RA’s Decade In Review: 2010-19
My contributions to Resident Advisor’s decade retrospective package for the 2010s, published throughout January 2020.
Beautiful Swimmers – Untitled (The Trilogy Tapes, 2015)
We’re so lucky to have Beautiful Swimmers. One of the most consistently positive forces of the decade, whether through their labels (Andrew Field-Pickering’s Future Times, Ari Goldman’s World Building), their position at the center of DC’s expanding community of labels and artists (1432R, Peoples Potential Unlimited, Dreamcast, Soso Tharpa), or their contagious presence behind the decks, dancing and laughing as the other mixes in a tune. While being plenty busy solidifying their labels’ stamps on the ’10s, the Swimmers laid down their own legacy: their “joyride” of a debut album, a handful of quality singles, bonkers mixes official and unofficial. None left more of a mark than their mixtape for The Trilogy Tapes in 2015.
To say the limited-release two-sided mix, just under 90 minutes long, caused a stir would be an understatement. Heads tried their best to fill in the tracklist, though MixesDB still has a fair few question marks. Max D’s edit of the 1991 Watt Noize track “It’s My Life” inspired such a frenzy that it amassed a dedicated following and upwards of 70,000 streams on a YouTube rip before it finally got an official release by Warriors Dance in 2018. The Rebles’ soca twist on “Sweetest Taboo” by Sade is another one that inevitably got reissued by Soundway Records last year after resale prices crept well past $300. Yohan Square’s 1991 jam “Love Of Life (Genesis Mix)” is the peak, with an infectious wavy beat and lyrics that make you smile: “Two people, in love… how nice.” But adding to the exclusionary culture of overly expensive rarities is the opposite of their agenda. “What I like so much about DJs like Beautiful Swimmers is they play killer house records, but they’re often $2 house records,” Tako Reyenga told RA in 2015. With the right headspace, maybe you, too, could affordably crate-dig your way to a gem-filled tracklist worthy of a Swimmers set, though their sound, flow and vibe will always be one of a kind.
Conducta – Kiwi Krush (2019)
Conducta wants to take you on a ride through UK garage’s new wave. Truly, there are few better for the job. Often spotted with a massive grin behind the decks, the Bristol artist makes for an enthusiastic, plugged-in guide. Conducta only launched Kiwi Rekords in 2019, and already it’s racked up a number of garage hits and a growing circle of exciting DJs and producers (including Sharda, Prescribe Da Vibe and Sammy Virji), pitting Kiwi at the center. If The Kiwi Manifesto, Conducta’s introductory mix for label, was the low-down, Kiwi Krush is the thrown-down. Starting out the gate with AJ Tracey’s smash “Ladbroke Grove,” the first of seven of Conducta’s own productions, is not a move for the mild. Kiwi Krush is a “state of play,” as Andrew Ryce previously put it, for “NUKG,” mixed from all unreleased goodies in Conducta’s arsenal (some have since gotten an official release, the rest we must still patiently wait for). It’s nostalgic for UK garage’s heyday but far from retrograde, thick and heavy but not too serious, fresh and even sweet (check the label name) without being saccharine.
Throughout Kiwi Krush‘s 61 minutes, energies are through the roof but you never get worn out. Each track grabs you with a catchy melody (Yemi’s “Back To You”) or deep, wobbly bassline (Anz’s “Open The Curtains Sis”), switching gears before overstaying its welcome in either mood, with some spin-backs and fader chops for good measure. And since it opened with a pop tune, why not bookend the mix with another? You’d never know Jorja Smith’s “Goodbyes” was originally a heart-rending acoustic ballad from the optimistic spin Conducta puts on it, now standing in as a send-off. Maybe the mix’s lowest point is when it begins to fade out here, a wink by a track about unexpected endings. More fitting still, one of the last clear lyrics you can hear on Kiwi Krush is Smith singing, “How do we grow, if you’re not moving with us?” You’ll want to keep moving with NUKG.
Alice Coltrane – World Spirituality Classics (2017)
The talent and impact of Alice Coltrane isn’t one that can be neatly packaged in one reissue (nor a two-paragraph blurb). That’s why this decade saw nearly every one of her albums repressed for a new generation of appreciators. The most striking of which came from Luaka Bop, the New York label founded by David Byrne. World Spirituality Classics 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda compiles four cassette albums she made in the ’80s and ’90s, primarily for the community at the Sai Anantam Ashram, which she founded in 1983 and lead until her death in 2007. It was released ten years after her passing, though members of her ashram would prefer to use the word ascension. (Soon after this reissue’s release, the ashram burned down in the 2018 California Woosley wildfire. It had closed the previous year.) One of those cassettes, Turiya Sings, marked the first time Coltrane recorded her voice and the first time the members of the ashram heard her voice—because God asked her to sing.
Alice Coltrane’s 1968 debut solo album, A Monastic Trio, made in the wake of her late husband John’s sudden passing, lays bare her grief as she begins her solo journey to spirituality, marrying the sound of the harp he inadvertently left for her with her jazz and Detroit hometown foundations. (She worked alongside fellow visionary Pharoah Sanders on the record.) The 1971 spiritual jazz masterpiece Journey In Satchidananda sees Coltrane still grappling with her husband’s death, though her genre-defying material, again featuring Sanders, reaches further past earthly limits. Over the next decade, her work became devotional as she evolved into Swamini A.C. Turiyasangitananda. At Sai Anantam Ashram, she made music for, and only for, her community and, finally, we hear joy. So much joy. That’s the person that World Spirituality Classics wants to properly introduce you to. There’s rhythmic call-and-response chanting by ashram members, radiant organ chords, stirring string orchestrations and that harp, now jubilant—all anchored by her commanding (in presence only) yet gentle and careful voice, as if she’s reassuring members that they can put their faith in her. It’s wonderful the rest of the world knows they can now, too.
Pauline Anna Strom – Trans-Millenia Music (2017)
I was in Commend, RVNG Intl.’s Lower East Side storefront and community space, when founder Matt Werth got a call from Pauline Anna Strom. She gave Werth the OK for RVNG to reissue her works, or at least that’s what my memory leads me to believe given the excitement with which Werth then told me about Strom and the project: her New Age ’70s roots (which she later abandoned as it devolved into “bullshit propaganda”); her minimally issued, difficult-to-locate records with bootleg rereleases; and her lifelong blindness and aversion to braille. It’s that enthusiastic sharing that makes each RVNG (and, in this case, ReRVNG, the label’s dedicated reissue series) release feel special, intentional and intimate: Hey, I’ve got this incredible record, and I can’t wait for you to hear it. I really hope you like it.
Released in 2017, Trans-Millenia Music collects six of Strom’s seven albums, sequencing the tracks without regard to chronological order. This is fitting for Strom’s music, which feels steeped in the past and future while also rejecting being pinned down to any era at all. That’s on purpose—the title of her first LP, Trans-Millenia Consort, means “crossing-time companion.” Through shimmering arpeggios, lush field-recordings and samples, and otherworldly synths that deserve more than the “cosmic” descriptor, Strom’s soundscapes transcend the San Francisco New Age scene that inspired her to buy her first electric organ. Trans-Millenia Music was far from RVNG’s first careful reissue and there were more still to come before the ’10s were out (sub-label Freedom To Spend’s 2019 reissue of Ernest Hood’s Neighborhoods was also notably warm and poignant), but the meeting of RVNG’s loving sharing and Pauline Anna Strom’s timeless, healing compositions was a moment to treasure.
Laurel Halo – Quarantine (2012)
Not quite pop, not quite ambient, this artfully unsettling debut album solidified Laurel Halo as one of the decade’s most forward-thinking and important artists.
Julia Holter – Have You In My Wilderness (2015)
Julia Holter is one of the most critical avant-garde composers and artists of her generation, and while her other albums exist in the mistier realm of pop experimentalism, this one is a special, bright moment in her catalogue—a crisp burst of light filled with life and longing.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – EARS (2016)
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith is a force with the Buchla, though her music feels free of any weight while she “combines modular texture, deft orchestration and alien vocals into one tidy package,” as Matt McDermott previously described her breakout album—”an impressive feat by any standard.”
India Jordan – DN4 (2019)
This standout from India Jordan’s jaw-dropping debut EP captures their dual strengths—building a head-swirling atmosphere and ravey warped synths that burrow deep—in one urgent belter you’ll desperately need to listen to over and over again.
Find all of RA’s year-in-review coverage here.
Marissa Cetin 