Ever since we said we’d do a running mix for VeggieRunners we’ve been dropping prospective tracks into an imaginary file on our psychic desktop. Marked ‘locomotive’, the file contained any track we’ve heard in the last few months that seemed to convey a sense of incessant, forward movement.
As they’re about to reform, I revisited my old Postal Service records and the mix starts with ‘The District Sleeps Tonight’ from their one and only album ‘Such Great Heights’. Its skittering drums build nicely from a standing start, so it seemed like a good idea for the off. A lot of Krautrock has that driving, metronomic rhythm we were looking for, so we move next to a track by a former member of Neu, and later Harmonia – ‘Energy It Up’ by Michael Rother. This is a DJ favourite of ours and Rother is still writing and producing interesting music.
Sticking with the Krautrock theme we moved onto another hypnotic synth-led track by Michael Bundt, ‘La Chasse aux Microbes’ – there are no drums here, just synths to propel you forward. We followed that with our own mix of a wonderful track by the late, great, Arthur Russell, called ‘Keep It Up’ (you can see a running-themed lyric developing). The track had no drums so we pasted a nice rhythm underneath it – simples.
The mix then moves from darkest techno by Una-bomber to a remix we recently did for a Japanese label of a new age artist called Sojiro. Then it’s back to Rother and Neu’s ‘Hallo Gallo’, probably the most ‘locomotive’ track ever produced. Just to bring things up to date the next track is Mario and Vidis’ ‘Change feat Ernesto’, a recent disco classic. Steve picked some nice abstract EDM for the final push on this hour-long mix, ‘Nighthawks’ by Stubborn Heart, ’All Together Now’ by Dave Aju, ‘Zammuto’ by Zebra Butt, and to finish the splendidly ambulatory ‘Tjukkas Pa Karussel’ by Prins Thomas.
We hope it works for your run.
Bio
Steve Jones and Sally Rodgers are DJs, producers and performers. Their enduring friendship and creative collaboration includes many licensed works for film and television, and their recordings, under the artist name A Man Called Adam, are popular with electronic music fans around the world. As sound designers they’ve worked for a diverse range of clients including The British Museum, Johnson Banks and the Miraikan Science Museum in Tokyo. They are both conducting doctoral research – Sally at the University of St Andrews, and Steve at De Montfort University - and their academic interests reflect their passions for electroacoustic music and oral and written poetries.
You can listen to their latest audio experiments as ‘discrete machines’ here or find out more on their website.
