9.
Alice Coltrane & Carlos Santana – Illuminations
I don’t know anything about the history of this. I have to admit to being not that up on the rest of what Alice Coltrane has done, I know bits and pieces. This one caught my ear because there’s one track on there that’s been quite heavily sampled, and I think I just recognised the sample from things I’d heard previously as a younger person. And I was like, hold on, this is way better than the things that sampled it.
The amount I’ve listened to it has been crazy. It’s just beautiful, texturally. I tend to listen to it a lot in my free time, because then it feels like a world apart from the club music I deal with, and sometimes you need a break. The more I get deep into making the stuff I’m making, the more I want to escape from it in my spare time, almost. It’s just something very different, not knowing a context for it, and actually not knowing a ton about why or how it was made is really nice to me. I have a bunch of records like that that I like to listen to. I’m still obsessed with Legowelt’s mix of Memphis rap. It’s so good. It’s been around for a few years but I’m just rinsing it all the time, and I’ve come back to it a lot recently, listening to it in my free time. It’s like I’m an outsider to it, so it’s nice, it’s relaxing.
Don’t get me wrong, I can totally vibe on the shit that I’ll play in the club, I can listen to it at home and relax and get into it. But it’s almost like you don’t need to. That’s how I know I got older! When I was younger I just used to bang the same music I went out to at home a lot. It’s nice not to feel I have to do that all the time.
