Eight record collections that change the way a familiar artist is heard.
An artist’s public identity can become narrower than their listening. A particular rhythm, texture or scene gives us a useful way in, then quietly begins to stand for everything they do. These selections open that identity again. House records sit behind computational music; dub and songs make space inside dark ambient; industrial producers leave the pulse behind to attend to a voice, a melody or a remembered room.
We chose eight contributions with a concrete connection between the records selected and the person selecting them. The original notes, tracklists and artists’ accounts explain that connection; surprise alone is too slight a basis for an introduction. Each mix offers a different listening history, with room for formative records, later discoveries and personal favourites. Following those choices allows familiar music to acquire another context, and gives an unfamiliar record a person through whom it can first be heard.
Sixteen vinyl selections return to the electronic music of around 1979–1981, with Throbbing Gristle, Dome and The Human League among them. Dedicated to Pete Namlook, the mix lets the early electronic roots behind an ambient identity remain distinct and audible.
Arvo Pärt, Jessica Bailiff, Current 93 and Dead Can Dance open a listening world beyond the industrial techno associated with Ancient Methods. The selection finds intensity in acoustic detail, song and restraint, widening the meaning of the project’s familiar force.
Eleven house selections from 1990–1997 disclose a melodic, vocal foundation behind Fell’s exacting electronic work. Chez Damier, Rick Wade and Pal Joey provide a particularly clear route into the record collecting and dance music that fed his own practice.
Jacob Miller, Keith Hudson and Rhythm & Sound share a listening room with Brian Williams’s other formative records and discoveries, including film scores and jazz. The relationships between bass, voice and empty space offer another way to approach Lustmord’s sense of scale.
Billie Holiday, Bob Marley & The Wailers and Melvins sit alongside newer electronics and Massel’s own work. His description of the mix as mixed emotions is borne out by a personal history that gives songs and familiar records room beside abstract production.
Jonathan Richman, Steve Reich, Dutch post-punk and Sparks become parts of a carefully annotated musical memoir. De Waard’s notes trace first purchases, friendships and discoveries, showing how song, repetition and a DIY ethic meet inside his experimental practice.
Klaus Schulze, Salem, The Magnetic Fields and a Mayhem rehearsal stretch the frame around Huren’s industrial music. A 1995 live recording of his own sits within this personal selection, joining an earlier working life to records with very different emotional registers.
A producer closely associated with house and raw techno turns towards rare ambient and new age records. David Parsons, Fondation and Steve Roach open a quieter, expansive part of the collection, held together by Cabral’s attention to their individual detail.
Presented in original publication order, with each selection opening a different part of its author’s listening history.
All mixes
