What started as an obsession with this song quickly spiraled into a remix. Jam this in your self-driving car while you paint watercolors in the backseat.  Hit me up for the download. In the meantime, go buy Angel Olsen's new record on Jagjaguwar, "My Woman", out on 9/2/16.

Angel Olsen - Intern (skinny controller edit)

I got to the end of the road with this one and had to send him off into the world without me. This is what April and May of 2016 in Austin Texas sounded like.

Artwork excerpted from a photograph by Alan Manewitz

purified (single)

purified

So like 15 years ago (~2002/3ish) I made a posting soulstrut.com, which at the time was the hip hop record nerd capital of the internet, asking if anyone needed any audio work done. I was graduating from Expression in Emeryville with an audio degree and needed some things for my portfolio/resume. Bay Area legend DJ Stef responded, who I knew from some of the Soulstrut club nights in SF. She mailed me a mixtape she had recorded (back then they were actual tapes) that she was trying to digitize (it was a much bigger pain in the ass back then). I was very stoked, both to hear what she had put together and to do something helpful with my newly-honed audio skills. I was getting ready to encode it and somehow, in the chaos of my household as a barely-functional 20-year-old with a newborn (now 14-year-old) living with my inlaws, lost it. Couldn't find it anywhere. I was mortified. I searched all over the house. For some reason, I never leveled with her about it. I think it was like a Schrodinger's Cat situation where if I didn't admit that I had lost it that it wasn't really lost. I kept my eyes peeled for years. It was a source of deep shame. Every time I moved, I expected it to turn up somewhere but it never would.

Recently (2017), I actually found the tape. It was in a random padded envelope that I didn't remember at all inside a box of my kids' old schoolwork. Inside were the cassette, liner notes with full tracklisting and a handwritten note: "Thanks Mike! - Stef". I assembled all the pieces needed and was planning to record the tape when I had some free time and send it off to her.

This week, Stef passed away suddenly. I never got to send it to her. I digitized it today and passed the cassette to Matt Sonzala who is leaving for the Bay tomorrow for Stef's wake. I was hesitant about putting this up on my account, since I don't want to take any credit for it, but after talking with Matt I believe this might help some folks who are missing her and hurting right now. This is a record of Stephanie Ornelas in her element, immersed in what she loved, creating something to share with people she loved. It's coming a little later than she maybe intended, but I'm entertaining the possibility that it's right on time for somebody.

Hip Hop 94 Mix

DJ Stef - Hip Hop '94 - Side B

DJ Stef - Hip Hop '94 - Side A

My take on the brilliant Angel Haze track New York cutting up Radiohead's The National Anthem.

Mike Manewitz

Popular tracks