NuNorthern Soul proudly presents Dimun, an overlooked neo-classical / ambient fusion track by Faroe Islands-based producer Kristan Blak’s Yggdrasil project. Label boss ‘Phat’ Phil Cooper was playing G! festival on the Faroe Islands in 2019 and as part of the experience the delegates, artists and DJs where invited to see and experience some of the cultural spots and institutions of the Faroe Islands. One of those was Tutl records owned by Kristian Blak. Tutl records is a wonderful record store and label representing the wealth of amazing Faroese recording talent and has been around for years. tutlrecords.com Kristian invited a few people to his house and he played the piano line of Dimun, Phil recorded it on his phone and could not stop watching it… He eventually contacted Kristian to ask about the music which led to it being licensed for this release.
Pete Fowler’s afterparty is the final section of our line up for this weekend’s Edition 5 of the Chill Out Tent, coming live from 18:00 BST on Sunday, 30 August 2020. We’re super happy to have Pete; artist, DJ, bon viveur, one half of ambient legends Seahawks and all round gent closing out our festival, you know it’ll be an awesome send off. We interrupted Pete’s busy schedule to have a chat about what he’s been up to lately, and to find out what we can expect from his set at the weekend.
Pete has been working from his London home studio during lock-down, busy with commissions for his paintings, drawings and commercial illustration projects like the KPM – Island Visions cover above and similar work for music biz clients like Marius Circus.
On the music front Pete’s been continuing his Seahawks project with Jon Tye of Lo Recordings fame, collaborating remotely on new material like the remix for Andy Pye’s Balearic Social (see link above) and releasing Star Seeds through Bandcamp as a fund raiser for Red Cross Lebanon to directly help people after the disaster in Beirut. Seahawks will also be releasing a very special vinyl print of their super rare ‘Secrets of the Deep’ album from 2010 on Diggers Factory, as they say ‘Deep trench, marina drone, deck shoegaze, cosmic yacht rock at it’s finest’ and who are we to argue?
If you’re wondering what to expect from Pete’s set for the Chill Out Tent on Sunday, here’s a mix from earlier in the year…
If that’s not enough to keep him busy Pete’s continued to broadcast his weekly live show ‘Open’ on London’s Soho Radio, which is always worth a listen for it’s mix of music ‘veering from 70’s smooth rock, to discoid balearic debris’, sounds right up our street! He’s also continued to man the virtual decks every Friday for the Heavenly Social crew, providing the playlist, commentary and beverage recommendations.
We also discussed a few of the other projects Pete’s been involved in including the image above that he produced in response to the removal of the Colston statue in Bristol, that went on to sell out a 900 print run via legendary bootlegger Johnny Banger, raising £9000 for a primary school food bank in Bristol. Another unexpected success was his run of colouring sheets that went viral, ended up on the school curriculum and saved many stressed lock-down families from those ‘I’m bored’ moments of anxiety and angst. Pete’s drawing skills and lifelong fandom of culinary legend Keith Floyd came together in this unexpected merch opportunity to support a well loved record shop.
We sprung a ‘Desert Island Discs’ moment on Pete to conclude our chat, asking where he’d like to be if he could be free of Covid restrictions for a weekend. He decided that an escape to the lovely Port Eliot Festival to DJ and celebrate with friends old and new would be his choice, and what would his last track of the night be? The glorious ‘Silly Love Songs’ by Wings was his choice, and as Alan Partridge put it ‘Wings; the band the Beetles could have been…’ One last recommendation for anyone who over indulges over the weekend Pete suggests we refer to Mr Floyd in how to alleviate our hangovers.
Many thanks to Pete for taking time to talk to us, and of course for playing at our event this weekend, it’s going to be fab right?
‘Spaceships Cost Too Much’ – An amazing film from Detroit’s Blair French will have it’s online premier as part of the line up for this weekend’s Edition 5 of the Chill Out Tent, coming live from 18:00 BST on Sunday, 30 August 2020. It’s a provocative, hallucinatory, art house trip, you won’t want to miss it…
The film explores the hearts, minds, and souls of three individuals meditating in an unbalanced world. Originally filmed in 2012-2013, it is scored with music from the excellent forthcoming Blair French long player ‘The Art of Us’ released on Rock Steady Disco on September 15, 2020.
We’re really excited to introduce our friends from Stockholm, Sweden; Balearic Corner as one of the headliners in the line up for next weekend’s Edition 5 of the Chill Out Tent, coming live from 18:00 BST on Sunday, 30 August 2020. We spoke to Jac from the crew about the Swedish Balearic scene, what they’ve been up to and what they’ve got planned for the future, don’t miss their session on Sunday!
1. Who’s involved with Balearic Corner, is it just you Jac?
Well, it’s me and my crew of friends, generally speaking. We are a bunch of music lovers who all came together through a place called Hosoi in Stockholm. Thanks to Victor Sanchez who runs that place we have formed a special bond of friendship by hanging out there over the past couple of years. Everyone has their own concepts around music; Love Potion, Kilombo, Hosoi, Balearic Corner, and so on. We all help each other out, but mainly it’s me running Balearic Corner and Mattias Polanco is coming into it more and more.
2. What sort of events have you had so far? and how long have you been running them?
It started about 5 years ago with another concept I call Sky City. But last summer we did Balearic Corner and it’s sort of taken over my heart and all my focus is on that concept now. It’s a hangout that turns into a glorious dance party at night, all in the Balearic spirit, and the DJ sets are always around 9 hours long for the main act, no exceptions unless it’s live. That is definitely a signature for the Balearic Corner parties.
3. Where is Balearic corner based, and what venues have you used?
It’s based in Stockholm, Sweden, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t go international if the opportunity feels organic. It’s like the Stockholm archipelago turned Balearic and we go on long musical ride together, as a metaphor. We’ve done parties at Trädgården and Teatern Under Bron and plan to do much more, including under the radar open airs, although the pandemic did postpone a lot of that till next summer.
4. Who or what inspired you to start these events?
I think being at DJ Harvey’s Mercury Rising parties at Pikes, Ibiza, and meeting him has been super influential. Also, my friendship with Camilo Miranda who books at Pikes and is a resident DJ there has been really important in the development. Fundamentally I think my time spent on Ibiza with my sister and the sense of community with both my friends and complete strangers – that happens in this very unique way in nightlife around the world – has been the biggest driving force.
5. Have you had guest DJ’s or artist at your events? Who would you like to work with in the future?
We’ve had many guests! A Man Called Adam really showed us some love last summer as well as Leo Mas, Chris Coco, Camilo Miranda & Christian Len.. in addition to Jocke Åhlund, HNNY and Jin Mustafa from the local scene. Also we’ve had Lovefingers & Heidi Lawden, not to mention amazing Takaya Nagase! He runs the Joy parties in New York and it was a big highlight last year to hear him play. Well, for the future, we have a bunch planned. I’m working on a compilation that I’m super excited about. So, stay tuned regarding that. I’d like to keep some surprises, but what I can say is that Nancy Noise has been on my wish list for a long time and she was supposed to play at Balearic Corner this summer, and so was Beautiful Swimmers. The broader idea for this season was to also offer a space for less regular names in the Balearic scene to get the spotlight and explore the concept with the attitude of freedom that I think is so key to the Balearic mindset. We hope the pandemic will allow it by next summer! I also want Harvey to come and do his thing with us, of course.
6. What is the Balearic Corner crowd or like?
I think it’s a bunch of open minded, free spirited and gentle people who all love music, dancing and relaxing, lot of our friends are latino and they sure know how to relax…
7. Have you been affected by the COVID lockdown to any great extent?
Definitely. Mattias Polanco and I had a whole series of Balearic Corners, Love Potion parties, and bigger (smaller one-day festival type stuff) happenings this summer that all got cancelled or postponed. However, it’s been a very creative and inspiring time for us despite the financial and social crash. We’ve created a new platform we call Until Further Notice that we are currently working on some really exciting stuff with, fulfilling some big dreams! We announced the Until Further Notice initiative recently with a 30 min music video I directed and danced in together with Mount Liberation Unlimited and a bunch of amazing artists involved like Fredrik Paulsen and Adam Nilsson. It was released on Robyn’s Konichiwa TV as a collaboration.
8. You’ll be presenting a mix and a film to share with the Chill Out Tent event, what can we expect from your part of the show?
An after-party in the Swedish countryside turned listening session turned psychedelic cloud watching. It’s a musical journey that follows the morning light as Mattias Polanco and myself select some of our favorite tracks while our friends unwind in the background.
9. If we get to visit Stockholm in the future what are your essential places to visit? Maybe galleries, restaurants, bars, clubs, natural sites?
Balearic Corner of course! And Hosoi, my friend Victor’s vision; a place for listening to great music and being with each other. There’s no other place like it and it’s hard to explain if you haven’t been there, the way it often is with the best places. There’s also this amazing open air bar that opened this summer within the Swedish restrictions of the pandemic in an area called Reimers Holme. It doesn’t have a name but the guys running it are so relaxed and it’s only good vibes, so go on an adventure and find it! It’s by the Reimers Holme Hotel. Totemo Ramen is one of my favourite places, best ramen in town! If you want great latino street food; Pachanga in Årsta is the place. What else, Bar Oas and Omnipollo are cozy, tasty bars and a must. Other than that, make sure you explore the country side and please be sure to be here in the summer when the sun doesn’t go down and get yourself to a rave in the forest!
Many thanks to Jac and all the crew for speaking to us and being part of the Chill Out Tent Edition #5
What’s on our minds? Norman Jay MBE is on our minds! This Sunday the our roving reporter Chris from VI4YL has a chat with the Good Times legend, Norman Jay. The interview premiere’s on The Chill Out Tent Edition #5 just after 6pm UK time. Get involved and see what went down. We’re all super excited to share another huge interview with you, props and thanks to Ashley from Norman’s management and The Ministry for the brilliant venue.
Here’s one of Norman’s recent radio shows to get you in the Carnival mood…
We’re really happy to confirm that the lineup for our August Chill Out Tent edition #5 is coming together nicely. We can confirm that we will have a live session from Belgian maestros Rheinzand, they’re an awesome addition to our event, not long now…
Rheinzand is a collaborative project between Reinhard Vanbergen, the multi-instrumentalist producer, Charlotte Caluwaerts (Tundra) and Mo Disko from the renowned duo ‘The Glimmers.’ Hailing from Gent, Belgium they plan to follow in the footsteps of other exceptional music exports from the city such as Soulwax.
Their exotic style caught the ears of Danish label ‘Music For Dreams’ who released their debut self titled album this year. ‘Blind’ was the first single of this musical adventure and was aimed straight for the dance-floor. The track was championed by DJ Harvey during his summer residency at Pikes Ibiza, and the band had tracks on both his Mercury Rising compilations.
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