British techno-related visionary Actress joins the DJ-Kicks series this May with a singular hour-long set, following his acclaimed fourth full-length effort, Ghettoville, a recent re-release of his debut LP Hazyville, and a limited-edition black label project Xoul on his own Werkdiscs label.
For Actress (aka Darren Cunningham), the process of selecting tracks was fraught with meaning on a number of levels. “When I’m selecting music I’m not always thinking about the music alone,” Cunningham explains. “I’m thinking about the names of the artists, tracks, and labels, and what they mean to me. I often base my tracklisting purely on how well the track titles work together in a poetic sense.”
“I’ve tried to keep space between tracks, allowing them to speak,” he continues. “I tried not to force BPM shifts and to let the programming remain choppy and quick.”
Of course, the DJ-Kicks wouldn’t be complete without an exclusive production from the author himself. “Bird Matrix,” a track he made just after he finished writing Ghettoville. “My studio was going through a transition, so I was testing all the equipment, and that was one of the first tunes that came out of those experiments,” he explains. It’s a fittingly exploratory tune for a mix that balances traditional functionality with dance music’s cutting edge.
Actress’ DJ-Kicks, the 49th entry in the series, will be out May 1st (May 4th UK, May 5th US) on CD, LP and digital. Pre-orders are available now on iTunes and signed copies via Recordstore.co.uk.
Tracklisting:
01 Breaker 1 2 – 2
02 Lorenzo Senni – Elegant, and Never Tiring
03 Reel by Real – Look At Me
04 Autechre – Pen Expers
05 Chameleon – Thought 2
06 Beneath – Stress 1
07 Simbiosi – Impari
08 Zennor – Tin
09 John Beltran – Anticipation
10 Moon B – Those Moments
11 STL – Psychelicious
12 Snakepiss – Toil
13 Shit and Shine – Pearl Drop
14 Chez n Trent – Windy City Club
15 Mark Fell – Section 1-7
16 GNESIS – Pear
17 Shxcxchcxsh – LDWGWTT
18 Hank Jackson – Track 3
19 Actress – Bird Matrix (DJ-Kicks)
20 Gherkin Jerks – Red Planet
