Last week, Ms. Bartleby composed a pair [first, second] of great posts about mixtapes. Then, earlier today, she composed another great post about Yukimi Nagano, a Japanese-Swedish vocalist with an absolutely sumptuous voice. This entry continues both threads.
For several years, I have been conceptualizing a compilation series (or mixtape, if you will) that seeks to capture the beauty and magic of 7:00 AM. As any underground club denizen knows, 7:00 AM is a very special time inside a club, especially if the morning is a Sunday.
Typically, several things occur at this hour. First, there is a shift change: customers who arrived at 1:00 AM or 2:00 AM typically are leaving by 7:00 AM. Additionally, a fresh audience will have arrived, and is seeking to receive musical inspiration until the early afternoon. This second shift is a musically savvy audience who (literally) uses this Sunday morning session as their temple, their church. For these folks, music is not part of their religion; it is their religion.
In order to mark the end of Saturday night and the beginning of Sunday morning, a DJ should adjust the music accordingly. Where Saturday night conjures notions of bacchanalian trysts, Sunday morning is a more spiritually oriented program. Both programs should have requisite portions of funk, but the way one delivers that funk typically is radically different because the audience, mood, and purpose have changed. Further, a really perceptive DJ will have wound down the early shift with the appropriate sonic blessings, and set the stage for the musical program that is to occur from 7:00 AM until … whenever.
Needless to say, the first song that the DJ plays to commence the 7:00 AM session is critically important. To this end, I’ve always thought “Keep You Kimi” is a perfect 7:00 AM track. The tempo is bubbles with possibility, yet allows second shift people to adjust their ears to sound and their bodies to movement. The production oozes dub sensibilities, with lots of filters, echoes, and reverbs. And Nagano’s performance is an absolutely hypnotic blend of song, chant and sermon.
I get goose bumps everytime I listen to this song. It is sultry without being tawdry, transcendental without being religious. It reminds me of 7:00 AM; mind, body and soul awash in sound, and lost in music.
P&L, Soultronica
My Trusted MOGs
I'm loving your musings and almost anthropological study of cities and the "scene".
"the beauty and magic of 7:00 AM", love it. At first I thought you meant simply that feeling of still being up as the city wakes. As though you're in on a secret none of those commuters know. Which I guess you are.
Wouldn't have otherwise been aware of this shift you describe. It's been many moons since I attended an all-night dance party. I can easily imagine dancing till 7am or later, but not actually getting up that early to do so. Interesting stuff.
And I agree, a perfect track.
My Trusted MOGs
good track and the post was a great read too. well done, soultronica.
My Trusted MOGs
Mr Soultron, your posts got me hooked. It's incredible how you managed to make the club scene so vivid, almost palpable. I can practically see, feel, hear and taste the shift, the gentle pulse which makes the clubbing experience a unique trance-like revelation (through of your writing).
Quote: "Where Saturday night conjures notions of bacchanalian trysts, Sunday morning is a more spiritually oriented program."
If I am to understand you, the club is where the new Sunday pagan mass is...
(Thanks for the kind cross-referrals and for posting this track).