M&A #32: Joe Turrell

Sometimes the best things in life come at you when you least expect it, and after a *very* long term, in which 8 new mixes have found their way out into the world, a few more have been slightly delayed, and work got in the way of organising another M&A club night, I wasn't expecting to see much more come out before things start winding up for the one year anniversary of Milk & Alcohol. So when this mix landed in my inbox.... wow. From old jazz head and general music lover, Joe Turrell, comes this beautiful, psychedelic stomper of a mix. Ambient at the outset, Joe chuggs us into an intoxicating haze inside 10 minutes. A bassy, swampy, intense hour follows, with islands of colour and sparkly clicks and clacks for contrast. This is one for the synesthetes, painting such a vivid landscape you'd think you were in a Wes Anderson film. A fabulous way to see out the term.



How did you record the mix?

I borrowed my friend’s Pioneer decks and speakers for the evening, got out a net of easy peelers and cracked on.

What were you trying to do with it?

I wanted to put together some tunes that give a good flavour of what I’m into. Most of the time when I’m playing for people it’s soul and reggae focused, so I wanted to give a different side to things. It’s all stuff that I find both very musically interesting and also gets my ass moving. Most of the stuff on the mix has come out in the last 6 months or so, so in a way I was putting together some bits I’ve really enjoyed recently and seeing if they work as a whole. 

What’s your musical background? How did you come to dance music, and how did it morph into DJing? 

I didn’t listen to dance music at all until I was maybe 18. As a teenager I was mostly into 50s and 60s jazz, classic Blue Note and Impulse type stuff. What changed that was going to lots of events in the young London jazz scene right now and getting a flavour for how jazz could fuse with other genres. What’s so exciting about those musicians is they’re seamlessly fusing hip-hop, dub, house and grime into jazz traditions and it’s working seriously well. What really made the difference for me was a place called Ghost Notes. It was a beautiful place. I started going there for gigs and found myself properly dancing for the first time! The performances would fuse quite seamlessly into dance nights and I think those were the first times I realised there wasn’t an important difference between the music I loved and the music I didn't yet know. So I started getting more into dance music that way, starting with jazzy house and moving over time into this more leftfield techno stuff. My friend Luke got me into Djing and was really awesome in teaching me things and showing me music, and soon enough us two and another mate Gabe were mixing in each other’s rooms quite regularly. It hasn’t really stopped since. 

The transition from ambient to techno is super smooth, the tunes you chose blend so seamlessly, when not necessarily all ambient music can have a kick whacked underneath it and still sit well. What did you look to connect in that transition? Was it something specific like a sound or key signature, or was it more of a feel/vibe?

I hadn’t practiced those two tunes together but they sounded like they might work and I got quite lucky...I think the point of connection is that the techno tune is quite spacey in itself. It’s often the case that techno and ambient more or less exist on a single spectrum, so piecing them together is hopefully a way of keeping the vibe the same while introducing some dancing into the picture.

The beginning is gorrrrrrgeously chuggy. That kind of slower groove seems to be popping up more at the moment, with a trend of people pushing much higher and much lower tempos [great example of slower stuff is Tosh Ohta’s mix for HAAi’s Motion night last month, and anything Andrew Weatherall played]. Do you think it deserves more of a showing, or is it something you’d mostly use to transition between vibes like in this?

I love slower tunes, they can be extremely powerful in a dance setting. The particular ones I chose here I first heard in a club and they provided some magical moments, but a very different sort from a euphoric head-up type track. It’s proper head down crunchy stuff, for me the appeal is similar to some of that early DMZ. I don’t know how popular that sort of thing is at the moment, but i hope it is cos it’s groovy as hell. And it provides a nice transition. I remember seeing Kassem Mosse using them well...he played at like 80BPM for about half an hour and everyone was super mellow and then he just went double speed out of nowhere - it really went off. So yeah chuggy ones get a big thumbs up from me!

How do you find new music? And do you categorise the new stuff? Genre, mood, energy?

NTS and Balamii shows are always awesome and eclectic. I try and keep up with new stuff on RA and Bandcamp too - I spend lots of time making huge queues of new music to hear. So if I hear a new tune I like on the radio I might look up the label that the album it was on is itself on and then rinse their catalogue for a day or so, mostly stuff like that. Also really important is learning about new stuff through friends and family...loads of them have really sick taste and I’ve learnt so much from just sitting around chatting to them. I have a playlist for every tune I’ve discovered each month, which is totally disorganised and usually grows out of hand. If I’m not listening to new stuff I’ll often put one of those on shuffle. It’s quite weird hearing some garage next to lovers rock or something but it can sometimes reveal something about those tunes you maybe wouldn’t have otherwise realised.

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?

Beyonce circa 2010...every track hits. Love on Top in particular, I fucking love that song.

What’s the last song you listened to?

Fela Kuti - Roforofo Fight 

Who is your favourite producer/performer at the moment?

Very hard to slim it down to one...but maybe Coby Sey. He’s barely put out anything but it’s all nuts! On another day could be Batu, Loraine James, Autechre, MoMa Ready, Dilla, Stenny, Klein, Quirke or Ben Vince. Outside of electronic stuff I’ve been loving Phyllis Dillon, Kath Bloom and the Numero Soul compilations lately.

What is your go to tune to bring a party up/banger?

MoMa Ready - Holy Water Other. 

What was the best party you’ve played?

The last BAIT launch was really great, beautiful setting and good people. There was some live music that night too which I thought was perfect, I think the fusing of the two is underexploited, particularly in Cambridge.

What’s coming up for you in the future?

Me and my mate Gabe have been talking for way too long about starting a night, so maybe we’ll finally get round to that. I’d love to give it a go...other than that just taking it as it comes!

Joe’s Tracklist:

Bennie Maupin - Ensenada

Britton Powell - If Anything Is

Red Hook Grain Terminal - Untitled 07

Carl Oesterhelt - Trinidad Pattern

Donato Dozzy - Parola (Rework)

Phase Fatale - Velvet Imprints

Neinzer - Voyager

Speaker Music - With Empathy 

Metrist - OL Face You Got

Jon Hester - Let’s Go

Planetary Assault Systems - Whip it Good

Shed - B1 (Anfang und Ende)

Loraine James - London Ting (Dark as Fuck)

Barker - Models of Wellbeing

Bakground & Sangam - Keeper of the Lost

Forest Drive West - Cannibal 
Benoit Pioulard - With this, I Disappear