For our second mix of the new series, we are blessed by ARCSOC organiser Alex Wakefield a.k.a Kid Cowboy.
Alex has cooked up "80 minutes of grooves of various stripes – funk, soul, disco and a few hints of jazz from all over the place". It's fantastically upbeat and eighties heavy. Just what you need for bopping around your kitchen to on this fine lockdown day.
In his own words:
Some of these songs have been with me for years. A handful I return to every year, just as it starts to get warm and sunny, and the air smells like grass in the evenings. I used to store up songs that I knew one day I would want to spin. Unfortunately, I didn’t go about this very methodically; these tracks are scattered across numerous playlists, and I’m still digging up gems. Each rediscovery feels like a gift from a past self, and a few of these I finally got a chance to work in here. I was very excited about this.
The end of my degree is rapidly approaching, which is mentally and physically exhausting. Like many, in times like this I find sustenance in music, whether making it, listening to it or sharing it with others. One of my favourite feelings is stumbling across a track that, for a time, just becomes your whole world. There is nothing more joyful to me than mixing with music that feels entirely necessary to your life at that moment, and more than a couple of tracks like this ended up in the mix. I hope some of this joy comes across.
This past year, Alex has been tasked with organising the infamous Arcsoc social events. Before this, he and his brother cohosted the Arcsoc Raio Show on CamFM.
After three months of lockdown, I really miss dancing with people. Josh wrote last week about his love of ‘body music’, and I think I’m similar. There’s nothing better than a piece of music that just goes straight to the hips. In a strange sort of way, I think I’m more self-conscious about dancing on my own than dancing with other people, and stuck at home for three months I’ve been pining for the day when we can all return to the dancefloor. Until then, this mix is full of tracks that, for me at least, make it impossible not to want to groove.
Much of the music on this mix is either the direct product of, or else heavily indebted to, the work of Black artists. It has been my immense privilege to put this mix together, and on the occasion of it going live I want to acknowledge this debt to Black music and Black culture more broadly. I don’t think that music in and of itself can do much to bring down white supremacist capitalism, but I retain a sort of general faith in the communities it can create and the joy that it can foster. If any of this resonates with you, please take some time to learn about the ways in which you can aid in the struggle for the rights of Black people at home and abroad.
Tracklist:
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