Hear loads more unique mixes from the Black Impulse crew by visiting their blog here
The Quietus is happy to have been asked to contribute to the awesome Black Impulse project and their series of podcasts and mix tapes.
Black Impulse, a disparate collective of musicians, writers, DJs, photographers and the like, is guided by three American friends and fiends living in North London, Matt Ridout, Kevin Morpurgo and Heather Weil who take inspiration from hardcore group Black Flag and jazz label Impulse and believe that the two things are not mutually exclusive.
We were happy to use this opportunity to launch our new Departure Lounge idea with the following mixtape:
Speaking about the venture Matt Ridoutt of Black Impulse said: "The idea of a podcast mix series was hatched late at night, with the realisation that great musical discoveries are usually made when playing records for each other after the pubs are shut, in those hours when our friends flats and warehouses become the drinking dens of choice. That initial feeling of ‘what on earth is that?’ as someone plays a track you haven’t heard before being the motivation. We figured that we could expand this concept to a bigger scale via a podcast series, giving us an outlet to share and hear all sorts of music from different contributors."
"Basically we have two weekly podcasts, one delivered on a Wednesday, that is contributed by a person we have selected. They choose nine of their favourite songs, in any genre or mix of genres, a bit like a desert island discs playlist. The other weekly podcast is compiled by one of ourselves along a theme of our choosing, and uploaded every Sunday morning. We also do random uploads from ourselves or other contributors when the fancy takes us. So far the response has been great, in a little over a month and a half we have uploaded over 20 mixes and had over 2500 visits to the Black Impulse site. Over the next few months we have many great contributors and mixes lined up, a few coming from some surprising sources"
Explaining how the Quietus saw the idea for Departure Lounge, Luke Turner said: "I’ve long liked to muck around with the old adage “I like both types of music, country and western”, replacing those hoary old forms with “African” and “stern”. It’s a flippant statement, but one that sums up my belief that borders in the digital age mean nothing, and that the often questionable ideas of “world” music are now entirely redundant. My Quietus co-pilot John Doran and I are about to start a new series of events, DJ sets and mixes at the King Charles I, Kings Cross and the forthcoming Soundway warehouse party under the name Departure Lounge, aiming to celebrate the collapse of musical passport control. We’re celebrating the idea that was made incarnate at our recent Field Day Festival curation – that Omar Souleyman and Konono No.1 can not only sit happily alongside artists like Faust or Gruff Rhys, but even provoke a more vigorous crowd reaction. This mix is a introduction to those ideas."
And John Doran added: "Each to their own but I get fed up with the worthy way that so-called ‘world music’ is pigeon holed by well-meaning buffoons. Who knows, maybe in Mogadishu there are world music fans who like listening to English Madrigals and authentic Cornish coal mining ballads but I doubt it. As far as I’m concerned, the less authentic any music is the better I find it, which is why Departure Lounge is going to be about psych from Japan; funk from Hungary; disco from Zaire; hip hop from Angola; garage rock from Egypt and so on and so forth. I like to think that if cool kids in Lagos and Laos have dug it at some point over the last 40-years then there’s a good chance I will as well. Certainly my rule of thumb is the same for global music as it is for the avant garde – can you drink to it, dance to it and get frisky to it? If the answer’s yes, then half the battle has already been won. Some of the music we’re going to play isn’t even as foreign as it sounds… instead we’re happy to mix in a few of what Can might have called ethnological forgeries. The spirit that the music was made in is more important than the country it was recorded in. Do you remember the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, where Leonard Rossiter lands on the giant wheel-like international space station? He’s up there to sort that shit out with the giant monolith they found on the dark side of the moon, transmitting some terrible message to Jupiter. Well, I like to think that after he got the giant spaceship with the mad computer all sorted out, he got a few flirtinis down his neck and went to a zero gravity disco with a music policy not unlike Departure Lounge where the DJ was blazing some far out tunes. He probably made a fool of himself with some of those Space Hostesses with the amazing costumes who walk on the ceiling. But that, as they say, is another story."
There are loads of brilliant mixes based on various themes over at Black Impulse HQ…
