FACT Mixes

Flava D has released some volume of music since debuting on Pitch Controllers in 2012. As well as her regular home of Butterz – through which she’s released ‘Hold On’, ‘On My Mind’ and more – she’s dropped singles on Formula and Local Action, a series of self-released Bandcamp mixtapes and produced tracks for Wiley and Fekky. Last year, she self-released More Love, her biggest and most considered collection of music yet, while also forming a grimey 4×4 supergroup with DJ Q and Royal-T, t q d. Flava has also emerged as one of the UK’s most booked dance acts: there barely seems to be a weekend where she’s not playing at least once. Her FACT mix comes on the eve of a t d q UK tour, which starts after this week’s shows in Thailand and China (see what we mean about the bookings? She’s even stage diving), while More Love was recently made available for free. Flava’s next steps are a collaborative release with My Nu Leng, a t d q EP and a solo EP on Formula. There’s plenty of nods to the future on her FACT mix (that My Nu Leng collab, for one, as well as Flava’s special of D Double E and Killjoy’s ‘This’), plus Flava’s own spins on ‘Rhythm & Gash’, ‘Night’, Cause and Effect and more.

Coming from mysterious producer Grant – whose album The Acrobat last year on The Lauren Bacall imprint was a low-key favorite over here – the blend of deep house, abstract electronics and jazz fusion (honestly) should be all you need to wrestle yourself back to normality after the NYE excess. Fans of Moodymann or Galcher Lustwerk should take note immediately. Grant assures us that the mix was produced in the studio in December after an period of extreme creativity. Desperate to avoid the perfection of modern mixing and get back to the “super naive, exciting feeling” when you first start mixing, Grant has put together a very personal selection of favorites. There’s no tracklist, but we can tell you there’s a little DJ Sprinkles, Floating Points and Nuyorican Soul among other things. Diggers: it’s time to get hunting.

Most people probably know the producer and DJ for his work alongside Chris Peat as Altern 8, but there’s much more to Archer than that. His mid-90s run as Trackman, starting with the self-titled Trackman EP on Ideal Trax in 1995, showed his passion for acid, bleep techno and the Detroit/Chicago axis and showcased some of his most essential productions. The Trackman EP was recently reissued on Function’s Infrastructure New York imprint, giving a new generation of listeners a chance to tap into Archer’s vintage productions and hear how it should be done. It was a pretty special release for Function too, who says the EP was a personal favorite growing up. To celebrate the reissue, Archer has put together a very special two-hour Trackman mix of breathless bleep, acid and Detroit bangers. The mix was inspired by hearing “a DJ called Placid playing the ERP and Convexion tracks in a mix he was doing on an internet radio show,” says Archer, and after asking what the tunes were so he could snag them, he realized he’d never really mixed the Trackman tunes together. “It was just one of those ‘stand in your pants on a Saturday morning mix ups’,” he adds, “but it turned out well so I kept it.” It’s just in time for the holidays, so don’t say we never give you anything.

Formed in the mid-2010s, the group has evolved through several changes of personnel and label, recently settling with hometown label RVNG Intl. for the release of 2014’s Tomorrow Was The Golden Age. Bing & Ruth’s highest profile record to date, Joe Muggs described it in FACT as a record that “hints towards life as being full of beauty rather than something to be endured … basically really very gorgeous indeed. One to stick on after a really, really good night and have flying dreams to.” This year, Bing & Ruth followed Tomorrow Was The Golden Age with a remastered reissue of 2010’s City Lake (also through RVNG) and a tour for Moore’s ensemble which includes a show at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Perfect for December mornings, Bing & Ruth’s FACT mix features frosty sweeps of ambience, moonlit torch songs, oddball jazz and more.

Since 2002, Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson has been wowing listeners with his unique blend of subtle electronics and epic orchestral flourishes. With Englabörn, his debut album for the esteemed Touch imprint, Jóhannsson inadvertently kicked off a movement some dubbed “post-classical”, sharing spiritual space with Max Richter and others, but over the years he has proven more durable than an iffy genre tag might suggest. Most recently, Jóhannsson has built a career in Hollywood scoring, penning the soundtrack for last year’s excellent The Theory of Everything and notching up an Oscar nomination in the process. This year he managed to outdo himself again, contributing a score to the acclaimed Sicario which might be his most startling to date. For his FACT mix, Jóhannsson has chosen to weave together a selection of avant gems, from compositional powerhouse Dimitri Shostakovich to Can’s Holger Czukay. It’s perfectly poised to soundtrack the winter months, so get your central heating on full-whack and enjoy.

There’s no strategy or campaign to Hodge’s rise, no fully-realised aesthetic. Instead, the producer (whose solo status has overtaken that of his group, Outboxx) is simply evidence that if you release enough good music, on enough good labels, then people will take notice. Since 2011 he’s released close to 15 singles, on a diverse-but-focused selection of labels that includes Punch Drunk, Berceuse Heroique, Hotline and Tempa. Speaking loosely, Hodge’s music fits into that middle-ground between dubstep’s weight and techno’s fluidity that Bristol producers have a knack for doing so well (it’s no surprise that Kowton and Peverelist have tapped him for remixes and collaborations on their Livity Sound/Dnuos Ytivil mini-empire) with an ability to shock dancefloors while still keeping things moving that a lot of producers lack at the moment. Hodge’s latest EP, Forms of Life, is out now through Berceuse Heroique and you can catch him at The Warehouse Project in Manchester on Saturday December 12 – check here for more info and tickets.

Originally a solo pursuit of Nate Young’s, Wolf Eyes has been bringing the terror since the late 1990s. The group have released well over 100 records, cassettes and CD-Rs in that time, carving their own path somewhere between the dead-eyed misanthropy of 1980s Swans, the anything-goes attitude of classic industrial and the contemporary noise world. Some records – Burned Mind, Human Animal – are loosely agreed upon as Big Moments in the Wolf Eyes catalogue, but really, the best way to get an idea of their world is to absorb as much of them as possible, both live and on record. Earlier this year, Wolf Eyes – currently sporting a line-up of Young, John Olson and James Baljo – released a new album on Jack White’s Third Man Records, I Am A Problem: Mind in Pieces (they also took over White’s Instagram page and caused havoc), and have launched a Bandcamp page dedicated to collecting their vast archives. To celebrate the record, they’ve contributed a real bastard of a FACT mix, centered around gabba, turbo acid and hardcore. Most of you will hate this – and that’s probably just the way Wolf Eyes like it.

Matrixxman made his name as one half of 5kinandbone5, a West Coast duo whose music ranged from 2-step and r&b hybrids to rattling rap beats (most notably on the backing to Le1f’s ‘Wut’.) Despite the success the group found in a short space of time, they dissolved in 2013 and Matrixxman has been rattling out records since – appearing on labels like Dekmantel, Spectral Sound, Unknown to the Unknown and Delft, though this summer he settled on Ghostly International to release his debut album Homesick. Although Homesick is a techno record at its heart (albiet one that draws heavily from industrial and electro), it also marks Matrixxman’s attempt to push against the genre’s boundaries – or explore its possibilities, depending on your perspective. “The whole reason I’m doing an artistic pursuit is so I can do what the fuck I want to do,” he told FACT earlier this year. “I’m hellbent on eschewing expectation where possible. My whole approach is distinctly subversive at its core. Too many people get comfortable in their safe zones. And while I’m getting comfortable settling into the confines of techno, I’m still trying to fuck it up as much as possible.” His FACT mix nods to the techno gods at times (Plastikman, Hood) but generally keeps things weird and obscure, cribbing gems from Johannes Hell, Ground Loop, Adbdulla Rashim and more. Homesick is out now through Ghostly International.

From Drexciya to Underground Resistance, Detroit has a history of elusive dance acts, and Detroit in Effect (D.I.E.) is right up there. Originally a duo made up of Tameko J. Williams (aka DJ Maaco) and Odell Perry (aka P-Dog), the group steadily released 12″ singles throughout the late 90s and early 00s, usually on their own M.A.P. (Maaco & P-Dog, in case you were wondering) label but occasionally on Europe’s Clone. They also recorded as Cybonix. And they didn’t leave many clues. D.I.E. have rarely granted interviews, and until recently the only mixes available were self-released physical mixtapes (Discogs lists two: Live Somewhere in Detroit and Nowhere in Detroit). Despite this, and despite them not receiving the same worldwide recognition as some of their peers, D.I.E. are well-respected amongst dance aficionados, thanks in no small part to ‘R U Married’, hands down one of the best songs ever made. Now Maaco operating solo, D.I.E. will DJ with Egyptian Lover at East London party Feelings at Oval Space on Saturday November 21 (get tickets for that here). Ahead of that party, we’ve wangled a rare mix from him – if you’re into the sour spot between cold classic electro and the pacey sleaze of DJ Assault et al then this one’s for you. No tracklist though: we told you they don’t leave clues.

Mika Vainio’s career spans 20 years, and takes in everything from abstract ambient to blasts of dissonance, both solo and with groundbreaking group Pan Sonic. There’s also, for those keeping score, been live performances that border on sadomasochism and a guitar album titled Life (…It Eats You Up). Franck Vigroux, meanwhile, is a experimental French composer who has been exploring the borders of rock and electronic music since the early 00s, both live and on record. Vainio and Vigroux have been performing live together for several years, and this summer released a collaborative double-album Peau Froide, Léger Soleil (or Cold Skin, Light Sun), a record that used their live performances as a jumping-off point for jagged, brutalist soundscapes. Consider their FACT mix an accompaniment of sorts to that record, peppered with influences both classic (Swans, Napalm Death, Scott Walker) and contemporary (Shapednoise.) Peau Froide, Léger Soleil is out now.

Amy Becker has become a regular fixture on London radio over the last couple of years, first with a series of shows on BBC 1xtra and more recently with a regular show on Radar Radio. Generally speaking she works in that middle ground between grime and rap and ~130bpm club music, though she’s also partial to dropping dancehall and slow jams into the mix (who isn’t, right?). She’s also really good at Twitter. Earlier this year, she released a compilation, Amy Becker TRX, which featured exclusives from the likes of Benton, D Double E and Nightwave, and she’s pulled in similar favours for her FACT mix: everything bar a few tracks is currently unreleased (it was 100% when she submitted it), including cuts from Dread D, Murlo, Gage, Novelist, Logos, Kahn & Neek and Inkke.

The Neasden-based producer has honed a sound which is high on melody and high on emotion in recent years, combining rap and grime drum palettes with the breathless rush you get from R&B, trance and Dark0’s beloved JRPG soundtracks (look closely at last year’s Fate EP and there’s clear nods to Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Cross and more.) As well as releasing his own material, he also played a key role in MC K9’s excellent Mad in the Cut mixtape, A&Ring the record and producing several of its standout tracks. Dark0 describes his FACT mix as “a piece that tried to illustrate my mind; the way it constantly recreates the songs that stick, my inner monologue and thoughts. All these things that pass through my head. I thought it would be fun to present this like an internal radio station.” So don’t expect one BPM or seamless blends – this is a mix that’s happy to switch from one style to another with no warning, whether that’s a run of high-drama Dark0 productions, film samples, new material from associates like Mssingno, Evian Christ, K9 and Kamixlo, or a Filter Dread remix of ‘House Every Weekend’. It climaxes with a Dark0 remix of Justin Bieber’s ‘What Do You Mean’, and let’s face it, if you’re not down with that then it’s not your time to glo.

Comprised of Jim Baker and Phil Aslett (though the project is currently Baker solo, and has been since the end of the 1990s), Source Direct changed the face of drum and bass from a bedroom in St Albans. Releasing the majority of their records between ’94 and ’98, they – along with artists like Photek and Goldie – spearheaded a minimal, tense drum and bass sound that would shape the genre for generations to come, with a dystopian kink that has been influential throughout dance music. Although there are comparisons to be made with classic Detroit techno, LTJ Bukem (in the group’s early days) and their peers at the Metalheadz and Razors Edge labels, when Source Direct got going they didn’t sound like anyone else on the planet (ask contemporary producers Logos and Felix K, who outlined the group’s importance in a piece for FACT.) Even at Source Direct’s peak, DJ sets were a rarity, but Baker has been persuaded to perform several times in recent years, and will support Squarepusher in London this Saturday October 24; the show also features 808 State and the first ever live show from Squarepusher’s Shobaleader One band, presented by Soundcrash. Speaking to FACT, Squarepusher says “I always liked the mighty solidity of Source Direct’s productions! I can’t wait to hear his DJ sets this Saturday – dark machines! I’ve really tried to pull a storming line up together for the Troxy this Saturday and I’m particularly excited to present Shobaleader One. They’re amazing musicians; for me it’s fascinating to see how they interpret this selection of my early tunes.” Also watch out for a series of Source Direct reissues on Boddika’s Nonplus label (Boddika and Jon Convex released their first Instra:mental singles through Source Direct’s Demonic), and check for Squarepusher and Shobaleader One at Brighton’s Concorde 2 on October 23, and another Source Direct appearance at Clock Strikes 13’s Houndstooth showcase.

With his early releases on Samurai and Exit, it was once easiest to tie New Zealand’s Fis to drum and bass – albeit drum and bass at its absolute weirdest. Although its lines were distorted and chewed up by the time tracks were committed to record, there was at least some semblance of a 160bpm grid still present. On his recent releases, however, it feels like that grid was never there in the first place: the freeform experiments of this summer’s debut album The Blue Quicksand Is Going Now have more in common with Oneohtrix Point Never or The Sprawl, building layers of weirdness to ecstatic climaxes. Fis’s FACT mix is, well, pretty fucked up. There’s haunting woodwind, cascades of screeching synths, steelworks collapsing and moments of beautiful calm. At one point, everything falls away but a typewriter, only for its keys to be engulfed by voices as angelic as they are satanic. Listen alone, in the dark.

Based in New York, Aurora Halal is a DJ, visual artist, musician and promoter. Since 2010 she’s been running Mutual Dreaming, a series of Brooklyn parties that last year transformed into a record label focused on Halal’s own music, and she’s also part of the team behind Sustain-Release, a weekend festival that celebrated its second edition this September. She’s also a renowned videographer and visual artist: she’s directed documentaries about modular synth godfather Morton Subotnick, Ceephax Acid Crew and more, music videos, and provided visuals for regular collaborator Ital. After a pair of albums as half of Innergaze (Halal’s project with Jason ‘Confused House’ Letkiewicz), Halal started releasing music under her full name in 2014, collaborating with Ital on single ‘The Day After’ and releasing two EPs of hypnotic acid and electro through Mutual Dreaming. titled Passageway and Shapeshifter. Halal’s FACT mix is a recording of a live set from Berlin that echoes her recent solo EPs: everything feels like it takes place deep in fog, the basslines catchy but never quite in focus. Towards the end, the mix starts to distort, and although that’s due to a recorder problem rather than intentional, it suits the vibe perfectly. Halal describes the recording as “the peak of my current live set … It’s played on Octatrack and synths, no computer. No edits.” Catch Aurora Halal on tour throughout October, including Krakow’s Unsound Festival this week.