Séance Centre Radio on NTS

This episode's guest mix by Tobi Giese aka Real People Music is pitch perfect for the end of summer and the onset of autumn, a worn-in homemade sweater. Tobi is an illustrator and record collector based in Hannover, Germany interested in private pressed and homemade records made on the margins. For this mix he gathered a collection of songs which he says raise questions about love and life.

Séance Centre Radio Episode 53 NTS w/ Real People Music NO BANTER

This month's mix from Mirjam Wirz is a journey around Mexico, following traces of cumbia and sound system culture. Mirjam, a Swiss photographer, artist and researcher living in Colombia has devoted the past few years to exploring and documenting this vibrant sound and its social spaces. Mirjam made this mix to accompany her book Ojos Suaves (Soft Eyes) that follows José Ortega/Morelos, who started in the 1970s together with his brother to travel around South America to find cumbia records and bring them back to Mexico. The mix collects the songs that were mentioned by the sonideros in the book Ojos Suaves (Soft Eyes) – a collaboration of Mirjam Wirz, Morelos and Carlos Icaza.

The mix follows a rhythmic path from Puebla to Mexico City, to Leon and ending in Monterrey, a city renowned for its slow cumbia style.

Tracklisting:

Grupo Ginssu - La Cumbia Ginssu
Los Daddy’s De Chinanatla
Grupo Sonador - El Paso Del Gigante
Ricardo Suntaxi - El Baile De San Juan
Eduardo Zurita - Toquecitos
Alfredo Gutierrez - Sampuesana
Luis Ornelas - Riete Mujer
Pedro Laza - Rito Esclavo
Pedro Laza - La Compactible
Ray Camacho - Pecadora / Cumbia Del Rey
Climaco Sarmiento - La Gaita Marciana
Sonora Cordobesa - La Buchaca
Alma Tuneca - Cumbia Callejera
Julian Bert - A Caballo
Los Bukaros - Tumba La Mata
Chico Cervantes - Tienes Que Quererme
Los Diplomaticos - Sangre India
Version Original De Morelos - Cumbia Sobre El Rio

Puebla - Mexico City - Leon - Monterrey

Séance Centre Radio Episode 54 NTS w/ Mirjam Wirz NO BANTER

For this month's episode we present the Politics of Vibration. Writer, journalist and academic Marcus Boon recently published an astonishing book, which has been a huge inspiration for me, The Politics of Vibration: Music as Cosmopolitical Practice. The book investigates the cosmological, social and ethical implications of sound as vibratory praxis and covers a wide range of artists including Pandit Pran Nath, CC Hennix, DJ Screw, Henry Flynt, La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela, Prince, Miles Davis, and a Tribe Called Red among others. For this episode Marcus put together a mix of vibrations discussed in the book, an entrancing world of durational sound. Very special thanks to Marcus for putting this mix together.

Séance Centre Radio Episode 55 NTS w/ Marcus Boon NO BANTER

Saying It With Music: a gathering of electronic soul ballads and antidotes. After finishing Dan Charna’s fascinating Dilla Time and overcoming an obsession with Montreal producer Nicolas Craven’s astonishing sample based work for Mach-Hommy (along with an enduring love of Pink Siifu, MIKE, Billy Woods & Slauson Malone), I visited my soul 45 box and selected some favourites that I think contain harbingers of their work.

Image: David Hammons, The Wine Leading the Wine, c.1969, body print.

Séance Centre Radio Episode 56 - Saying It With Music: Electronic Soul Ballads & Antidotes (Vol 1)

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about the spiritual end of the jazz spectrum and what collectivized forms of knowledge it contains. After playing a lot of these records at our local hifi bar, Little Jerry, I thought I’d put together a mix of some favourites from across decades and continents -- sounds from the UK, Finland, Sweden, and of course the US. From the early ‘70s right up to last year.

Image: Douglas R. Ewart's Eric Dolphy Sonic Dread, 2017

Séance Centre Radio Episode 57 - Notes on the Spiritual Jazz Continuum

On this episode we’re heading to a musical epicentre, Detroit, Michigan — home of an inimitable musical legacy: Motown, The Belleville Three, Underground Resistance, J-Dilla, Sound Signature… just to scratch the surface. Our guide to the city and environs is Sam Hooker who has complied a mix of songs that capture the feeling at the end of a long Michigan winter, as the ice thaws, simultaneously melancholic and cautiously optimistic. The feeling of a city in the process of rebuilding itself. Sam runs the label Two Rooms which just reissued Fred Scott’s very scarce introspective 45, Journey Within, which we’ll hear on this episode. Sam spends a lot of time in People’s Records, a legendary downtown record shop, run by Brad Hales — presumably a lot of the music we’re hearing today came through there — electronic gospel, mournful soul ballads, downer folk, UFO psych — weird and wonderful private 45s.

@tarpit-michigan

Séance Centre Radio Episode 58 - Detroit Winter Special w/ Sam Hooker (Two Rooms)

In 1967 Lloyd Barnes moved from Jamaica to New York. He worked in construction saving enough money to follow his dream and founded Wackies in 1976, one of the earliest reggae focused studios and record shops in the US. Over the years many luminous voices have passed through his magical mixing board: Horace Andy, The Heptones, Johnny Osbourne, Sugar Minott and the Love Joys, just to name a few. The Wackies catalog is vast, spanning many boroughs of the dub and reggae disapora, even touching on disco and hip hop. As a producer Lloyd Barnes is known for his hazy bass-heavy productions and wicked dubs. 

Our guide to the Wackies universe is Rob Buschgans who, through his Digikiller label, has been working with Barnes, reissuing treasures from his vast archive, including previously unreleased cuts, dub-plates and versions. For this mix Rob has focused on roots and dub cuts, and his selections are untouchable, revealing just how deep inside a song Barnes can get. Digikiller has been unearthing archives since 2009, the catalog is truly astounding, as essential as it gets. Big thanks to Rob for putting this mix together for us.

@dkr-nyc

Séance Centre Radio Episode 59 NTS - Wackies Dubs & Roots w/ RB DKR

I’ve been meaning to make another volume of Geography of the Mind, a mix series dedicated to Canadian private press records for a while and I finally had the time to put one together. This time I’ve focused on rock in its many iterations: Francophone prog, barroom jam bands, home town psychedelia, coastal pop, 4-track shoegaze and suburban new wave. These songs span decades and coastlines but converge with a shared sense of independence and emotional resonance.

Séance Centre Radio Episode 61 - Geography of the Mind (Vol 2): Private Press from Canada

On this show we present a sonic journey from the London based, Dorset raised duo In-Form. They run a YouTube channel and are part of Thirdspace, running quarterly parties in London. This mix is the second in a series called Desired Path and covers a lot of ground, but is circles iterations of introspective new wave and avant pop. Check out their excellent mixes and YT channel if you get a chance.

Séance Centre Radio Episode 62 - Desired Path w/ In-Form

On this episode we have guest mix by Tobi Giese aka Real People Music. Tobi made us a wonderful mix of private press outlier music last year and we're thrilled to have another selection from his unique collection, this time with a focus on US introspective and spiritual music, or as he calls it cosmic lounge. It’s a fantastic survey of underknown small run personal recordings from the margins of US culture.

Séance Centre Radio Episode 63 - Cosmic Lounge w/ Real People Music

For this episode of Séance Centre Radio we’ve put together another volume of Geography of the Mind, a mix series exploring Canadian private press records. This volume focusses on compilations released by colleges, radio stations, video collectives, and independent music studios. Most of the songs on this mix were recorded at Fanshawe College in London Ontario and released on the school’s annual Music Industry Arts compilations. Between 1979 and 1985 Fanshaw released nine compilations surveying songs recorded as part of their music program. The comps feature the talented faculty and students taking different roles and playing various instruments; switching from engineer to performer to songwriter, song to song. They also showcase emerging studio techniques and a range of musical styles that evolve over the decade, from introspective folk to affirmative new wave. Most of the artists only appear on these compilations, without any other known recordings -- a brief but remarkable musical flourishing.

Séance Centre Radio Episode 64 - Geography of the Mind (Vol 3): Privately Issued Comps From Canada

This episode features mix by Oregon-based collector Josh Lewellen. His collection focusses on unsung visionaries whose work veers into the uncanny & strange soundalikes. This mix delivers, gathering custom label obscurities & local iterations of national heroes. Josh has titled the mix The Last Shootin’ Match and describes it as "wasted singer-songwriter fare, twilight zone guitar scuzz, late night private rock, and a couple major players roaming the same lost highway -- it’s the music of faded loves and vanishing points."

Séance Centre Radio Episode 65 - The Last Shootin' Match w/ Josh Lewellwen

"For a long time I’ve wanted to do this episode; a show devoted to The Tower Recordings collective, responsible for some of my favourite albums from the 90s New Weird America scene. The group, primarily based in New York at the time, consisted of a rotating cast of members; Matt Valentine, PG Six, Helen Rush, Samara Lubelski, Tim Barnes, and Dean Roberts appear on most of their recordings. Self-proclaimed “children of microtones” the heady recordings make reference to Philip K Dick, Sun Ra, The Incredible String Band, Comus, Moondog, as well as an impressive list of subterranean private press folk and psych records. These are Harry Smith’s grandchildren. 

At times the recordings are home-recorded and charmingly shambolic, brethren of the Siltbreeze stable — at other times they have a loose-limbed and spectral sensibility, wide-screen psychedelia recorded to magnetic tape, urbane cousins of the Elephant Six Recordings constellation. The collective often practiced group levitation recording long improvised tapestries of bleary-eyed sound experiments, but on this mix, I focussed on the group’s gift for song & mood, pulling pieces from their extensive discography of records, singles, CDs and CDrs, as well as from post-Tower solo recordings from core members. The collective has always sounded autumnal to me, and this mix is resonating nicely with the cooler weather out here. Enjoy the sounds of the Tower Recordings" -- Brandon Hocura

Séance Centre Radio Episode 66 - The Tower Recordings Special

London-based collector and photographer Alex Yiaxis known as Fantasty in Orbit has put together a mix which celebrates radiant diversity, what Martinician theorist Edouard Glissant calls a “poetics of relation.” The mix dissolves  boundaries, moving across time, space, and place, assembling a meaningful missive for peace.

@fantasyinorbit

Séance Centre Radio Episode 67 w/ Fantasy in Orbit

For a long time I’ve wanted to do an episode devoted to the sound works of Kai Althoff. Despite his notoriety as a visual artist, his auditory world remains largely unexplored. He has been working in sound for decades, first releasing albums as part of the post-kosmische group Workshop, and subsequently under many nom-de-plume: Fanal, Ingrid Herm, Orla, and Engelhardt / Seef / Davis, to name a few. From reading an excellent interview with Kai and David Grubbs I Iearned that he always listens to music while painting and that he prefers recording to cassette tape. I reached out and proposed that he record an atelier mix to cassette for us and send it in the mail. He enthusiastically agreed and several weeks later a package arrived, lavishly inscribed, with a cassette wrapped in vintage fabrics along with a touching, hand-written note. It was even scented, subtly, with perfume. This music is assembled with just as much care, an itinerant collage which travels between outlying influences woven together with an ear for restraint, texture, and the ardent craft of song. I hope you enjoy the journey Kai has mapped out for us.

Séance Centre Radio Episode 68 w/ Kai Althoff

To kick off the new year we have a special mix from Swedish record collector Oscar Richt. He’s been collecting for over three decades and has helped compile obscurities on Guerssen & Busy Bee Records. For this mix Oscar culled songs from school, youth centre, and local cultural organization compilations, an important facet of the Swedish grassroots music movement of the 70’s & 80’s. These tracks were released between 1979 and 1989, recorded by young amateur musicians ranging from 13 to 20 years of age. Its a constellation of nascent desires and pop-culture filtered through talented young minds.

Séance Centre Radio Episode 69 w/ Oscar Richt

Spring is barely on the horizon here in Ontario and we’ve been in a strange slushy stasis for the past few weeks. To help focus on warmer days my longtime friend Aaron Levin has put together a melter of a mix featuring 100% Canadian dance music from the past and present. Despite currently residing in Oakland, Aaron is no stranger to Canadian music and spent years at the helm of Weird Canada, a website, archive, and distributor passionately devoted to homegrown Cancon of all stripes. I’m thrilled to have Aaron on the show and his mix has helped shake off the winter doldrums.

Séance Centre Radio Episode 70 -  100% Candance w/ aaron levin

“Like Brazil, this mix, is not for the faint of heart. Expect radical rhythmic madness, febrile energy, non-linear samples, livewire electronics, crushing bass and an effusive celebration of the endless creativity that Brazil has to offer.” -- Justin La Rose

Ever since hearing the recent album by wunderkind DJ Ramon Sucesso released by Lugar Alto earlier this year I’ve been obsessed with the contemporary baile funk sounds coming out Brazil, some of the most exciting and avant-garde dance music I’ve heard in a long time. For today’s show, Justin La Rose has put together over an hour of wild baile cuts, a mix he’s calling Não é Para Amadores" “Not for amateurs,” a title deeply ingrained in Brazilian social life, conveying the intense and unapologetic nature of the culture. It’s a mix of raw an impertinent music from young producers and MCs pushing the boundaries of song and sound. Drawn to Brazilian music over two decades ago, Justin splits his time between Brazil and Canada, immersing himself in the culture. Look out for upcoming releases on Justin’s newly minted label, Nonshape Records, where he will be showcasing some of the rising talents of baile funk in Brazil.

Séance Centre Radio Episode 71 -- Baile Funk Special w/ Justin La Rose

Episode 72 is an archival dive into the audio works of Kyoto based multi-media collective Dumb Type. Founded in 1984 by Teiji Furuhashi the group’s work includes exhibitions, performances, video pieces, computer programs, print publications, and conceptual audio albums. Furuhashi, who passed in 1995, claimed the name represents “a society overstuffed with information but cognizant of nothing.” The group continues under the stewardship of longtime members Toru Yamanaka and Shiro Takatani. Over the years many artists have collaborated with the collective including Ryoji Ikeda and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Dumb Type’s work addresses a variety of socio-political themes including nationality, identity, communication, AIDS, civilization, media control, and explores the undefined borders of the information society for new visions of human / technological interaction. The pieces on this mix were selected from 4 decades of work including demo versions, interviews, performance soundtracks, archival sketches, and a few stunning solo pieces from Toru Yamanaka. 

Special thanks to my friend Michael Klausman for tipping me off about Yamanaka’s Bandcamp page where he’s being releasing incredible compilations surveying the group’s audio archive.

https://djlalatoruyamanaka.bandcamp.com/

Séance Centre Radio Episode 72 -- Dumb Type Special

This is the fourth volume in my Geography of the Mind Series, focusing on private-issued Canadian music. For this instalment I gathered a mixed bag, but tried to sustain a pensive, melancholic mood throughout. The mix weaves together psychedelic downer folk, emotive electronics, environmental ambient, tape collage, and dank & dubby new wave into a blue-hued tapestry for despondent dreamers.

Séance Centre Radio Episode 73 - Geography Of The Mind (Vol. 4)

Séance Centre is a label, publisher, and distributor conjuring timeless music from the past, present and future.

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