Well it has been hasn’t it? Grim, chilly, all self-denial and sobriety; the B-word and T-word boring and scaring us in equal measure. Now it’s snowing! And my first collection of chunes for 2019 is ready to listen to.
I've been doing monthly playlists since July. I've compiled them for a few years, one here and one there when the mood seized me, a way of trying to manhandle a gargantuan, messy, five-figure iPod/iTunes collection while keeping abreast of the avalanche of marvellous new gear that's released every week. For a while there was a period where we felt ourselves in suspended animation as crate-digging hovered between trawling the record shops for The New Hot Shit, hurling cash over the counter for a record on which only one of the tracks was 'the one' and taking risks on things you might not like by the time you got home, and developing systems to keep track of the glut of new, easily-missed releases online. (As record shop after record shop closed we feared the worst, but what followed, of course, was a well-documented vinyl resurgence the likes of which no-one could have predicted.)
And just like my 13 year old self, I get to draw the artwork for each one.
So. Strictly not a mix - more like the kind of radio set we used to do on our pirate radio stations, all gusto, 3am chips and endless tea - this is a two-C90-tape (or three ish hour!) collection of loosely-assembled new discoveries, electronic soothers, 4-to-the-floors - and a minor bangathon in the middle.
There's Bicep, Fourtet, Leon Vynehall, Bawrut, UNKLE, Planningtorock, Thundercat, Max Cooper, Clouds, Fontaines D.C., Orbital, slowthai, Cid Rim - and a heavy contingent of women: Kelly Moran, Holly Walker, Róisín Murphy, Karen O, Junior, Ninna Lundberg, Otha, Julia Jacklin. And more, because there's always more!
There'll be another one in February, and I know that because I've already started it!
👉Listen on iTunes 👉 OR, if you haven’t got Apple Music, you can listen to this one *here* on Mixcloud
