SE Minimix 20 Raj Chaudhuri

Raj Chaudhuri has been in music for a while now… He started buying vinyl with chump-change to working behind the counter at a record-store in Soho, London. He started from flyering outside clubs to DJing in the warm insides of them. He is the co-founder of London’s liveliest hip-hop party, ‘Livin’ Proof‘. He is one of the industrious fellows behind Bleep – the online-store and sister company of Warp Records. He has been a resident DJ on the Boiler Room streaming AV show. He DJs under the name of DJ Rags or under the faceless umbrella name of Bleep or Warp DJs. You can listen to more of his mixes on his Soundcloud, or on the Bleep Mixcloud. You can follow him on his Facebook page… please do, he needs more followers.

I’ve subtitled this mix ‘ Electronic Music for Paranoid Insomniacs ‘. I think you’ll understand when you listen to it.

Track 1
Nicolas Jaar – Don’t Break My Love
Nicolas Jaar is pretty hot stuff at the moment. A lot of people seem to like his stuff… I do too. More than his album though, I really loved thepodcast he made for XLR8R, and the free EP he gave away on XLR8R. This opening track is taken from that EP.

Track 2
Mike Slott – Snow Birds (Expansion)
Top notch guy. An Irish lad living in New York and doing his thing… You probably can’t tell I’ve used a track of his… It’s more of a ambient-ey fill and a easy way of moving to the next track without having to beatmatch…

Track 3
Tadd Mullinix – Lulla
Better known as electronic hip-hop producer Dabrye… Personally, I think this guy is really not given enough credit. Taken from a mind bogglingly intricate album called ‘Winking Makes A Face’.

Track 4
Jan Jelinek – Moiré
Also known as micro-house pioneer, Farben. This track is taken from the album ‘Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records’. I have always suffered from really bad insomnia and this album really helps me sleep. The whole purpose of this mixtape actually was to create something to help me sleep and spurred on by his work… I think I failed. My mix is too busy and over-thought out. At least I have Jan Jelinek, David Attenborough and Nytol over-the-counter sleeping pills to help.

Track 5
GB feat. Steve Spacek – Simply So (Instrumental)
Taken from an old 12″ that I just happened to re-stumble upon whilst making the mix. The vocal version is pretty nice too… Try hunt it down.

Track 6
Space Dimension Controller – Closing Titles
Another super-talented Irish lad… Synth Eastwood love Irish guys, right? I’m trying to win brownie points here…

Track 7
Waajeed – Tetris
A self-confessed J Dilla copy-cat producer… Never reached the expertise of his mentor but this track and a track called ‘Tron’ are 2 personal favourites. Computer-game-hop.

Track 8
J Dilla – Big Booty Express (B.B.E.) (Instrumental)
Anyone that knows me knows I’m obsessed by J Dilla. I’ve spent well over a decade fascinated by his work, frantically collecting unreleased beat-tapes, buying rare 12″s and hunting down all the original soul / jazz / prog-rock / library LPs that he sampled. It’s a shame that it had to take him dying before people really recognised how great he was… If you don’t agree with me, I get really angry.

Track 9
Dauwd – Shimmer
Brilliant new artist on my friends fledgling label – Pictures. You can download this track and one other for free (and legally) from their website.

Track 10
Burial – Fostercare
Yeah, I’m mates with Burial. He drinks at my local. Don’t know what all the mystery is about… He won’t shut up after 2 pints. Mouthy bastard.

Track 11
Actress – Lost
Seriously, Actress is pretty amazing isn’t he?

Track 12
Zomby – Tarantula
This guy drinks at my local too…

Track 13
Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto – Moon
Everything these 2 guys make together is seriously beautiful. Introduced to me by Raster-Noton obsessed work-mate – Margot. Heavily filtered whilst blended with the Zomby track but then EQs back to the beautiful piano melodies of Sakamoto.

Track 14
Autechre – Drane (Peel Sessions) and Boards of Canada – Amo Bishop Roden
It’s a bit cheesey / obvious for me to work at Bleep and end with 2 Warp tracks but these are 2 very beautiful gems in the rather healthy Warp back-catalogue. They work suprisingly well when blended with each other… Really intense… A little bit too intense. This mix was meant to help me sleep.

If you would like to listen to other mixes in the series. Click here.
If you hate streaming you can download this mix here.