For our first installment of the OOX mix series, Josh Dawson has prepared a LateNightTales style mixtape with hypnotic 5am beats, neo soul and jazz selections.
Josh curates Milk & Alcohol, a mixtape platform focused on the Cambridge music scene. Josh wants people to explore more than just dance music and showcase what they are listening to. That's why he's the perfect person to kick off our series!
In his own words:
My dad has always been big into music and has a great collection of everything from Tony Allen to Daniel Avery to Grace Jones to Kate Bush. Growing up hearing that variety led to me wanting to live and breathe music, and that first came from playing the drums. My drum teacher always liked to introduce me to latin, afro-cuban and mozambique grooves, which then gives you a really fun feel to look for and play in jazz and funk bands. Thing is though, while I was playing in a slightly stifling big band, most of my energy in school was put into my old indie band which bizarrely led to playing at Peterhouse May Ball while I was in sixth form, second to a mind-bendingly tight Nubiyan Twist (featured in the mix!).
I think I really started to understand what excited me about music when I was listening to James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem talking in some interviews a while ago. He always speaks about the difference between head music and body music, one being catchier, the other just forcing you to dance. I think that made me realise I was totally in love with body music; it makes me so happy to listen to stuff with big drums that makes you want to move. My partner at the time was really into electronic music so I got pretty heavily into dance music, techno, DJing etc from that.
I’ve wanted to make this mix for a really long time. I first had a go in December, but it just didn’t quite click. I tried a couple more times after, but it didn’t sound right until this one. I wanted to put together a collection of groovier stuff, mixing elements of the body and head music idea from before. I think that’s big at the moment in the kind of ‘South London jazz’ sound that a lot of this mix is based around, with really gritty grooves, danceable rhythms, and gorgeous harmonies over the top. The last track, however, is a forthcoming release by my band, SAFFRA! The feeling of playing and generally being around them is just so beautiful and warm, it’s such a happy place for me and our gigs are some of my fondest music memories. The track follows that vibe and I think we’re all really happy with it; in fact, they showed me a lot of the stuff in this mix at Naked City festival last year! We’re super excited to start releasing our music as it’s our first proper tune going out, so be sure to save it when it comes out on the 5th June and look out for the rest of an album which is coming later on!
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