AbstractRadio session - july 2022

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, usually 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

[any feedback, as ever, very much appreciated]

select mixes by genre:

Funky

Jazzy

Lounge

Beats

Chill

Broad

Tracklist

Start	Artist	Track Title	Label
000:00	gianfranco & gian piero reverberi	nel cimitero di tucson	mocambo
002:16	lenny williams	'cause I love you	abc
008:51	billy ocean	red light spells danger	gto
012:07	lee fields	never be another you	big crown
016:37	tony joe white	I thought I knew you well	monument
020:40	fred buscaglione	guarda che luna	cetra
022:56	adriano celentano	I want to know	clan celentano
025:48	simon haseley	hammerhead	de wolfe
029:41	marcia griffiths	feel like jumping	trojan
033:32	derrick harriot	float on	charmers
038:18	lord echo	thinking of you	economy
045:19	fatboy slim	talking bout my baby	skint
049:33	gary toms empire	7-6-5-4-3-2-1	pip
054:32	quantic	atlantic oscillations	tru thoughts
060:08	kink	pocket piano	running back
067:07	smoove & turrell	elgin towers	jalapeno
071:29	paul simon	diamonds on the soles of her shoes	blanco
078:19	david boogie	ooh cabros	organized house
084:11	dinah washington	what a difference a day makes	mercury
086:36	cypress hill	when the ship goes down	columbia
088:20	bill withers	the same love that made me laugh	sussex
093:04	richard earnshaw	rise	groovefinder
098:42	bill withers	hope she'll be happier	sussex
102:45	agaetis byrjun	svefn-g-englar	fatcat
111:02	nina simone	I shall be released	legacy
114:33	donal leace	today won't come again	atlantic
117:55	michale kiwanuka	home again	london
121:28	fluke	blue sky	one little indian
125:15	kanye west	runaway	roc-a-fella
135:52	beatchild & the slakadeliqs	the only difference	big top
139:57	timmy thomas	why can't we live together	glades
144:38	george harrison	isn't it a pity	apple
147:36	anna leone	once	apple
150:39	sidney bechet	blue horizon	blue note
155:52	jorge ben	brother	philips
157:52	mahalia jackson	danny boy	cbs

-- Total running time – 2:41:07 --