HOWLIN' INVITES VIDAL BENJAMIN
Our next musical invite is the Parisian selector Vidal Benjamin with a pure Belgian mix. We met Vidal in Paris a long time ago through some mutual friends and felt, as they say, an instant clique. Before we knew we were talking about records, Ab sounds and the mysterieus selector from Brussels Jean Claude Maury. When we initially asked Vidal for a mixtape he proposed us to make a mix with only Belgian music… well we couldn’t say no to that, right?
In Vidal’s own words; This mix came to my mind during the lockdown in Paris. I was thinking of all the wonderful 7 inches that I found in Belgium. Could I put some of them together without any sort of genre barrier, just to let people know how creative the electronic scene in Belgium was in the late eighties and early nineties? Actually, adding different styles to the pot is a true Belgian tradition (think AB sounds, Liaisons Dangereuses…) and explains why the balearic beats were (arguably) a Belgian creation (think of the mysterious J.-C. Maury).
So let’s take a sip of Jupiler and listen happily together to my Belgian Zeitgeist kindly hosted by Antwerp based brand Howlin’ (who else could do it frankly?). Vidal Benjamin is a true musical activist and relentless flea market digger. He’s a DJ at night and a university professor during the day. He is also the curator of the acclaimed “Discosympathie” compilation, which is dedicated to French Boogie – France’s answer to Disco.
Last year he released the dusty-fingered-follow up compilation “Pop Sympathie” which focusses more on the French new wave and synth pop. But for now, only Belgian sounds with highlight lyrics for the Flemish listeners at 50min in the mix; A-A-ACIIIIIIIEED
HOWLIN': ACID SWAMP DAYS
Our 2nd mixtape we did for the Antwerp WAV radio: Acid Swamp Days. Recorded in one take on a cold tuesday evening somewhere in the Diamond city.
HOWLIN' INVITES DANIELE BALDELLI
The 3rd invite by Howlin’ at WAV is the iconic Italian dj and producer Daniele Baldelli, pioneer of the Cosmic Disco sound. Daniele Baldelli started mixing in 1969, a time where mixing was done without headphones, mixers and pitch controls. The term “dj” was not even invented, there was just that boy that played records. Soon after Baldelli was providing music at Baia Deli Angeli, a poshy big VIP club whose booth was in a glassy elevator. This way he could move up and down, seeing the dance floor on the first level and the other three dance floors upstairs. In the late ’70s Baldelli took up a residency at Cosmic, a nightclub by Lake Garda, and rose to stardom with his experimental mixing style.
He combined an extremely diverse range of genres, from European electronica to reggae, synth pop to African folk, often played at improper speeds and mixed with effects and drum machines. Even speeding up vocals at the “wrong speed” on which Baldelli often comments: in Italy, many people don’t really understand the english words, so we don’t care if the voice sounds like Mickey Mouse. His legendary mixtapes were sold during the weekends and spreaded all over Italy which created real Cosmic fans. Legend says that even the hillsides around the club were parked with kids, too poor to go in but desperate the hear the music from the club.
Balldelli was a true scientist and his sets were based on obsessive research. At home he would try out hundred different records to see which one mixed perfectly with a new track. As he continued experimenting, the heroin and acid flooding the dance floor let tempos creep downwards and his selection grew stranger. How did that sounded? Imo it’s best described in Bill Brewster’s book: Otherworldy. Dislocated. Unreal. It was as if the music had a different history to the one you knew, like they’d been shopping records on a parallel planet.
There was little sense of individual tracks, you lost any firm ground as elements shifted and merged, as you entered tunnels of EQ and phasing, overweight basslines, as songs exchanged sides with each other and back. It was put together like film music. Wildly eclectic, but not sunny like Ibiza, not gothic like Belgium, in Italy the music was channeled straight from the moons of Jupiter. Cosmic!
The 2nd invite by HOWLIN’ is Chris Kontos: photographer, founder and driving force of the great Kennedy Magazine. Some personal notes of mr Kontos on this mix and his magazine: Kennedy started as a personal project back in 2013 with my good friend Angelo Pandelidis. Our aim was to explore stories from people we admired and create a visual diary of things we liked. Our first interview was with American director Whit Stillman which kind of set the pace for where Kennedy would go.
Over the years we managed to interview people like Martin Parr, Pierre Le Tan, Arto Lindsay, Thurston Moore, Thomas Bullock, Joel Meyerowitz Tim Barber, Peter Shire, Ed Templeton and many others. Our 11th issue is being launched at 0fr on January 20th in Paris during men’s fashion week. Its out most ambitious issue yet focusing on Japan and spread on 26 pages, is aiming to explore some of the Japans brightest individuals like musician Yoshio Ojima and record collector and DJ Chee Shimizu among others.
This mix was requested by my friends Jan and Patrick over a year ago. To be completely honest I had so many requests for mixes over the last year and I managed to deliver 0. I think im tired of making mixes and also ripping records has become a pain since I changed my hi fi layout at home. There were too many tracks I could put in that mix and took me a while to put it down and finally rip some of those records.
Also I have been buying a lot of cds lately and I never figured how to rip those! I guess I went for a mix with the stuff that I have been listening a lot and played out in 2019 like a track from Khaled that was one of my big highlights. As always a lot of japanese records ended up in that mix and tie in nicely with the theme of our new Japan issue of Kennedy. www.kennedy-magazine.com
BARABAS: UNSPOKEN TRUTH
The mysterious Barbas returns. No words needed. A true beauty this one!
BARABAS: DANCE OF THE DREAM MAN
HOWLIN' SOUNDSYSTEM LIVE AT WONDERLAND
HOWLIN' INVITES JIRO BEVIS
This is a first HOWLIN' guest mix for WAV.Their first quest is Jiro Bevis, a London-based illustrator with whom they have worked together for their current spring summer collection.
Jiro Bevis is a well-known fixture in London’s graphic landscape. Taking influence from a multitude of reference points, from ‘80s teen movies, to his childhood interest in Manga, to the comic
books he used to go through from his dad’s vast collection, and many things in between. Jiro also holds down a monthly slot on NTS exploring a variety of sounds from around the world, from UK punk to Japanese
techno-pop. He is also a big lover of the Belgian New Beat area and as the complete Howlin’ collection is fully made in Belgium the theme of their collaboration was pretty clear.
