Rare Charm 017 & 018
🪰🏚️🌫️ Joker Mode & After After Hours with Special Guest Vida Beyer ☁️ ⏰
Hello! Catching up on past broadcast tracklists…again! 😓 Been wondering what that one song was on that past show? Why didn’t you just Shazam it? Well, in any case, I’ve got ya covered. This week we’re looking back at April’s Joker Mode broadcast and May’s special two-hour After After Hours show with a guest mix on hour one by my long-time e-pal, whom I’ve known since the Tumblr years (as early as 2009, if memory serves!), the *John Travolta voice* WiCKedLY talented, one and only, Vida Beyer. <3
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April 26, 2023 - Joker Mode
In April, I made like The Creation of Adam by reaching across the way to my omnipresent teen self to go ~my particular flavor~ of Joker mode, which manifested as a brooding hour doused in cavernous reverb and strung along by fuzzy, downtuned guitars, atmospheric downbeats, and melancholic vocals. Gregg Araki soundtrack vibes, kinda.
Now that the temperature is dropping in San Diego, this one is looking like a good one to curl up in again. When I put this together it was in stark contrast to my cheerful spring surroundings. The superbloom was in full effect, with bright yellow flowers sprouting up along the sides of the highways, but I was in a, uh, superdoom state of mind, or something.
In retrospect, it’s clear to me that this whole mix is built upon the foundational soundtrack to my teenage NINcel years. And, hey, surpreez surpreez, “Closer (Deviation)”, a NIN remix by Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto is included in the brooding stew. Dangers’ takes the familiar tune and dips it in his distinctively ominous and layered production style, replete with groovy, clattering percussion, textural sweeps, and dark, driving synthlines.
A sense of foreboding and introspection permeate the hour. The commencing industrial auguries of Baths’ “Earth Death” and the discordant percussion in Lakuna’s “The Veil” are balanced by moments of somber sensuality, with tracks like Crustation’s “Close My Eyes”, Heather Duby’s “You Loved Me”, and Hysterical Love Project’s “Sever/Strike”.
The mix concludes with one of my frequently played closers, “Choice” by Outcast (not to be confused with OutKast), which was a trip hop project by producers Beaumont Hannant and Richard Brown. This track, and a few others on Out of Tune, the only full-length release the duo put out, features vocals from Kirsty Yates of Insides, one of my all-time favorite duos. I admire the complexity of emotion conveyed through Yates’ hushed vocals. Set against the sounds of strong, shifting wind patterns and complemented by incisive lyrics, her voice wields a subtle but potent seductiveness, even as it communicates a sense of vulnerability and uncertainty. It’s a really powerful track.
Throw this one on the next time it rains or if you need a little sulk. 🐌
May 31, 2023 - After After Hours with Special Guest Vida Beyer
Vida Beyer is an interdisciplinary artist who excels at expressing complex, intimate feelings and experiences through an idiosyncratic visual language of pop culture signs and symbols. Their work, which takes shape across mood boards, essays, phone notes, playlists, embroidery, painting and so many other forms, possesses a commanding vitality that makes for a joyful experience to behold. The work they’ve created and shared over the years makes me feel like I’ve been granted a noble privilege to enter a private world full of secrets and special messages for my heart to decode. I am chuffed we were able to collaborate on this show, even if through a distance as a sort of call and response project.
Vida provided May’s ‘After After Hours’ theme and created the beautiful art for the show. “The songs I was arranging were songs that felt small and intimate and like they were being sung to you close, late at night or early in the morning,” they wrote to me over email. “A lot of them are confessional or explore a sort of longing/fantasy space that exists when a person is not totally waking or sleeping.”
When I listened to Vida’s mix and was thinking about how I wanted to approach my own to complement theirs and the overall theme, I considered it a rest stop of sorts. It was a welcome break along my sustained journey to plumb the depths of electronica. So, on the second hour, I strung together a handful of not-strictly electronic songs that have, over the years, been there to help soothe my soul, or otherwise accent the sleepy, red-eyed experience of being the only person awake during the small hours of the night.
Another blend suitable for this autumn. Big thank you to Vida for all their patience and thoughtfulness that went into this show. It means a lot!
Enjoy the music. ♩
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Another lovely charm