SOUNDWAVE : 126 : MIKE CADOO

Today’s guest deejay is Mike Cadoo, the founder of n5MD, a much loved and respected independent record label based out of Oakland, California. n5MD focuses on ambient, modern composition, post-rock, and experimental electronic music.

As a long-time fan of n5MD, I showcased Mike’s label on solipsistic NATION, my electronic music show, years ago. Mike guest deejayed on Soundwave in 2021 and returns today with a much-needed mix for me.

I can’t go into the details, but last week I nearly died. You’d never know it by looking at me. Physically I’m fine. But I’m shaken. I find that I quickly get emotional about things. Sometimes I have a profound respect for life, all lives. Sometimes I’m filled with existential despair. I’m told this will pass in a few months. In the meantime, I’m having these overwhelming experiences.

Mike doesn’t know this, but his mix helped get me through the week.

Mike has some words about today’s mix below.

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Giulio Aldinucci.

See you then.

My song, “Sunrise at Ironhorse Trail,” included in today’s mix, is from a release that I will be releasing on my personal Bandcamp page on World Alzheimer’s Day. My father passed this January in what can best be described as complications due to mixed dementia. All proceeds will be donated to Hope Hospice, which was very integral in the comfort of my father in the last days of his life, as well as, and maybe even more importantly, my mother’s grief counseling after his passing.

  1. Jon Hopkins & 7RAYS “Ascending, Dawn Sky”
  2. Billow Observatory “Wash Away The Dust”
  3. awakened souls “No Other Place”
  4. Jason van Wyk “Surface Drones”
  5. OKADA “Annihilation”
  6. KMRU “Und”
  7. Mike Cadoo “Sunrise at Ironhorse Trail”
  8. Chris Child & Micah Frank “VarnAw”
  9. SVLBRD “The Vault”
  10. Haunted Ghost “Lost Footage”
  11. Gridlock “Under [Beat Mix] (unreleased)”
  12. Rinnovare feat. Benoit Pioulard “The Be in the Grey is Okay”
  13. Ex Confusion “When I Think of You”
  14. Brambles “Such Owls As You”
  15. Last Days “All the Lighthouses”
  16. Jan Wagner “Kapitel 28”

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Logo by Rik Oostenbroek

SOUNDWAVE : 80 : LECU

Today’s guest deejay is Lecu.

I discovered Lecu a few months ago when Soundwave guest deejay Ishmael Cormack asked folks on Twitter for musical recommendations. Lecu suggested Sebastian Mullaert and Erland Cooper. Those were both great recommendations. Who was this Lecu? I checked out how Twitter profile, which led me to his Bandcamp page and listened to his albums. I extend an invitation to join us on Soundwave, and here we are today.

It was a breath of fresh air after last week’s mix from Line Spectrum. Don’t get me wrong, last week’s show was great, but listening to it on my AIrPod Pro with transparency mode felt more like an auditory hallucination than a mix. Lecu’s mix feels whimsical by comparison but no less fantastic than Line Spectrum’s mix.

If you’d like to hear more music from Lecu, check out show on 1020 Radio, every first Thursday of every month from 10 PM – 11 PM Pacific.

Lecu has some brief words about his mix below.

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Inner Travels.

 

Leo, AKA Lecu
Leo, AKA Lecu

I’m happy to share my mix with you today. Lots of nice textures, both abstract and familiar, with some lush tracks along the way — one of which is a new one from me, which feels like the start of a new record and a new direction for me as an artist.

It was really fun to make, and I’m so honoured to be in very good company with your other guests

Much love from Plymouth, England, and wishing you all the very best. 

Leo / Lecu

  1. H. Takahashi “Absorption (Granulated)”
  2. H. Takahashi “Absorption”
  3. Bubble Keiki “Network Gardening”
  4. KMRU “Inter Alia”
  5. Julius Theory “SSRI Prophet (excerpt)”
  6. Dane Law “Southbound To Denshaw”
  7. Morimoto Naoki “A Day”
  8. Lecu “Familiar i*”
  9. Phexionensystem “Water Resonance”

Field Recordings & Sounds

  1. Listen In “Watering The Garden”
  2. Four Tet “Parallel 5”
  3. Lecu “Water Bowl Through Nebulae”
  4. Lecu “Field Recording: Interacting with Woodland Leaves”

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SOUNDWAVE : 54 : MICHAŁ MILCZAREK

Today’s guest deejay is Michał Milczarek.

Michał is based in Warsaw, Poland, and is an ambient electroacoustic artist that explores multimedia, sound art, and ambient genre through guitar soundscapes, field recordings, and samples. He is a conceptual leader of MM3, who creates 360° concepts of composing music, sound design, audio production, visual arts, and live performances. Michał is also a member of NUDA, a polish modern jazz/avantgarde band. Michał is currently working on different multimedia concepts and audio-visual works connecting the language of music and social commitment.

Michał is yet another musician I discovered on one of my deep dives on Bandcamp. I don’t have anything else to say about Bandcamp that I haven’t said here already. If you haven’t used Bandcamp’s service, please do. They do great work, and they make sure that the artists and music labels receive a high percentage of the money they make through selling music. You can buy the music you love and know that the musicians are fairly compensated for their work.

Michał’s mix for today’s show is a surprise. I suppose all the mixes on SOUNDWAVE are surprised. What I mean is that I invite people I respect to guest deejay on the show and give them the parameters that their mix focus on ambient, classical, experimental, and instrumental music. How they choose to interpret that is up to the guest deejay.

Therein lies what I think the charm of the show is. What music do these talented musicians love and want to share with us? It would be a mistake to believe that the guest deejays would select tracks like their own music, yet I make this mistake again and again.

Take Michał’s opening track, “When the World Ended.” It’s a beautiful piece of poetry that serves as a kind of a mission statement for today’s mix. At least, that how it seemed to me. There’s nothing in Michał’s own music that prepared me for it. Nor did I expect Radiohead’s Thom Yorke to make an appearance Michał’s mix, yet here we are. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised by Yorke’s appearance after hearing him on Robin Rimbaud’s mix from a few weeks ago. You’ll hear more from Yorke on upcoming mixes on SOUNDWAVE as well.

I know you will take as much delight in Michał’s mix as I did.

Before I get out of Dodge, I want to briefly share my experience of getting my first shot of the Moderna vaccine. I’ll get my second dose the first weekend of May, but I already feel invincible. I still have to take the same precautions of social distancing and wearing a mask, but the background anxiety of going out into the world has melted away. It’s remarkable how much my outlook has changed. I’ve gone from learning how to live with the pandemic on a day-to-day basis to the feeling we have this virus on the ropes and that we can soon go back to our lives.

That raises an important question: how much of our old lives do we want to go back to? The pandemic has been harrowing, but in some ways, it’s made changes in my life for the better and opened me up to possibilities. How has your life changed under the pandemic?

Join us next week when our guest deejay will be Innesti.

 

Michał Milczarek
Michał Milczarek

  1. Envee “When the World Ended”
  2. IDRA “Indivisibilité”
  3. KMRU “Solace”
  4. meeting by chance “Not Alone”
  5. Julianna Barwick “Safe”
  6. Palette “It’s The Little Things, Pt. I”
  7. Thom Yorke “Not the News”
  8. Michał Milczarek “#4”

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