Minimix 02: Dave Darcy

Tracklisting and Daves notes below:

Track 01

Liquid Liquid — Lock Groove (in)

I love how sparse this track is — it’s got a sense that something very big is about to happen right the way through. A quiet riot for an opener.

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A Certain Ratio — Flight

A Certain Ratio formed in 1977, another top drawer band from pre-Madchester Manchester. I’ve heard their first single, Shack Up, (link to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldfzypHivI4) pop up alot over the past year or so and it reminded me how great these guys are. This is their third release, Flight, from 1978. It’s kind of vacuous sounding, and the spooky lyrics make it their more sublime atmospheric recordings. A quiet riot for an opener,

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Track 03

Lizzy Mercier Descloux — Wawa

This is a bit like the soundtrack to a chase scene in a cartoon western. A track by a French lady released in 1979. It’s quite short but super-sweet. The playful guitar rift and non-sense lyrics make for something weird and wonderful, well I’m assuming they’re non-sense, it could just be my awful French.

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Track 04

Delta 5 — Mind Your Own Business

Delta 5 were a post-punk band from Leeds. This is their 1979 debut single. The whole song seems to hang on a really great bassline, seems simple enough, though maybe it’s not. Extra credit goes out to the weird overlaying of the lyrics, it’d be wrong to call it a harmony, but lovely stuff all the same.

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Track 05

The Au Pairs — You

The Au Pairs are one of my favorite bands, fullstop. The band has serious balls. This song is from ‘Playing with a different Sex’ and was the first track I picked for this mix. I was initially attempting to make an all girls mini-mix and if I ever revisit the idea it’ll be tough not to pepper it with Au Pairs’ tracks. A song about cops harassing hookers… that’s pretty punky stuff.

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Track 06

Magazine — Definitive Gaze

This is a seriously beautiful song — the way the final melodic synths grow out of all that noise and ironic sneery lyrics always amazes me… it’s such a striking contrast, it makes the sweeping, surging, almost optimistic synthesizer lines so much more impactful, I think this is what the future must have sounded like in 1978. It swings between absolute tension and perfect bliss… It’s a bit like going into outerspace with a faulty engine.

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Track 07

Glenn Branca — Lesson No.1

The only other idea I had starting this mix was to finish on something big. Not being a dj and so often hearing tales of the epic ‘last tune’ I sort of wanted to see what all the fuss was about! This song isn’t just big – it’s monumental… well, in my head anyway. It’s seems so simple, at least in terms of it’s constituent parts – but it builds and builds and builds and by the time the cymbal crashes arrive I’m almost always on my feet.

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