that the DJ’s seemingly personal favorites that end things are where my tastes and hers diverge the furthest.
Vicki Siolos, Bright Patterns (The Lot Radio, February 6)
I make no claim to impartiality regarding the proprietor here—Vicki Siolos is one of my favorite people (remaining) in New York, and I’ve long enjoyed her ambient morning show on The Lot. You know how beatless drift can be—you’ve generally got to be in the mood for it, unless it puts you in that mood. This one not only did that, it’s done so though subsequent plays. Moreover, it has real shape to it—the kind for which a specific craving develops. I’ve found its most redolent setting not to be bedtime, as I’d have expected, but midday, while preparing a soup for the first time.
Barbie & Paul, Love Injection (The Lot Radio, February 8)
No impartiality here, either: I’ve written for the most recent and forthcoming issues of Love Injection, Barbie Bertisch and Paul Raffaelle’s zine, as opposed to their Lot show of the same name. Traversing a lot of global and historical modes while delivering a pretty evenly distributed mood—not escapist, more a welcoming embrace—this one isn’t a through-line event; it’s more a temperature taking. During Barbie’s talkovers—Paul’s second hour is mostly without—there is acknowledgement of the coup without an accounting of same; it isn’t needed. I don’t love every track, but it sings as one anyway. Most resonant lyric: “The age of tenderness and rage,” a chorus from Tunde Adebimpe.
Bell Curve, SWU.FM (February 8)
Impartial again at last, I initially took the proprietor behind this vigorous hour of melting bass timbres for a UK DJ, thanks to the station’s Bristol provenance. Nope—just another Brooklynite with the goods. In this case, there’s a strobing-lights excitement that runs alongside all that variable low end, and they crisscross each other in all kinds of ways—one of my favorites, around the turn of the third quarter-hour, involves shuffling snares and quasi-classical strings—and most of them will at least goose if not jump-start you.
livwutang, RA.975 (Resident Advisor; February 9)
If a DJ set is a place where anything can happen, most of them don’t feel that way, for better as often as worse. But this 90-minute mix does feel that way, for better, period. It’s late-night after-club music that’s full of curled minimalism. The tempo moves around some, but this isn’t a set defined by ricocheting eclecticism—the joins are smooth, the vibe streamlined. Nonetheless, the primary rhythm driving this one seems less to do with the drums and bass, per se, than with the DJ’s own internal combustion.