On the sixth day of Choonsmas, such splendours will ensue... ready to unwrap is K.I.I.A. & LMR from CUE!
Dubbed our Bristol (now LONDON 🤭 ) Mum & Dad, Alice & Luke have been special friends of the crew since our days of living in Briz. From an evening gallivanting the South-West night-life with r’ lovely Peggy Viennetta, we somehow ended up together at a certain Montpellier residency talking ourselves into all sorts of holes and states to the early hours. Since then we have forged a beautiful friendship, and danced ourselves away at their brilliant ‘CUE:’ nights; whilst swapping tactics, finding out that we are trying to book the same artists, and then still seemingly managing to clash every single Semi Peppered event with them! Whilst its been a quiet year in terms of booking in parties, Alice has released her first track as K.I.I.A. ‘Killing Time’ & Luke has completed a year of solo shows on renowned Bristolian radio station, 1020Radio.
We are looking forwards to 2021 where we can have it off again and hopefully listen to some of these belters together….
On the sixth day of Choonsmas, such splendours will ensue... ready to unwrap is K.I.I.A. & LMR from CUE!
Dubbed our Bristol (now LONDON 🤭 ) Mum & Dad, Alice & Luke have been special friends of the crew since our days of living in Briz. From an evening gallivanting the South-West night-life with r’ lovely Peggy Viennetta, we somehow ended up together at a certain Montpellier residency talking ourselves into all sorts of holes and states to the early hours. Since then we have forged a beautiful friendship, and danced ourselves away at their brilliant ‘CUE:’ nights; whilst swapping tactics, finding out that we are trying to book the same artists, and then still seemingly managing to clash every single Semi Peppered event with them! Whilst its been a quiet year in terms of booking in parties, Alice has released her first track as K.I.I.A. ‘Killing Time’ & Luke has completed a year of solo shows on renowned Bristolian radio station, 1020Radio.
We are looking forwards to 2021 where we can have it off again and hopefully listen to some of these belters together….
In no particular order these are our top releases from 2020. Coincidentally featuring plenty of previous Cue guests (we’re not biased, honest) alongside some other favourites.
Bad Boi Basti finally releases his Workshop EP. We’ve been waiting for this one for a while. The whole EP is a right earworm so obviously go and check it – B2 is our jam though for sure. DJ Slyngshot was our first booking and where Cue’s journey began, we couldn’t have asked for a better guest and he’s still one of our faves to this day.
Gorgeous ELLES with another gorgeous release on the absolutely flawless Naive. This one came out in February a few months after we were lucky enough to host her in Bristol, which genuinely feels like 5 years ago. Everything ELLES puts her hands to is magic and this EP is no different, you’ll have seen it on numerous end of year lists. gotchu is our personal fave and has featured heavily in our living room this year.
This one is an LMR special tbh. It’s the feel-good, catchy, dance around, sing-a-long track that this year so desperately needed. Stick it on – you won’t regret it.
Electronic album of the year hands down goes to total babe and previous Cue booking Roza Terenzi. In our eyes Katie can do no wrong and every tune on this album is wicked. It was a tough choice but after putting it to a vote we landed with this one. We love you Roza.
First heard during Ben UFO’s blinding set at Field Maneuvers 2019. Instant purchase upon it’s release. Ah dancefloor memories ❤️ Banger. Stone cold.
Pure euphoria, a dancefloor destroyer, this one’s a K.I.I.A. favourite. Goddezz have put out so many wicked releases, this one featuring on the ON+ON+ON V/A alongside some stiff competition. If summer parties go ahead, we recommend cracking this one out. [Special SP Shout-out to Maria on artwork duties too!]
Queen Avalon rocked all our worlds with her DJ Kicks earlier in the year. This was hands down one of the best tracks on there (no easy feat!) and we were gutted to not find a mixable version on the DJ Kicks release. However, fast forward roughly a month and cue (see what we did there) it’s release on AD 93. Now we have the inevitable game of ‘who gets to play it first (most)’.
If we had to pick a track that we would most like to hear at 4am in a dark, sweaty club it would probably be this one. A sure-to-be classic on the always excellent Hessle that we have no doubt will stick around until we all meet on a dancefloor again.
This was the hardest one tbh. We’re kinda low key not that into your traditional Christmas songs.
K.I.I.A.: Mariah Carey obvs - I’ve been singing All I Want for Christmas since November. Which is now Number 1 in the charts so congrats Mariah
LMR: Bobby Helms - Jingle Bell Rock. Classic.
LMR: Max (our cat)
K.I.I.A.: Max is definitely up there. Also moving to london has turned out to be the surprise highlight for me. We didn’t want to leave Bristol at first but now we’re here it feels right.
LMR: Times are hard when you’re a pessimist
K.I.I.A.: eye roll well thankfully I’m not a pessimist so I get to look forward to things and be hopeful! Thing I’m most looking forward to in 2021 is hard cuz everything is so up in the air but tbh hopefully just getting to hug and lick all my friends, ideally on a dance floor. Oh and we’re planning a belated Ibiza trip for our 30th birthdays cuz we all know birthdays in 2020 didn’t count. Peppers welcome of course 🌶
Not much new music in here (we’re crap at keeping up to date), but lots of goodies that we’ve played and enjoyed both inside and outside the space this year
Compiling this list for the SP crew made me realise how many amazing releases came out this year, a cause for celebration in a year of woe. This list scrapes the tip of the iceberg in terms of what I’ve enjoyed, but I have somehow narrowed it down to 8 LPs of 2020 that I have been rinsing and repeating.
Ed: My selections reflect exactly what I’ve been listening to over the last year or two - lots of slow music to soundtrack many days spent at home. I’ve thrown one freaky dance tune in there for good measure, to keep the aliens over at Semi Peppered happy. Ben: Mad dog by name mad dog by nature, woof woof MLE: I am so strong haha
ETN: "We've spent most of the year agonisingly far apart from each other so our choices and highlights feel very unconnected. Doing our Noods shows as socially-distanced fb-chat b2bs has been an interesting diversion, but we're longing for the affectionate chaos of the studio sessions. We all miss each other and hopefully next year will be full of the shared experiences and connection that are the best things about being a Shrubbery!" Chukwudi: "Having blown my last ETN royalty cheque investing in phonecards, I've asked the band to get together for one last reunion gig so that I can keep the lights on this Christmas. Unfortunately all the clubs are closed so I've had to make do with an (apparently unpaid) spot on the semi peppered xmas countdown instead."
This has been a weird af year but here are some highlights from us which we hope you enjoy. Special shout out to Goutham for having the self control to not list Cockroach - Pearl (Bright Edit) [COMPOSE] {1996} multiple times.
Not much new music in here (we’re crap at keeping up to date), but lots of goodies that we’ve played and enjoyed both inside and outside the space this year
Here are some of my top listens this year - ones that I've been playing and replaying. Most have been released in 2020, with a sprinkle of oldies too. I inevitably remembered loads that should be in here after making this, but I hope in sifting through this list there will be some enjoyable/meaningful listens in store for Semi Peppered friends and followers 🐇
MLE: Hi, you may remember me from radio stations such as Balamii, Noods, Worldwide FM and the occasional guest appearances on NTS. Find my 2020 highlights alongside my fav bunch of dawgs…May 2021 be infinitely less painful. Solway Canine Collective: Ruff noises straight from the kennel. Another year of gutter tunes from the junkyard dawgs.
Tried to keep it as weird as possible. And shed some light on some smaller acts from Bristol to Chicargooooooo.
We’re long time friends and musical collaborators born and raised in Sheffield and now living West of the Pennines in Manchester. We spent some years in Sheffield running ‘Don’t Look Now’, a series of ludicrous parties, expressing our shared love of club culture and the musical heritage of the Steel City. Having temporarily taken a step back from promotion we now also host a monthly radio show called Roadside Picnic in which we can explore our more otherworldly thoughts and dreams.
SP: It's actually entirely to do with the pubs reopening. Enjoy with caution
d. clemente: Same as last year, I am here with a whole selection of dance music (sorry I actually don’t listen to anything else lol) that made me go like “wow, yeehaw, yes, alright alright, mmmmm”. DJ SWEAT: *siren plays* D-D-D-D-DJ SWEAT on tha haus! *toilet sound* merry all! *jingle jingle*
We hope you enjoy sifting through our proper mixed bag of tunes that have soundtracked an incredibly west period in history. We feel these releases have been on the ride with us and deserve acknowledgement. What better way than a big old peppered round up eh?
I mostly mix techno / breaks / house / fusion music. So I’ve tried to include six tunes that showcase these genres as much as possible! One thing I’ve learned from mixing is that there is endless music to explore and to never make your mind up on whether or not you like an entire genre! Fusing elements of one genre into another is a real game changer for me :)
Compiling this list for the SP crew made me realise how many amazing releases came out this year, a cause for celebration in a year of woe. This list scrapes the tip of the iceberg in terms of what I’ve enjoyed, but I have somehow narrowed it down to 8 LPs of 2020 that I have been rinsing and repeating.
The Trouserlings + Papi Ruari bring you another collection of varied morsels to warm the cockles. Here is to another year of following the Semi Peppered boys blindly into the sun.
SP: Huge shouts to everyone who was there for us and supported us in music and beyond last year, we look forwards to sharing good times together again soon!
Apologies! I’ve not bought a new release since the Music from Memory Almost Grown record, which was still a reissue haha! These ones are some of my fave digs from the year - a mixture of cheap and hard to find stuff, records that I have wanted for a while but managed to cop this year. Lots of digging and hermiting time, hope you like them/find them interesting! Merry xmas 💖💖 xx
Taïga: There’s going to be no jungle / 160 I’m afraid, if anyone wants to hear our fave selections from that genre they can just listen to any of our sets! Mia: 2021 has been a great year for music, much like last year, the year before that, and all the other years. I don’t really think it’s possible for there to be an entire year where the whole planet collectively just puts out shit music, even if artists like Burial are giving it their best shot.
Robbie: "Some highlights from a rollercoaster year, remembering the soundtrack of initial lockdown turmoil to reminiscing about the last tunes heard in the club." David: "As someone whose main hobby is clubbing and nightlife, this year I haven't stopped listening to dance music. Here's some new tunes I really look forward to listening to on a big soundsystem."
Our top 8 tracks of 2020 (we’ve listened to tonnes of old ones from the 80s through out the digging process but we’ve tried to keep this strictly 2020 - with some of our fave oldies thrown in) but also less club focussed as clubbing seems so redundant right now (although we have thrown a few heaters in for you). A mixed bag for a funny old time!
Here’s a lil selection of a few of my fave tracks that have gone into Ambient Babestation Meltdown mixes this year, and a few tracks that I plan to feature in upcoming mixes. Finding new music was never a problem working at Rye Wax, but as we’ve been shut since March I’ve been having to dig A LOT DEEPER and I think it’s helped make my mixes a lot weirder haha. Please enjoy my selection and dream of the day we can all float about the club in silly outfits and silly states once again.
We’re Emma and Jonah, old friends and lifelong music obsessives. We both share a love for tunes that make us nostalgic for a neon lit past that didn’t happen. If it clears the floor, we want more.
What ho!? The sun has shone, the birds have tweep tweeped and the second edition of our Peppered Digs is launched for public enjoyment. Celebrate the springtime harbingers with some bangers in bloom :)
Here's some choons, new and old that kept us going in this weird as hell year. Hope you enjoy.
I really had to stop myself from putting Babyfather’s ‘Meditation’ as my sole entry to this list because I’ve been playing that every day for the last three years. I thought it would be best to solely focus on tracks that have been released this year so here’s a list of my faves. Most of them have been included in mixes and radio shows and danced to in my parents’ living room.
A varying degree of musical tastes seem to exist within the Left, Right & Centre camp between ourselves so there may be a bit of disparity between each of our selections. However I think we can both agree that it’s been a topsy turvy year, but there has been lots of highs for us as a label and party, as well as individually. Huge shout out to all the crews doing the do and pushing things along in Manchester and further afield, and of course a big thank you to the Semi Peppered dons for getting us involved.
Some of the stuff we have been digging this year and personal finds!
2020 has been tough, and we’ve been fortunate enough to get through it with the help of those close to us. Now we hope you can join us in looking to 2021 as another year to be inspired by one another, and to keep on keeping on together.
Tracy: The selections picked by us are tunes that we’ve rinsed a lot this year and played quite often on our radio shows. I think they represent our sound as individual DJs but also as a collective.
Thank you to everyone that has been a part of Choonsmas this year, it's been a lovely way to end a turbulent year <3
