Yes, our Peppered Digs for March is a little late, but we can assure you it has absolutely nothing NOTHING to do with it's actual release date coinciding with the pubs reopening...
Yes, our Peppered Digs for March is a little late, but we can assure you it has absolutely nothing NOTHING to do with it's actual release date coinciding with the pubs reopening...
SP: It's actually entirely to do with the pubs reopening. Enjoy with caution
JM Dadd: Discogs has this listed as synth pop but it reminds me of a lot of UK street soul from around the same era. Floaty summery chords and a killer bassline, I’ve been waiting for one to become available for a real while.
Johnson: Another UK street soul banger from the late 80s. Ticks almost exactly the same boxes as the previous tune I picked, but packaged with a killer hook and sax riffs. The detuned toms in the intro send me absolutely flying.
Mark Brick: Dope bit of mancunian street soul from 91. Really smooth track oozing with feels. Slightly-detuned-piano feat strings, feat boom-bap-beats feat vocals-like-honey = sweet-vibrations-in-my-earholes. Manchester owned the uk street soul scene and this tune is a tip top example of that - enjoy
Ko-Mar : Blissful, spaced-out, ethereal downtempo tune from one half of the experimental synth-pop group ‘Beautiful Pea Green Boat’. Despite the drums, bass and piano staying basically the same throughout the tune, the sound of the melody ebbs and flows for the whole 10 minutes - going from a messed-up sounding marimba into ‘Cocteau Twins’-esque soaring vocals into delayed flutes and back round again in perfect harmony.
Huge shouts to Parels Voor De Zwijnen’s youtube channel for showing me this tune and a lot of other unbelievable music.
Lord Benedictine Grettamine: I’m in the process of recording a downtempo mix for a series and has a result have been mining the awful depths of new-age and synth-pop discogs lists for the past couple of weeks. I’ve trawled through some absolute garbage as my personal penance for being such a pisspoor digger of late, but found my absolution in the odd sneaky beauty - this Kraut-fried cosmic synth ballad from Absolute Elsewhere being one of the highlights.
L Ben Bird: Chuff some bloody beans to this one and go bananas
EJ: I’ve long admired Max’s creative dynamism, and am blessed to know him personally as one of my most humble and kind-hearted friends. His confrontational style of writing is direct and concise, feeling like a provocative exposition of the most anarchic corners of his brilliant mind. Whilst explicit performances with Bad Tracking often leave Max in what would be considered his most vulnerable state, naked, bound & occasionally chastised on Twitter by a local Labour MP, reading through his journal and hearing him recite his collection of works reverberates a sense of defiance in his deviancy.
A more expanded piece on Max and his work can be found on Tape Echo.
Evan 1: A simply gorgeous release from a machine that we once thought must be stopped, but now realise his brilliance knows no bounds, 96 Back (Or Evan 2 😘 ) is a supremely special artist and 9696 Dream only further cements that fact. The 10-track album is a gorgeously designed exploration through the spaces of his production while resonating through the echelons of his home city Sheffield’s history in electronic music. This is the first chapter in a series of 3 documenting a journey that I’m sure will be full of more moments of the captivating, blissful, cybernetic introspection found in 9696 Dream.
SP: Daniel Kaluuya, we are very happy for you, but there’s only one story in town this week, and that’s Barcelona’s bongo belting, belle-of-the-ball Dame Area winning the latest Peppered Palme D’or. Their fresh off the grill LP released on Mannequin, Ondas Tribales (Eng = Tribal Waves), has a minimal approach to a punk ethos, offering an industrial whirlpool of EBM chug, paranoid synthwave-cum-no-wave and conga workouts.
This is the second LP from the prolific duo – who by day go by Silvia Konstance Costan and Víctor Hurtado – and, for our money, their finest output since kicking things off back in 2018 (apart from, obviously, flying over to Bristol to lay it down at Dare To Club for our shindig with DJ Down The Rabbit Hole).
Our pick of the bunch goes to the chugged-to-oblivion bean melter ‘La Doble Luna’, but peppered props also go to the fuzzed-out 808 kick-driven ‘La Danza Del Ferro’ and the LP’s opener ‘Scopri Le Tue Passioni’, comprised entirely of live and electronic percussion and Silvia chanting like her life depends on it.
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."
Here's some choons, new and old that kept us going in this weird as hell year. Hope you enjoy.
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."
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 🐇
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
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?
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*
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
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.
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 some choons, new and old that kept us going in this weird as hell year. Hope you enjoy.
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.
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
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!
Tried to keep it as weird as possible. And shed some light on some smaller acts from Bristol to Chicargooooooo.
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.
Some of the stuff we have been digging this year and personal finds!
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 :)
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
