Here’s a recap of some notable broadcasts from last week.
COMPUTER DATA
With killer releases on Shall Not Fade, its sister label Lost Palms, and their own imprint, pure bread records, San Francisco-based DJ and producer COMPUTER DATA brought some of that trademark heat back to the Blast Radio airwaves. Channelling the aching nostalgia of a blissed-out, blue-filtered beach, mixed with the vaseline smeared sepia tones of the best disco that never was, selections by Haider, Jovonn, and Lis Sarroca, among others, took listeners on a sonic journey that bounced and swayed like a boomerang of the sunset.
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Eric Slick
Beaming in from a Marriott in Boise, Idaho, Dr. Dog drummer Eric Slick took a break from touring to launch the Strange America Hour, a show exploring weirdness in the American songbook and beyond. Opening with a track by Mayo Thompson of seminal Houston avant-garde group The Red Krayola, Slick’s selections went on to straddle decades of outsider and experimental music from across genres and spaces. Adopting an open-border policy, deep cuts by Palais Schaumburg, Men Without Hats, and Brian Eno’s 1978 collaborative record After the Heat with Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius of Cluster highlighted how weirdness is a global currency.
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Hotwaxx
Stacey “Hotwaxx” Hale, aka the Godmother of House Music, brought her Techno-Club 1-year anniversary set to the Blast Radio community for a 3+ hour deep dive into the mind of a legend. Spinning a collection of tracks that reflected a lifetime behind the decks, Hale drew a throughline connecting Detroit's formative years, to the current producers who continue to push and innovate on long established traditions. With the world becoming increasingly devoid of techno’s earliest teachers, each set from a pioneer like Hotwaxx should be revered as a sacred text, and protected at all costs.
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JREDOU_KO
Taking a break from cutting up head-nodding joints that clock in at record time, like on their stunning new compilation Straight From The IG Feed, or giving glimpses into their creative process from their home studio, Houston dad and beatmaker JREDOU_KO treated listeners to a 2+ hour tour of their tape collection spanning a wide range of styles and genres. With Sughn’s 2020 release tape in a loop kicking off the set, selections bobbed and weaved through hiss-sparkled reels of crunchy funk, lofi hip-hop, and plenty of beats to go around.
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Loverground
Terminally chill London-based producer Loverground hoisted the sails on a white sand tour of tracks that continue to inspire and anchor their musical voyage. Featuring joints by The Ballistic Brothers, Yussef Kamaal, Rick Wade, OverDoz. and more, each selection meshed seamlessly like rolling surf and palm fronds, leaving listeners with the tough choice of whether to lay low or step out. When songs from Loverground’s new EP Whatever Happens, Happens finally hit the mix, originals like the hauntingly groovy slice “Pup Slushy” felt as inevitable as high tide.
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nd_baumecker
In honor of nd_baumecker’s birthday, he and Sam Barker threw a rager and invited the whole Blast Radio community over for the action. Kicking off with the Escape From Newton Mix of Rick Astley’s meme-hijacked declarative love jam “Never Gonna Give You Up,” an underappreciated counterpoint to the song’s eye-rolling ubiquity, the night set a course for a vast array of new wave inspired disco and house tracks. Cuts by C.C Catch, Electric, and The KLF shared the stage with Suicide, Cabaret Voltare, and Prince making for a well-rounded get down. Happy belated nd_baumecker!
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Straight Up Breakbeat
At the risk of sounding redundant, the founder of Helsinki-based label Straight Up Breakbeat ODJ Dizzy served up an overproof cocktail of high-powered breakbeat with a full-fledged chaser of, you guessed it, more breakbeat. The show centered on previewing upcoming releases from the label, airing out old school classics, and balancing the mood between vocal centric jungle grooves and the growling, darker hues populating the other end of the genre spectrum. Cuts from DJ Gunshot, Mister Shifter, and DJ Sofa, among others, hammered home that breakbeat is far from a monolith, but a world unto its own.
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