can't count how many times I've listened to this mix.. thx for putting it together, it's so brillant 🧡

@ccl-url blasted us all into space in their closing set atThe Grove on Saturday night.

Campout Mix Series: CCL

Purelink have been described more than once as an "ambient boy band." (They themselves say "jam band.") It's not meant dismissively—the American trio purposefully mean to function as a band, even if their main instruments are laptops. Ambient might not quite cut it as a descriptor, though. The group's music crosses eras and scenes, touching on the late '90s clicks & cuts boom as well as the billowy ambient techno put out by labels like 3XL, West Mineral Ltd. and NAFF. 

Their most recent LP, Signs, released on enigmatic imprint Peak Oil (and one of our favourite albums of 2023), is especially impressive, made of stuttering rhythms and glassy textures. In other words, it's ambient-not-ambient. While members Concave Reflection, kindtree and Millia have all made excellent music on their own, something special happens when they come together.

Purelink's RA Podcast is another stellar contribution to our post-New Year's tradition, where we highlight a more laid-back sound to soothe weary minds and frazzled brain cells after the heavy holiday celebrations. This is 90-plus minutes of intricately textured downtempo, dub techno and even UK garage, all cut through with a floaty, almost drowsy quality, with plenty of exclusives and unreleased cuts from the likes of Nick León, James K, Downstairs J and more. It highlights Purelink's position as a bridger of worlds, sounds and tempos.

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/917

RA podcast

RA.917 Purelink

Rinse FM Podcast

Ciel: Susumu Yokota Special - 12 January 2024

Available on Audio Cassette and digital download directly from the label’s Bandcamp: https://cclurl.bandcamp.com/album/a-night-in-the-skull-discotheque

Side A: Bass is Eternal
Side B: 2-step Mutual Dream

A Night in the Skull Discotheque by the beloved underground selector CCL is the latest offering in the T4T LUV NRG label’s highly limited DJ mix series of cassettes. This immersive journey through a wonderland of proto-dubstep sounds from the late 1970s through the year 2000 is a sonic sibling to CCL’s acclaimed 2018 mix Ode to Queer Steppas.

Inspired in part by Eris Drew’s use of “old records to create new styles out of fragments” on her Raving Disco Breaks Vol. 1 mixtape (T4T LUV NRG, 2019), CCL approached this recording with a parallel frame of mind. Created with 3 CDJs, one Turntable, and a Boss Digital Delay 200, the tracks included in the mix are deconstructed from their whole, and constituent parts are intertwined, sampled, and dubbed out while being further stretched beyond their physical limits. CCL mixed many tracks at the 'wrong speed', pitched beyond their original recognizable tone; others are recontextualized through imaginative layering.

With a solid nod to seminal mixtapes of the early 90s, CCL references the namesake for Side A, Bass Is Eternal, an unreleased 1992 mixtape by influential Bristolian producers Smith & Mighty, an important sonic fulcrum amongst the musical tributaries of the hardcore continuum that continues to reverberate to this day. CCL experienced the after-effects of this ‘proto’ sound genesis in 2008, while living in Bristol, by which point its emergent whispers had coalesced into what became known as dubstep. Tracing a rich history of reference through the samples, basslines, moods, and drum patterns emanating from Bass Is Eternal while looking for connections that predate it became a long-term fascination for CCL. The result is a DJ mix that connects the oft-forgotten dots between proto eras and modern developments in bass and dubstep.

For the resulting sonic ride on A Night in the Skull Discotheque, CCL leads us to a fantastical place of timeless surreality – a majestic haunted dancehall soundtracked by a giddy rush of steppers and dubbed-out delights. Subs rattle through syncopated percs, and moody synths glisten in macabre glory. Fantastical dancers wriggle in wispy eternity, liberated from their corporeal forms in all their greatest spiritual wonder. Both extravagant and dusky, A Night in the Skull Discotheque is a world of seductive in-betweens, a place caught between the moodiest depths and the highest exuberance – A love letter to one of the most impactful formative sounds of the last decades.


***************************************************************************************
A portion for the proceeds from this release will go to fundraiser "SUPPORT PALESTINIAN SOLIDARITY IN EUROPE!". You can also directly donate via:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-palestinian-solidarity-in-europe
***************************************************************************************

Tape design: Nina Muro
Mastering: TJ Hertz
Additional tape mastering: Eris Drew
Photography: CCL 
Linear notes: Nevan Jio

A Night in the Skull Discotheque [T4T015]

CCL - A Night in the Skull Discotheque

This is a re-recording of my SR set. Unfortunately, the audio recording had stopped due to a power cut earlier in the evening.

Thanks for having me Sustain Release! I'll never forget this <3

DJ Plead - Sustain Release, Year 9

✨ 𝓈𝑜𝓊𝓃𝒹𝓈 𝑜𝒻 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝓁𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓋𝑜𝓁. 𝟧  ✨

I started listening to ambient music properly during lockdown as a way of trying to heal from heartbreak as well as a coping mechanism to deal with what was going on around the world. I was pulling together playlists of tracks that made my heart sing or weep, to soundtrack my daily walks around the canals of berlin or the quiet residential area where i grew up and ended up moving back to. These playlists were the start of the sounds of healing series and my journey of digging deeper into ambient soundscapes via my refuge worldwide residency. It’s a genre that I probably would say I have the biggest emotional connection to right now, in the way that it has helped me through some really difficult times in the last four years. So it was an honour to bring this to the club space for the first time for playbody 002, a party run by some of my wonderful  friends. Sounds of healing vol. 5 is a glimpse of what I played during that after hours set, in what became one of the most beautiful settings with the lights dimmed, a candlelight by the decks, people curled up with each other on various platforms, kissing, or deep in conversation. It was touching to witness people have the same emotional reaction to the music as me; people coming up and saying how a track or artist had saved their life or that they just wanted to have this personal moment with the music, away from the conversation. It was deeply vulnerable to play some of these tracks to a group of people, some being strangers but it very much aligns with the journey I’ve been on recently. And with this mix, I’m not only sharing that moment with you but I’m bottling up this feeling and keeping it close to me forever. 

taylor e burch - you gotta start somewhere 
jonny from space - slip 
pugilist - alignment 
hysterical love project - i hope i see some of my haters out tonight 
command d & gi - bleary
purelink - stadium drive 
jonny from space - hearing colors
astrid sonne - say you love me 
erika de casier - the flow 
hyperdawn - maybe 
pontiac streator - time flies (shena’s loop edit) 
nala sinephro - space 1
kelela - far away 
davis galvin - loved 
anthony naples - orb two 
the durutti column - requiem again 
ml buch - high speed calm air tonight 
ot to, not to - new york city 
laila sakini - that wave, that line 
command d & gi - align 
spooky - the river (ambient) 
donato dozzy - vaporware 07 
secede - foliage pathway 
julianna barwick - pyrrhic 
takashi kokubo, andrea esperti - gaia’s love theme 
foam and sand/robot koch/delhia de france - circle 27 
coral morphologic - endless love 
nick león - dolphin 
soria - mary madrugada
julianna barwick - labyrinthine 
rosalía - sakura 
jake muir - tonic 
special guest dj - panoramic deep love story 
mu tate - me when u 
mazzy star - fade into you

sounds of healing vol. 5

9th June 2023, the incredible @kiernanlaveaux live at Mansions, NYC. A 2 hour snippet of a 6 hour set. <3

Artwork by her partner Malzof with a photo from this Mansions set

"The shape design is from Wind Chorus by Pauline Oliveros - which I also have the design of on some custom slipmats that are also visible in the photo ;)"

<3

ani/live Forty: Kiernan Laveaux @ Mansions

https://www.instagram.com/ronlikehell
https://www.instagram.com/ccl_url

The Space Between Spaces with Ron Like Hell and CCL @ The Lot Radio 03-19-2024

Recorded for @Refugeworldwide. Inspired by how water interacts with solid structures. 

Image by CCL

𝙡𝙞𝙦𝙪𝙞𝙙𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚 w CCL #11 Rock Pools @refugeworldwide

Juanita's Mix 100 with Ciel @ciel_dj

Q. How would you describe yourself?
A. a music maker with too much sincerity and a passion for sampling, film, and leftist politics

Q. What drew you to the music scene in the beginning and where do you hope to see it in the future?
A. Looking back at my life, I think everything from my birth led me on this path towards music. It was my first love. But as an only child, my experience with music growing up was always very solitary. I yearned to be part of a community radio station with Iikeminded music nerds, and it was working for a radio station eventually during my undergraduate that brought me toward DJing and rave culture. Back then I never thought I could do this full time, but once I got the chance to make a living doing this, I realized the scene was far from perfect, in fact it's very exploitative. I hope in the future we can find a way to fairly compensate music makers for the incredible gift of music they bestow upon the world, without becoming beholden to corrupt corporate & military interests. Artists can be hyper individualistic and self-interested, and I hope we can get better at looking out for each other instead of just our own paycheques.

Q. Tell us a little bit about this mix.
A. I wanted to present a different side of myself to international audiences on such a wonderful mix platform. Perhaps people outside of my home city of Toronto are less familiar with my downtempo sets, but it's been a significant part of my wheelhouse for years, and have gained even wider affection from me since I started doing a downtempo party in Toronto last year. Like I always say, 80-100bpm is the most natural tempo for extended human body movements. I also liked the idea of doing a mix that doesn't build in a predictable way, instead it waxes and wanes like the natural rhythm of life. So many of my favourite mixes build and release tension in a way that's very satisfying to listen to, the sounds intensify to a frenzy before disintegrating into nothingness. I wanted to play with that rise and fall and mix downtempo and dub with double time d&b in a non-linear way that is evocative of our most precious memories and tells stories we've only seen in dreams. Downtempo and dub also seemed like the perfect genres to play in the 100th mix for Juanita's, and in the lead up to my fav April holiday. :) I hope the listeners enjoy it.

Juanita's Mix 100: Ciel

In very loose terms, James K's (@jamesk_1) music operates at the fringes of the pop world. It is experimental and industrial, packed with hooks and riddled with dreamy textures that show off her mastery of synths. She has released it in album form with Dial and Incenso, dropped EPs on AD 93 and collaborated with the likes of Drew McDowall and Stefan Maie, and always manages to imbue her adventurous arrangements with real-world emotions and anxieties. This year she will join us at Dekmantel Festival but not before serving up this week's podcast.

It's the sort of rhythmically thrilling workout that has always stood James apart: jittery drum patterns and kinetic grooves that unfold at 100 miles an hour as a barrage of caustic motifs, hypnagogic melodies and hyper-real colours all bounce about the mix. There is an ever-present sense of tension in the way things are assembled - it's as if they might implode or explode at any minute, and it all sounds fantastically futuristic.

Dekmantel Podcast 460 - James K

@subglow / liquidtime. 
CCL(they/them) liquefaction of rhythmic and melodic matter—combustive phase transitions through wiggle-steppers, thrash-no, groove-core, cowgirl-breaks, trip funk, shoe-gays, drum & face.

liquidtime / subglow 
EU/Worldwide: booking@t4tluvnrg.com
North America: michelle@thebunkerny.com
💌: ccl.url.music@gmail.com

𝙡𝙞𝙦𝙪𝙞𝙙𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚 w CCL #11 Rock Pools @refugeworldwide

CCL

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