abstractradio session forty nine

A BRIEF WORD FROM THE MANAGEMENT..

For the sake of clarity, here's a brief breakdown of the AbRad Session process:
As we hear tunes, we file them away for upcoming sessions [if they're deemed worthy, of course].
While some tunes are brand-spanking new, others we've heard countless times before, but they've recently managed to catch our ear once again.
To avoid undue complication, there's loads of different boxes, covering a host of different genres... "House", "Funk", "Nosebleed", "Chill", "Weird shit" etc etc.
Everything usually has its place [though there's a fair amount of cross-over].

One such box is simply called: "Well, that's really rather good."
From a huge range of musical genres, from almost any era, this little box gets all the "good stuff", and just the "good stuff".
You can't miss it - it's fluorescent day-glo pink, and sits pride of place in the studio, lodged between the marble bust of Tony Humphries and the gold-plated Roland TR-808.
As we're quite discerning, it takes a fair while to fill this particular box with enough tracks to build a mix - at least couple of years, often longer.
Once "full", we hand it over to our plucky elves, and they scuttle off with it down into the vaults beneath AbRad Towers, set with the tricky task of turning a ragamuffin selection of disparate tunes into a viable, transcendent musical "journey".
They must use all the tunes in the box.
They must not use any other tunes! [this makes things tricky, but from Session One these have been the AbRad rules.]

Clearly, these are not "live" mixes.
[NB: AbstractRadio has yet to post a "live" mix online... if you would like to hear us live ... well, that's an entirely different matter altogether - get in touch?]
In a "live" environment, DJs should invariably be playing from a large selection of tunes, allowing them to constantly adapt to the needs and mood of the crowd [well, that's part of what we hope to do], whereas for these AbRad sessions our dedicated elves are not granted such flexibility, and must laboriously piece together a composite whole that is intended to be greater than its pre-defined and consequently somewhat restrictive parts.

So, in actuality, these sessions are the diametric opposite of "live" mixes - they are highly contrived studio mixes, where there is a very stringent and often annoyingly incongruous playlist.

We've been led to believe that this is actually no easy feat to accomplish - the elves whinge that tracks "don't fit", and often need remixing, which takes time, effort and inspiration, and sometimes, when a mix is "nearly done", they then feel an overwhelming compulsion to start again from scratch, as [they insist] one track "still isn't quite working".
Sadly, they have only a limited understanding of the concept of "deadlines".
And yes, it can be most frustrating.

But, you know, it's worth it...

Love and hummingbirds,

x

The AbRad team

ps - many thanks to the fabulous @lathamjane for Blue Sky

File under: soul, disco, funk, jazz, hip-hop, dub, blues, latin, lounge, breakbeat, house, rap, trip-hop, chill, ambient techno, gospel, wtf

Tracklist

1	nel cimitero di tucson by gianfranco & gian piero reverberi
2	'cause I love you by lenny williams
3	red light spells danger by billy ocean
4	never be another you by lee fields
5	I thought I knew you well by tony joe white
6	guarda che luna by fred buscaglione
7	I want to know by adriano celentano
8	hammerhead by simon haseley
9	feel like jumping by marcia griffiths
10	float on by derrick harriot
11	thinking of you by lord echo
12	talking bout my baby by fatboy slim
13	7654321 by gary toms empire
14	atlantic oscillations by quantic
15	pocket piano by kink
16	elgin towers by smoove & turrell
17	diamonds on the soles of her shoes by paul simon
18	ooh cabros by david boogie
19	what a difference a day makes by dinah washington
20	when the ship goes down by cypress hill
21	the same love that made me laugh by bill withers
22	rise by richard earnshaw
23	hope she'll be happier by bill withers
24	svef-n-genglar by agaetis byrjun
25	I shall be released by nina simone
26	today won't come again by donal leace
27	home again by michale kiwanuka
28	blue sky by fluke
29	runaway by kanye west
30	the only difference by beatchild & the slakadeliqs
31	why can't we live together by timmy thomas
32	isn't it a pity by george harrison
33	once by anna leone
34	blue horizon by sidney bechet & his new orleans feetwarmers
35	brother by jorge ben
36	danny boy by mahalia jackson