Step to the Music

Beats and Grooves and Random Left Turns

Episode 182: Dear Leader

Comparing this episode to episode 188, which aired last night, I am forced to ask myself “reuse the same tricks much?” Yes, 188 began with Bestiärio and ended with The Beths, where this one switches them and adds a J. Robbins track at the end, but I must berate myself for a lack of variety…
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Episode 181: Strange Conversations

~100 BPM episodes are often a challenge. While some BPMs mark out definitive genre zones, 100 encompasses an overlap of several disparate sounds. So the ~100 episodes are often extra eclectic and divergent and eccentric and hence difficult to assemble. Describing this episode, therefore, is a challenge right now. There’s no through-line, no apparent theme.…
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Episode 180: Speed of Sound

This episode starts out moody, with Austra’s downright heartbreaking rumination on romantic doom, “Anywayz,” and gradually picks up. The tempo follows suit, gradually increasing over the course of the mix from a sedate sub-disco 117 BPM to a breakneck 130 by the end. Approaching the midpoint, we have ourselves a downright rave-up, before things turn…
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Episode 179: From the Outside

Following the previous angry one, this episode is relatively sedate and apolitical, featuring some jazzy electro sounds, some grime, and quite a bit of d******. There’s a touch of angry hip hop in there, because the police have not yet been defunded, and things do get pretty dang heavy just from a sonic standpoint here…
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Episode 178: Tout Le Monde Déteste La Police

And here we have the George Floyd/BLM/Fuck 12 episode. It features various types of protest music, spoken word, looped protest chants… It goes ten minutes long. Deal with it Jeremy Frisch – Suck My Dick And Choke On It (Hilarity Ensues Remix) The Coup – Pork And Beef [Party Music] Wyatt Waddell – FIGHT! B.K.N.Y.…
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Episode 177: Back to Werk

This episode begins with another chance to show off a new station ID, a charming little morsel from the singer of Swedish neo-goth outfit Then Comes Silence. This is, unsurprisingly, followed by one of their tunes… the best on their new album, if you ask me. Things end with a tune from another neo-goth band…
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Episode 176: Turntable Exiles

Now this is an episode that leans pretty heavily on underground club and Hard Drum sounds. It veers over to techno sounds and hip hop beats, and even to rock, jazz and motorik, but mostly it’s club and club-adjacent. Not sure what else to say, honestly. This one cooks, but at a simmer, with stomping…
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Episode 175: Shoulder of Orion

After an episode of bad vibes and an episode of good vibrations, this episode forgoes any commentary on The Troubles and just focuses on the drum and the bass. Several Bandcamp Day purchases from Samurai and Methlab form the backbone, which supports everything from Autonomic brooders to Finnish bangers to Brazilian rockers, before ending up…
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Episode 174: New Familiar

After the previous week’s episode, which delved into the mania and anxiety of shelter in place quarantine, this one provides an escape, an hour of relief in a sonic bubble bath. Now, I have to admit that I am still me and this is still SttM, and so things inevitably get a bit weird, vibes…
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Episode 173: The World Is A Very Scary Place

This here episode, in its formative stages, kept flip flopping between being dark songs to plumb the depths of self-quarantine and being light happy songs to take one’s mind off (what seemed at the time) such a terrible situation (were we ever so innocent?!) while refusing to settle on either. It finally came together when…
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