Interplanetary Criminal and Main Phase, via Rinse FM
Have you ever wondered how the Minneapolis techno scene provided material assistance to the post-George Floyd uprising? My feature for Racket about MayDay in the Park’s recent surge of sound systems is just what you’re looking for. I also recently profiled for them my fellow St. Paul dweller Malion, whose Starsick EP (ahem) I highly recommend. Forward!
You can hear all five sets in this SoundCloud playlist.
LOIF: Untitled 909 Podcast 219 (April 9)
This one has been settling into my life in a way that’s pretty rare even for someone who mainly listens to mixes. It’s a marker—the moment, to my ear at least, that psytrance basically became what drum & bass was a few years ago (cf. my RS overview). Meaning not that it’s changed into something else or that its underground is more burgeoning than usual (though in my neck of the woods, at least, it is), but that techno and house DJs are playing it too, or at least playing tracks that evoke it strongly—that a generation is coming of age that has never heard much of a wall between the techno/house and psy sides of things, and is acting accordingly. Cicada percussion ahoy! In the case of this particular set, it’s almost like Psytrance For Dummies—or at least for techno fans, and maybe even more so, IDM heads. That said, I ratified this one with my biggest psytrance friend, Amanda—I also mentioned her singularly cray dance stylings in a Wire piece about psytrance, in the Maximalism Issue—when she was over recently. (She even provided her own sound effects during the mix—like a mating call, though it wasn’t one in this case.) In any event, come on in, the water’s pfine.
Basic Chanel, Sure Thing Mix 139 (April 16)
I don’t mean to impute motive here—Chanel, as we’ve noted elsewhere (cf. BC123), is also behind the Untitled 909 Podcast—but this follows the above so smartly that you’ll have to forgive me for hearing it as a sequel. Lots of chittering percussion running alongside the groove here, lots of forward motion reminiscent less of funk than of ye olde video game Dig Dug. And also so much filtering and variation and pure scenery that you can dial in or out as need be. What I’m getting from this and the first mix is how well suited psytrance can be to a seated and dancing situation alike.
Chaos in the CBD, Downtempo Special—RA Greenhouse Sessions (Resident Advisor, April 17)
Presentation matters. DJing is presenting music in a particular way, let’s say—it’s not free of hierarchy, but it’s apt to level it now and then. Now, I’m imagining specific people hearing the tracks on this set out of context: Can flutes be pompous? Sure they can, and that is their charm—yeah, not gonna fly with the folks I’m thinking of here, at all. But if a DJ’s job is to convince us that music we might not otherwise mess with can, if presented correctly, enhance our lives, this hour of office-hold music can be used as, at least, Exhibit C. Liquidly dilapidated, like your nightshirt getting caught on the screen door, it’s thinness and programmatic soul evokes a backyard hang behind screen doors, with monkeys in the near distance. They mixed in tropical FX for extra spice. Good move, that.
Interplanetary Criminal b2b Main Phase, Nowhere Manchester (Rinse FM, May 2)
I think it says something good about my basic humanity that, midway through this two-hour program, I actually laughed out loud at the looped “There’s some hoes in this house” vocal over vintage bleep & bass—sheer silliness, sheer majesty. A lot more happens over these two hours than that, psy touches included, but really, what better recommendation could you want?
Cory Simpson, Depth Special Series: Cory Simpson feat. Raymond Yamanaka (May 5)
As the copyeditors in my audience may have noticed, I try to avoid repetition in titling. But this one requires a little explanation, provided by the DJ on SoundCloud: “Alternate mixdowns of Raymond Yamanaka and Cory Simpson’s solo and collaborative tracks, in an hour plus DJ set from Depth co founder Cory Simpson, consisting almost entirely unreleased material.” Meaning that the music is by two of them but the DJing is Simpson alone. Copy that. Anyway, if you like Simpson’s machine-heavy steez, and lord knows I do (cf. BC106), this one’s nonstop tweakage—psychedelic, not psy—will put ants in your pants. Nothing we can do about your eyeballs zigzagging around, though.