Been struggling to find time to put these shows mixes together and for good reason as I have just recently started working for https://warmagency.com/. which is a dream come true as they represent some of my fave DJS inc Luke Una – his compilation E Soul Cultura is a must you can get it here through Warms record shop for the fair price & have included some tracks from the comp on this here mix head over to warm and cop some of their amazing compilations including the
Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadours Volume One comp
and now just recently Levon Vincvent has signed to Warm Levon Vincent (dubby / muddy pure jacking material trax – here’s a wee blurb about his new Album
Levon Vincent returns with his fifth studio album, titled Work In Progress, the follow up to 2022’s Silent Cities cassette release. Progress sees the dub techno and NY house auteur throw away any overarching concept, apart from the idea that it must move you.
Work In Progress is a collection of club ready jams that form the latest productions from Levon’s incredibly prolific run of 12”s he’s pressed on his own label Novel Sounds, directly for the next weekend’s sets. His run over the last 20 years of 12” numbers almost 50 releases. Rather than his previous albums presenting a finished story, his fifth presents a diarist’s work in progress, his latest club constructions, many raising the BPM to 140 to reflect the faster pace of his latest DJ sets.
“The previous albums I have made are all meant to be heard from start to finish, where it takes the listener on a voyage” explains Levon. “I modelled the narrative idea after those LPs after greats like Stevie Wonder, who made albums that contained an arc that would unfold from start to finish. You were meant to listen to them from beginning to end.”
“With Work in Progress, I set out to break the pattern of writing albums with an arc. I wanted to make something that more closely reflects my DJing. This is an album for DJs. I thought, ‘why separate my LP and 12” approaches? My only rule for this album was ‘you have to be able to play each track in your own sets’. My DJ sets are varied and go through different styles. I would play every track on this LP at some point in a club night or at a festival. I named it Work In Progress, because I am a work in progress. And I am frequently in a situation where I must improve. So it references self-improvement, the concept and the action of.”
DJs and home listening fans of Levon will find a lot to love in the new collection. From the hi-nrg 80s proto-disco through a gray scale gauze of Regarding Love, with an emotional mood continued through Longing, the skipping NY House drum programming of Strut Beats filtered through a submarine Berliner filter. Even a track which promises such an uncomplicated confection as The Funk is complicated by Levon’s gritty vision, made tougher and more metallic. Sunday Mornings echo’s the most feel good of 90s piano, but with a shifting modal centre, as befits a musician who has taught himself to play with and use nonstandard harmonic intervals. Again, Levon is exploring and composing in real time, pursuing his muse across an industrial grid of his own construction.
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