Saturday, September 10, 2011

Black magic

I've mentioned the amazing Small Black here a couple of times before- they're apparently part of the appallingly-named "chillwave" scene (as Alexis Petridis says, this moniker presumably decided upon after a long struggle to come up with a worse genre name than "shoegazing").  Anyhoo, they've created a little mixtape which I stumbled upon recently. Though, as is the modern mode, this so-called mixtape is just ones and zeroes rather than chromium dioxide cassette.  (Incidentally, does anyone else have a nostalgia for type I, II, III and IV cassettes, Dolby B, Dolby C etc.? I seem to remember that type IV was "metal", the apotheosis of tape manufacture, and that you hardly ever saw type III tapes. And that Dolby A was only around for a short period before being superseded. No? Just me then. Digression over...).

So, this mixtape is here, and it's already on heavy rotation round our gaff.  While the Small Black team's mixing skills aren't going to give DJ Shadow any sleepless nights, the song selection is first class.  The unofficial re-rub (hey, down with the kids!) of Nicki Minaj's Your Love is particularly fine, and any body that can also put it together with Visage, Tim Buckley, the Durutti Column and Oneohtrix Point Never is always going to get the thumbs-up from Irk The Purists.

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