Name: Untitled - August 2019 by JPknowz
Duration: 1 h 17 min 50 s
Description: a warming to a wonderful party w/ Francois X and SPFDJ in a dark church basement.

Over three hours of ambient and rolling rhythms from a master of minimal.

Since his early days as a resident at the legendary Montreal afterhours club Stereo, Maher Daniel has been a stalwart in the world of minimal-leaning house music. It was there that he learned and mastered the foundations of his style: deep melodies, rolling beats, extended mixes, all put together with a wash of psychedelia. 

Following a move to Barcelona, the Palestinian-Canadian DJ more firmly struck out on his own, appearing on Lee Burridge's world-conquering All Day I Dream label before starting his own, The Other Side, in 2016. The Other Side has become an important outpost for a kind of dance music that blends old-school microhouse sensibilities with the rolling basslines and three-dimensional sound design of Rominimal, notably through a series of collaborations with Ricardo Villalobos with the <a href=/reviews/24551><i>Changes</i></a> EP trilogy.

During the pandemic, Daniel also started dipping his toes into ambient music, which starts off this epic, three-hour-plus mix before it plunges into rolling rhythms. He takes the time to stretch out here, mixing plenty of his own work with tracks from Jesper Dahlbäck, Cristi Cons, Dexter and, of course, Ricardo Villalobos, ending with a stunning custom breakbeat edit of Global Communication's ambient techno epic "14:31."

RA podcast

RA.819 Maher Daniel

Patrice Rushen is the type of musician whose skill set can't be neatly summed up in a few sentences. After studying to become a classically trained pianist—work that began while she was barely a toddler—she arranged, performed and composed three albums of jazz fusion for Prestige records in the mid-'70s, all while landing sessions playing with the likes of Donald Byrd and Jean-Luc Ponty. She was already a highly respected arranger, writer and instrumentalist in her scene and one of the few women at the time to lead their own band and control the creative process. But it was her five album stint for Elektra Records that really brought her virtuosic musicianship, songwriting and her voice to disco and R&B. 

If you haven't heard her music yourself, you've almost definitely heard it sampled by the likes of Mary J. Blige, George Michael and the Men In Black theme song (calling it a sample is generous—the producers more or less added Will Smith's vocals to a modernised version of her 1982 composition "Forget Me Nots."). Apart from her career as a performing and recording artist, she's also a veteran music director, calling the shots for big budget tours, awards ceremonies and TV shows. She even composes symphonic pieces for orchestras and has a growing portfolio of film soundtracks.

Listen back to Zakia Sewell's 2019 conversation with the veteran artist to learn more about her multifaceted career.

EX.629 Patrice Rushen

Shanti Celeste is one of those artists whose personality matches her DJ style. Her fun-loving nature and breezy demeanour always light up a room, as do her vibrant sets that span sunny house music, slow-burning disco and emotive techno. Fresh off her Hessle Audio debut, the London-based artist sat down with RA's Martha Pazienti-Caidan for an honest chat about track selection, bad gigs and her approach to production.

During DJ sets, the Peach Discs co-founder doesn’t like to focus on genres. Instead, "I think about, like, building and releasing tension and making sure that I stay in a specific energy level," she explained. "Whereas before, I think I knew the energy I wanted to bring, but I didn't know how to do that cause I was just thinking about everything in terms of genre."

Reaching this holistic stage, however, took time. It was a process of acquiring knowledge and experience but also confidence, she described, adding how she previously had "really bad imposter syndrome." Learning to deal with bad gigs and recognising that certain factors might be outside an artist’s control are essential to self-realisation, she continued. Going on to discuss her experience of playing big festival stages, she noted the importance of "learning what side of yourself to channel" rather than compromise on music.

For more details on her experience playing with fellow women DJs, her lockdown romance and recording her vocals, listen to the chat in full.

EX.628 Shanti Celeste

Our 20th instalment of the series features a live recorded DJ mix from Montreal's Daura, captured at our last warehouse rave in Toronto on August 20th in collaboration with MUTEK.

@dau_ra

Hypnotic Mindcast 20 | Daura @ HM x MUTEK, Toronto [Aug '22]

The 28th episode of the podcast series welcomes New Yorker Max Sprauer, the man behind the emerging label Pearled Records. Featuring a super deep, housy mix that encapsulates his passion for the characteristic NY sound, while reminding us that summer is not over just yet :)

@https://soundcloud.com/max_sprauer

Hypnotic Mindcast 28 | Max Sprauer

TASCAM SD-20M

Maher Daniel Live at Sunwaves 31

@stegi-radio-athens | Thursday 18 January 2024 | 22.00 - 00.00 EET

This month's recording comes directly from the depths of the Lotus Fields sector, once designated as the testing ground for self-sustaining artificial forestation initiatives. The project was targeted during the colony-wide unrest and quickly fell apart when indigenous fungal colonies infiltrated the sector’s megadome through abandoned maintenance tunnels. Strangely, these extraterrestrial fungi manifested new properties upon exposure to the colony's artificial oxygenated atmosphere. Beyond enhancing forest growth, the bioluminescent mycelium released enigmatic pheromones with transcendental effects for the augmented mind. This transformed Lotus Fields into an exoplanetary playground, capturing the colonists within its misty wonders. The sector is currently thriving, as its experimental forests are now expanding deep underground, while its inhabitants explore newfound hive-mind capabilities and build more domes for the fungi to grow.
Music by Farhan - @farhan_music and Greta

//

Born in Toronto, Canada and now living in Berlin, Farhan gathers his inspiration through shared moments on the dance floor - as this is the place that unites us all. This inspiration can be found in his DJ sets as he likes to take dancers on a journey through the vast spectrum of electronic music and beyond. Though the focus is on techno, Farhan does not want to pigeon hole himself into any specific style or genre of music. As he likes to say: "Variety is the spice of life. A DJ is a vibe starter and at the end of the day it's all about the music, why limit yourself to one dish when you could have the entire buffet."

//

Originally commissioned by stegi.radio and produced by Onassis Stegi.

Gelatin Prime w. Farhan & Greta

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

The first hour of the BICA School X Groupwork Spring Equinox warehouse event.

BICA SCHOOL X GROUPWORK 03.16.24 Opening hour w/ No Drift | Peace Debt | Travis Poling

@rareshofficial live from The Earthling on Friday night at Houghton 2023.

Recorded at Houghton - Raresh (2023)

a warming to a wonderful party w/ Francois X and SPFDJ in a dark church basement.

Untitled - August 2019

Untitled, In Transit

Bookings : affltd.audio@gmail.com

Untitled - August 2019

JPknowz

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