Five on Friday with Red Telephone

This week’s Five on Friday comes from Marie Avril, who developed her musical sensibility in the early 90s through the basement squat parties of Geneva and across Switzerland. Labels like Mental Groove, Playhouse, Kompakt and Codek were doing interesting things at the time, nudging her towards punk-funk, DIY disco and a bassier, more leftfield sound while techno held court across much of the Swiss scene.

The producers that shaped her most tell their own story: Arthur Russell, DJ Hell, Miss Kittin, Padded Cell, In Flagranti, Kalabrese, Justus Köhncke, Kreidler. A restless, genre-resistant bunch, which gives you a reasonable sense of where Marie’s head is at when she’s selecting.

The pull of the UK’s musical depth eventually led her to make the move in 2012, settling in Leeds. Her sets draw from house, nu disco, electronica, Italo, acid and 80s alternative pop, with the common thread being music that sits somewhere between quirky and sexy. Genre is largely beside the point.

Catch Marie…

28/02 HENCE (Brixton, LDN) Paisley Dark 5th Anniversary On Tour

28/03 McCuills (Glasgow) Support for Richard Sen

18/04 Bar 212 (Leeds) Acid Test with Ben Lewis

Jonny Sender – Hot Box (Codek Records)

I met Jonny over a decade ago when he moved to Geneva with his family. I knew he was a citizen of New York and I knew that he was a great dj. We crossed paths behind the decks several times and I got to learn heaps from him. Over the years I was lucky enough to hear some of his uncountable stories of the Garage, and David Mancuso and what not. Jonny literally always has a story about some nightclub and some track, and he calls people who, for me, are mythical clubbing deities, by their first name. He also is the most excellent story teller.

I don’t explain why, but it was only until late into this developing friendship that somebody else told me that he once was the bass player in KONK. It wasn’t even him who told me. And this blew my head off. I am personally an extremely underdeveloped producer (although working at it!), but when I hear music in my head, it is a mashup of KONK, A Certain Ratio and ESG with an icing of acid house. This track has all of it, including a great nightlife story behind it (I recommend you read the small prints at the bottom of the page on Bandcamp).

Nine Bar – Closing In Richard Sen Remix

Richard Sen once was half of Padded Cell, which I was slightly obsessed with in my formative djay years. I believe I own a copy of every single one of their vinyl releases. Therefore, I consider myself a bit of a Richard Sen nerd. But for some reason, this release escaped my notice when it first came out in 1999. Probably because it was a vinyl only release (which obviously was the norm back then) and we didn’t have the internet to disseminate music, I just didn’t snatch it in the record store. Richard has made it available digitally recently which is when I found out about it.

It has this quintessential punk-funk vibe that I am always digging for. It sounds like funk plunged in the dark, or ESG doing voodoo. You’ll literally feel possessed.

Das Druid – Less Than Three DJ Subaru remix

For me, DJ Subaru is the current rising star of the Leeds scene. She has a phenomenal energy in that she just does what she thinks sounds great and disregards all genres and trends and that’s the Subaru sound. Her sound is very distinctive: wonky, analogue, electro-clashy. She is the kind of producer who you can only hope will persist and keep releasing stuff because she really is growing a unique sound. She is also one of the pillars of a buzzing underground and experimental nightlife scene in Leeds.

This release, in my view, is her most accomplished. It is an absolute 3am dancefloor bomb, although it retains her DIY way of assembling tracks.

Billy Bogus & Daddario, Moxie – Drunk On Guard In Flagranti Remix (Codek)

In Flagranti and thei label CODEK, are in my musical DNA. Over the years, I collected most of their dancefloor releases. But more recently, through Jonny Sender who knew them from when they lived in New York, I started engaging more with all the crazy side-projects they’ve been involved in. One of them is the Smylonylon tapes that Alex Gloor (half of In Flagranti) produced for an eponym clothes shop that exclusively sold nylon clothes from the 70s. You can only imagine the vortex of random kitsch and sweat. The tapes are now available on Bandcamp too.

The original track by Billy Bogus & Daddario is a beautiful piece of nu, tribal disco. I just think that I Flagranti took it to the next level by stripping it down and rearranging it around the bit rather the bassline. In the right circumstances, it literally sends people through the roof.

Miles J Paralysis Still Waiting (Crying Outcast)

I briefly met Miles on the dancefloor of the Golden Lion in Todmorden, a little market town between Leeds and Manchester. A crowd had congregated to hear Optimo and it was a fab night. We were blessed to see them do their do together. I was driving and there was one other sober dancer who was Miles’ dad, Mark, and we had a good chat. They are based in Bradford and, together, they run a digital radio project called Love Will Save The Day FM.

So we did the obligatory social media befriending thing at the end of the night. Little did I know, that I was about to walk into one of the most original musical universes I walked in recently. Miles really has a sound of his and beyond categories, boxes and nametags. Incidentally, my friend Jonny (who I cite multiple times above!) sent me the link to this release and his comment was: ‘I don’t know what you have in the water in Yorkshire, but this track sounds like a cross between Liquid Liquid and Bauhaus’ Bella Lugosi’s dead.’ I genuinely look forward to hearing Miles’ future releases and see him establish his sound. 

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