FACT Mixes

We’ve had Konx-om-Pax’s Caramel on constant rotation since Planet Mu sent us an advance copy a couple of months ago, and it’s turned out to be the rare record that seduces everyone in the office. The second album from multimedia artist Tom Scholefield (released last Friday) is a crumpled love letter to the lip-biting euphoria of raves long past, and a record that came out of a grim period for the Glasgow native. “There was so much going on I found depressing that this record was almost a therapy,” he told FACT last week. “It was an attempt to be aggressively positive.” Scholefield’s FACT mix unpicks some of the influences behind Caramel‘s noise-smeared, pitch-bent, planet-sized emotional bangers – from the bittersweet heaviness of Boards of Canada to Lone’s giddy rave nostalgia, with appearances from Jeff Mills’ recently reissued Final Cut project, Robert Hood and Lee Gamble. Needless to say, it’s euphoric.

FACT has been running our weekly mix series since April 2008, so with hundreds of brilliant sessions gathering dust in the vaults, we decided to dig through the archives and pull out some of our very favorites. Next up for re-evaluation is this corker of a selection from Kieran Hebden, better known as Four Tet. Recorded back in 2010 when the UK was still a part of Europe and hope wasn’t an alien concept, the mix finds Hebden at a crucial stage in his career. His excellent Fabric mix CD came only a year later, and this subtle blend of twinkly jazz, womping garage and the post-dubstep shuffle of Floating Points, Ramadanman and Cosmin TRG neatly charts the direction of his next few years of experimentation. As at home splicing together the percussive fury of Bob Holroyd’s ‘African Drug’ and beloved Indian vocalist Lata Mangeshkar’s gorgeous ‘Too Mere Saath Rahega Munne’ as he is beatmatching Mount Kimbie’s ‘Blind Night Errand’ and Grievous Angel’s ‘Move Down Low VIP’, Four Tet is at the height of his creativity here, offering a grip of tracks that shouldn’t be forgotten in a hurry.

Thank the magic of high-speed internet for the bounty of eerie club mutations and emotional bangers offered up so far by young producer Strict Face, whose releases on Mr. Mitch’s Gobstopper, Mumdance and Logos’ Different Circles and Nina Las Vegas’ NLV Records have found him channelling the sounds of London, New Jersey, Atlanta and beyond through his base in Adelaide, Australia. Fun times are at the core of Strict Face’s vivid and muscular approach to the dancefloor, with his recent refix of Britney’s ‘Toxic’ a case in point, and on his high-octane FACT mix he shows us just how deftly he can weave and bob between screwface riddims, sweetboy melodies, jackhammer kicks, the Thong Song and, in the final furlong, slo-mo ambient romance. Look out for fresh bits from Strict Face’s own Sea Lion Gang (Glot, Jawside), Boxed grime explorers (Spooky, Tarquin, Grizzle), hip-hop stylists (Travis Scott, Snow Tha Product) and various friends and fam from travels behind the booth (Finn, T_A_M, DJ Milktray). It’s a total joyride of a mix – get it on loud, for god’s sake.

Kim Ann Foxman has had quite the career. As the former vocalist of nu-disco troupe Hercules and Love Affair she notched up serious acclaim, but in recent years has been building up her name as a house DJ and producer, releasing 12″s on a slew of labels including her own Firehouse imprint. Foxman’s ability to fuse the soulful, sensual sounds of deep house and the slithering, bass-heavy jackin’ flavors of the classic Chicago sound is rare, and completely visible on this hour-long selection. Mostly focusing on her own tracks (and including plenty of exclusive, unreleased tracks) she pushes through a variety of styles, never losing sight of the club and ending on a vintage cut from Aussie post-punkers Severed Heads.

FACT has been running the popular mix series since April 2008, so it felt like a good time to dig through the archives and pull out some of our very favorites. Back in 2010, Rochdale lads Sean Booth and Rob Brown – better known as Warp Records mainstays Autechre – slotted together a sequence of tracks in the run up to that year’s excellent Oversteps full-length. A potent blend of rap (Detroit’s Dilla-approved Phat Kat, Wu Tang’s Raekwon and rapper/producer Black Milk make an appearance), slithering electro, manic breakcore and… err… extreme metal, it shows the duo’s wide range of influences without sounding forced or overly eclectic. At the time, Booth and Brown didn’t have a lot to say about the selection other than, “it’s just some tunes [we] like”. Fair enough then. Some of you might already know that Autechre started out making electro and rave before pushing their sound into the fringes of experimental electronic music, so the mix serves as a timely reminder of the breadth of their interests. It also slots in nicely alongside Autechre’s recently-released mammoth five-part album elseq 1-5, which after a few weeks on heavy rotation still has our jaws nailed firmly to the ground.

When acclaimed noise stalwart Dominick Fernow (aka Prurient) established Vatican Shadow with 2011’s quadruple-tape album Kneel Before Religious Icons, it appeared amongst a throng of noise-adjacent techno releases. However, fusing the chugging rhythmic elements of Muslimgauze and the doomy textures he’d already perfected as Prurient, Fernow had chanced about something with staying power, and in the years since, Vatican Shadow has gone from strength to strength. With releases notched up now on Modern Love, Blackest Ever Black, Type and his own Hospital Productions and Bed of Nails imprints, Fernow has spent time perfecting his sound, and he’s never been better. This month he released the stunning Media In The Service Of Terror album, bundled with an ambitious 100-page mini newspaper featuring clippings and art related to the project. This very rare FACT mix capitalizes on Fernow’s latter-day experience performing at big-room techno venues but loses none of the grit of his early releases. Pounding loops drift in and out of each other, as the propulsive minimal 4/4 of the Panorama Bar collides with hissing tape recordings and the kind of grinding techno you’d expect to find in Birmingham circa 1996. It might not be extreme noise, but Fernow has never sounded so visceral. Vatican Shadow is set to perform in Europe this summer, with show in Amsterdam, at Warehouse Elementenstraat, on August 6; at Berlin’s Berghain on August 13; and at Barcelona’s DNIT Caixaforum on August 24.

Damiano von Erckert may hail from the metronomic city that gave us Can and Kompakt, but his taste for soulful, sample-heavy, loose-jointed house aligns him more closely with fusionists like Floating Points and the dusty vinyl warriors of South London’s Rhythm Section and 22a. After founding his label ava. in 2011 to put out his own productions and local talent like Murat Tepelo and Hodini, this year he launched a new imprint, DVE Records. Kicking off with one of his own releases – and bringing in LA electro legend Egyptian Lover on the remix – the label’s got music from Mall Grab and Ron Trent waiting in the wings later in 2016. Von Erckert’s FACT mix is an eclectic trip with a bit of a journey vibe to it, opening with Motown’s ‘70s fusionists Puzzle and passing through shimmering deep moods, shuffling house and all-out sweat-wringers. Look out for a couple of productions from DVE himself alongside heat from Gemini, Legowelt, Mall Grab and – oh, hello, some vintage Basement Jaxx? Don’t mind if we do.

The Body are Rhode Island natives Lee Buford and Chip King, an avant-metal unit whose noise-and-sludge-nihilism has grown increasingly adventurous as they’ve sought to distance themselves from the insular genre-worship of their metal peers. Their recent album for Thrill Jockey, No One Deserves Happiness, draws as much from Beyoncé and ‘80s dance as doom metal, and nails their mission to create “the grossest pop album of all time,” as they told FACT in March. It’s easily one of our favourites of 2016 so far. Buford’s FACT mix has nothing to do with any of that, though. Instead, he’s put together a mixtape of spine-tingling blues from the 1940s and earlier, featuring Delta bluesmen like Charley Patton and Bukka White, gospel-fired guitarists like Rev. Gary Davis, and several recordings made by ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, from the stark intensity of Arkansan folk singer Almeda Riddle to the rowdy group singing of unknown prisoners in Southern penitentiaries. Content warning: they don’t call it the blues for nothing.

The Dutchman’s ear for the very best house, techno and electro has helped him build Clone Records, the DIY label he founded in 1992, into a veritable empire, including a distribution company and record store in Rotterdam and a dizzying network of sublabels (Clone Jack For Daze, Clone Aqualung Series, Clone Basement Series and Royal Oak, to name a few you’ll have come across in tracklists for your fave mixes). Two decades on and the quality continues to peak, with the likes of Legowelt, DJ Haus, Randomer and A Made Up Sound gracing the roster recently. We’ve been after a mix from the boss for years, so when he told us what he was cooking up we dropped everything to hear it. “Since I never record mixes, ’cause I never felt the urge, I remembered I always used to make tapes for friends back in the days, including my girlfriend,” he said about his “springtime” mix. “So I wanted to do some kind of ‘girlfriend mixtape’, with tunes that have that spring mixtape vibe, rather than a mix with only rare obscure stuff or own productions, or whatever is the thing to do with podcasts these days that helps your DJ profile or whatever. “So it’s a mix with classic house tracks, some unreleased tunes and some new bits, with the vocal tracks that add that special girlfriend feel – tunes that could have a little special meaning instead of just cool dancefloor bangers or obscure trainspotter stuff.” It’s a perfect fit for the bank holiday wind-down, with tons of jackin’ diva house and sun-baked grooves.

Low Jack is Philippe Hallais, a Honduras-born, Paris-based DJ and producer who’s been carving out a grubby, noise-infested seam of house and techno since his debut Slow Dance EP in 2012. A steady stream of releases on vital labels like L.I.E.S., In Paradisum and The Trilogy Tapes has seen Hallais tread the line between heavy dancefloor movements and off-the-wall experimentation, variously bringing industrial grot and hypnotic Honduran rhythms into his gnarly, machine-built club tracks. Last month Hallais joined Manchester stable Modern Love for his third full-length, Lighthouse Stories, slotting right in with the label’s penchant for grit and grain while throwing footwork and hip-hop influences into the mix for a distinctly fresh take on the whole “outsider house” vibe. He also operates Editions Gravats – home to releases from Zaltan, JiFlure and a favourite of ours, Black Zone Myth Chant – with co-founder Jean Carval, and is a devoted gourmand who really, really loves cheese. Recorded in one take at the Rinse France studio, Hallais’s mix is a loose and unpredictable voyage through his eclectic collection, taking in menacing gqom from Durban’s Rudeboyz, slippery industrial gloom from Halycon Veil’s Hvad, DJ Earl’s soulful footwork, a slice of busted electro from one Boner M, some classic snd and much more besides. You’ll be on a Discogs spree within the hour – check out the tracklist below and also catch him play B2B with Ron Morelli at Weather Festival in Paris on June 4. Beware of the brain-slicing pneumatic drill early on, in case you’re feeling a bit delicate after the weekend.

Copenhagen is one of the coolest cities in Europe right now, and it’s no coincidence that the Danish capital is also home to Apeiron Crew, a four-strong DJ collective who formed two years ago after meeting behind the counter of a record shop in Nørrebro. Najaaraq Vestbirk makes up one quarter of Apeiron under the nom de discotheque Courtesy, taking a hard, dark and physical approach to the floor with an all-killer tunes policy and a dash of electro filth to keep the fun levels peaking. Before playing FACT’s stage at Found Festival in London on June 11, Courtesy has made us a blinding mix featuring some forthcoming gems on Ectotherm, the label she recently founded with Apeiron’s Mama Snake, Drafted’s deliriously brilliant ‘Vortex Empire’, and a tune set to go down as one of the year’s best, ‘The Frontier’ by Avalon Emerson. (They’re mates, in fact – Vestbirk recorded the mix round Avalon’s place.) “I wanted to present a mix that captured what it’s like to hear me play a sweaty 3am set, with all the nuances that comes with a live vinyl and CDJ set,” Vestbirk says. “Like any DJ, I use the crowd and their energy level to inform my track selection, something that’s difficult to manufacture in a living room. That said, this is pretty damn close to what it’s like to hear me bang it out in a club.” If you’re heading to Copenhagen this year, look out for the miniature record outlet Vestbirk is opening with Mama Snake at the Los cafe on Guldbergsgade, set to open in late summer.

When we first encountered her, she was Jamie Krasner, the angelic voice behind Physical Therapy’s breakthrough ‘Drone On’. Krasner’s voice has always been one of her greatest weapons, but as time has gone on and she’s shifted into her James K moniker, the range of her talents has become clearer. Her voice and unique productions were stretched further than ever on the first album by SETH, her collaborative project with Gobby. It was the most exciting full statement we’d heard from her until this year, when Krasner finally delivered her long-awaited debut album. PET is clearly a years in-the-making release, pulling together exciting tracks that have sat on her Bandcamp page for years with new productions that sound unlike anything she’s made before. To us, it felt like the perfect time to invite her to record a FACT Mix. Kresner’s FACT mix is not unlike her own productions, constantly pushes the human voice through unpredictable sonic pathways. After an atmospheric opening incantation from Cosey Fanny Tutti, the mix, titled “Girls Gone Wild”, blasts off on a frenetic high-energy pulse with PET highlight ‘R.I.P.’ providing a peaceful eye to the storm. It’s not long before Krasner dives back in with the distorted grunts of DJ Tasaka’s ‘Denki Groove’ and the spiking chant of Synthadelic’s ‘I’m A Secretary’ before hitting a late peak with Microwave Prince’s ‘The Colour Of Love’. It’s a complete funhouse of a mix. Listen below and look for PET now via Dial and her imprint She Rocks!

We’re not sure exactly how Denis Sulta came to be dubbed “Glasgow’s man of the year”, but as he was behind two of the most essential 12″s of 2015, we’re not going to argue. The young DJ and producer learned the ropes behind the counter of Glasgow institution Rubadub and playing sweatboxes across town, honing his bolshy taste in house, techno, disco and (at his Too Nice night) hip-hop. He made his production debut on local label Dixon Avenue Basement Jams in 2014, followed by an appearance on NY outlet Mister Saturday Night under his Atlus alias, but his big breakthrough came with last year’s L.A. Ruffgarden EP (also on Dixon Avenue) and his massive entrance on Numbers with ‘It’s Only Real’, a snakecharming sad-techno monster that’s been rinsed by everyone from John Talabot to Kowton to Four Tet. We’re delighted to have Sulta at the controls for an outrageous pre-weekend FACT mix, where he gets dirty with the filters and pretty much takes the roof off with selections from Le Knight Club, Todd Terry, unreleased heat from Houndstooth, his own ‘Nein Fortiate’ and more.

Donning an unsettling blonde wig for live performances and press photos (he ends up looking like a techno Cthulu), Mannerfelt questions the cult of the producer, and despite his first “proper” solo album only appearing in 2014, he’s been at it for a while. Mannerfelt previously went under the moniker The Subliminal Kid, helping shape Fever Ray’s crushing self-title debut as well as albums from Blonde Redhead and Glasser alongside production partner Van Rivers. Since then, he’s been working on the fringes, producing uneasy soundscapes and rhythmic experiments for Digitalis, Avian and his very own imprint Peder Mannerfelt Produktion. His latest album, Controlling Body, is his finest to date, fusing the subtle pop shimmer that helped characterize his earlier work with Fever Ray and Glasser (who appears on five of the album’s nine tracks) with sounds and techniques that are both confusing and deeply enthralling. Ahead of his performance at MUTEK, which takes place in Montreal from June 1-5, Mannerfelt puts together a FACT mix exploring his earlier flirtations with techno, blending tracks from Rob Hood, Perc and recent FACT favorite Umfang with classic sounds from Isao Tomita, New Order and Terry Riley, and off-world experiments from Hanna Hartmann, among others.

Joe Hart has been a low-profile hero of London’s club scene for the last six years as one half of nomadic night World Unknown, making the railway arches and sex dungeons of south London throb with decade-spanning acid, EBM, electro, new beat and techno alongside DJ partner Andy Blake. Their devoted following is proof of Kerri Chandler’s maxim that all you need to set it off is a basement, a red light and a feeling – and, in WU’s case, a smoke machine cranked up to 11. Pre-dating the cult of WU is Bodyhammer, Hart’s ongoing night with DJ Scott Fraser. Last month they played a set for the ages at the final Bloc weekender in Minehead (as documented in our riposte to festival founder George Hull’s massive comedown whinge) and a FACT mix-shaped light bulb went off in our brains. With World Unknown currently on hiatus (look out for one-off events this summer) we asked Hart to mark the end of an era by pulling out some tried-and-true WU classics. His FACT mix spans Jah Wobble’s dreamy dub, Lowlands techno and classic house from Armando – dress to sweat.