Human Head’s Stephen Silvestri In The Mix

Head to the back counter at Human Head Records in Brooklyn, where the shop’s excellent electronic music section resides, and Stephen Silvestri will likely greet you, pile of records & seltzer in tow. On an E-ZPass tip, I checked out the store for the first time, saw they were carrying some of my favorite labels (shoutout Is / Was & Vanity Press), got to chatting with Stephen, and had him do this mix 🙂

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What’s in this mix?

I collect a lot of house/techno records from the NYC area from the late 80s to the early 90s so there’s a good smattering of that. A couple of UK records, some Detroit. I opened the mix with a track from Don Carlos the famous Italian house music producer. But the era is most definitely around 1989-1996. Always all vinyl! I’m not sure why I chose to focus this mix on this era but I guess it’s what I’m feeling currently.

What’s something you’ve learned (that you didn’t expect to) from working at record shops?

A deeper appreciation for visual art and typography. I am inundated with visual imagery working with records and you start to get really good at being able to determine eras of design preference. Some record art is totally pop art, some conceptual, some campy, some commercial, some political, etc. The spectrum of artistic design reflects the breadth of music which is obviously wide. But sometimes the visual is better than the music, or vice versa, or sometimes it doesn’t seem to quite match with the music or the content of the record. I could go on about layers of human behavior that I have learned about but that’s a whole other topic.

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The Top 40 Dance Tracks of 2018 (in Alphabetical Order)

From hazy break-beats, to pumping acid techno, to hands-in-the-air Detroit diva house, 2018 was another great year for dance music. So many upstart labels shined and delivered great releases, countless new names floated to the top of lineups, and some of our favorite artists continued to bring the goods.

Bearing in mind that year-end lists tire everyone out and usually suck, here are forty tracks that heavily sound-tracked my radio show, club gigs, car stereo, and beyond — presented in alphabetical order because any ranking would be completely arbitrary.

Tune into WKDU one last time in 2018 for the ‘Resolutions Show’ from 8:30 – 10:30 pm, where we’ll read your resolutions on air, play some of the tracks below, and prepare you for a brand new year!

🎉 HAPPY NEW YEAR 🎉

The Top 40 Dance Tracks of 2018 (in alphabetical order)

Artist	Track	Label
Waajeed	After You Left	DIRT TECH RECK
Hugo Massien	Alien Shapes	E-BEAMZ
Videopath	And So Do Eye	Peach Discs
Sa’D Ali	Asylum (Louie Vega Deep In The Underground)	Nulu Electronic
Steffi	Between Form & Matter	Air Texture
Pangaea	Bonesucka	Hessle Audio
Sami	Bright Blue feat. ZSY	1432 R
Dj Steaw	Celestial Vibrations	Rutillance Recordings
Leo Pol	Dark Outside	Bass Culture
J. Albert	Deep State Riddim	Trilogy Tapes
Marquis Hawkes, Ursula Rucker	Don’t U (Dubbed Out Vocal)	Aus Music
Roza Terenzi	Electronique	Oscillate Tracks
Almaty	Gennaro (Endian Remix)	naïve
Moodymann	Got Me Coming Back Rite Now	Mahogani Music
Lady Blacktronica	How I Learned	Meda Fury
Omar S featuring Simon Black	I’ll Do It Again	FXHE
Baltra	IWUNNAF33L	CD-R
Scott Richmond and John Selway	Keep On Climbing	Firehouse NYC
Teakup	Lose My Mind	is / was
Heckadecimal	Murder Tape	Great Circles
Brother Nebula	Parting Infinity	Legwork
DJ Koze	Pick Up	Pampa
Hoshina Anniversary	Pimp	Jack Dept.
Batu	Rebuilt	XL Recordings
BMG & Derek Plaslaiko	Rendezvous (NWB Mix)	Interdimensional Transmissions
DJ Dre	Respect	These Things Take Time
Galcher Lustwerk	Rules Meant to Be Broken	Lustwerk Music
Djrum	Sex	R&S Records
D. Tiffany	Sip & Savour	Planet Euphorique
AceMo	Speedn N Smokin	Vanity Press
Will Dimaggio	Steppin W Friends	Future Times
Universal Cave	Take Your Time (Universal Cave’s 909 Rubdown)	Universal Cave
Omar S & Brian Kage	Thru The Madness	Michigander
Antemeridian	Tuesday AM	The Bunker NY
Alex Falk	Upp	International Black
The Horn	Villager (Luca Lozano Remix)	Klasse Wrecks
Scott Grooves	We Move…We Have To	Natural Midi
Marie Davidson	Work It	Ninja Tune
Shawn Rudiman	Works On Paper	Pittsburgh Tracks
Cassy X Pete Moss	You Gotta Know (Ron Trent Remix)	Kwench

Thank you to all the labels, artists, PRs, etc for the great music!!! See you next year — SPREAD LOVE <3 <3 <3

Catch the Hot Mix on Tuesday nights at 10 pm for a preview of The Top 40 Dance Tracks of 2019 ; )

Keeping it All Natural with Mat.Joe

Before throwing down at Rumor’s All Natural party, we sat down with German dance duo Mat.Joe for a chat about living in Berlin, their hip hop roots, and highlights of a crazy successful 2017. Be sure to check out their #1 Beatport house smash “Love Stream”, if you haven’t already.

WKDU: What were your first favorite hip hop and electronic artists respectively?

Mat: Oh I guess my first Hip Hop favorites were Wu Tang and Dr. Dre…it started with Yo! MTV Raps..oh damnnn, miss those times! Electronic-wise it was Ricardo Villalobos back in the minimal days.

Joe: My first Hip Hop tape was Jeru the Damaja’s “Wrath of the Math”. It blew me away! House-wise, crossover hits from Stardust, Phats & Small, Bob Sinclair, Armand Van Helden, and Daft Punk found their way into my ears when I was a teenager.

WKDU: How did hip hop / skateboarding background lead you to electronic music?

Mat.Joe: We both went to some crazy underground raves back in the days. Guess that the lovely vibes and different energy made it something special. House music is really similar to Hip Hop, Soul and R&B. Skateboarding is a big sub-culture…same with electronic music back in the days….maybe because of this, haha. We still love all those things and ride our boards in the hood as often as possible.

WKDU: What are the differences in your own two personal tastes and styles of music?

Mat.Joe: Haha…this question is in any interview we get. We both have a really similar taste and started with electronic music production in late 2011, right after we froze our Hip Hop project. It’s way more relaxed in the studio and when you play back2back if you share the same taste.

WKDU: Tell us about an ‘only in Berlin’ kind of moment you’ve had since moving there – it seems like you guys like it as a homebase.

Mat.Joe: Oh so many moments…but we guess besides the good food and the lovely cloudy sky (baaahhhh) the parties are crazy wild and they don’t stop! One time at Sisyphos we realized, ‘Oh we’re partying for 3 days already!’…Berlin is Berlin! <3

WKDU: Closing out the year, what have been some of your most memorable moments from 2017?

Mat: Got a lot of amazing moments with a lot of cool people, great parties in different places around the world plus a successful track in “Love Stream”.

Joe: The festivals were incredible, the Brazil tour, the marathon sets we played at Lost Beach Club and like Mat said, it’s all about the moment and about connecting with the people.

WKDU: What can people expect when they see you DJ live?

Mat.Joe: Some lovely crazy boys with Mat.Joe necklaces and lots of ice cream…haha, but seriously we want to have a good time and enjoy partying with people. So come to the party and don’t be shy. Let’s drink some shots and have some breakfast at the DJ booth. Cheers!

Catch Mat.Joe in a DJ booth near you and stay “crispy” !!

Appian gets Stripped & Chewed

Midwest producer Appian (pronounced App-ee-an) has been honing his ear for dance music since he was a kid, soaking up select cuts from his Mom’s collection. His Mom must have good taste, because Appian’s gone on to create some of the vibiest house music we’ve heard of late, recently joining forces with Chicago-based label Stripped & Chewed for a bumpin’ piano-laced four-track EP entitled Rite of Passage.

We caught up with Appian to talk about the midwest, snackin’, and to grab a sweet guest mix!

Appian: “I grew up in Ferndale, which is a suburb of Detroit, by 8 mile and Livernois. I listened to dance music as a kid because my mom had a bunch of CDs and tapes from DJs. When I got older, I got into Djing and making music.”

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“For this mix, I had some slower tracks that I wanted to play. Usually I don’t play that much of the slower tempo stuff that I have, so this was a good opportunity to put some of those tracks together to see where it goes. As far as music influences, I was influenced by Rhythm Is Rhythm, some 80s club music, Aphex Twin’s techno stuff, and a lot of house music… among other things.”

WKDU: How’d the midwest influence your sound and how’d you connect with Stripped & Chewed?

Appian: The mid-west has its own style… I don’t know if I can really describe it though. Stripped & Chewed got in touch with me about doing a record. I’ve liked a lot of stuff that they have done with the label, so it was a great opportunity to collaborate.

WKDU: Any party pro-tips?

Appian: Play the music you love and music for your friends. Play music for the dancers.

WKDU: What’s your favorite post-party snack?

Appian: Chicken strips or coneys.

Peep clips of the Rite of Passage EP below & stay groovy y’all.

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Chattin’ with Deeper Kenz (100% Silk)

Our friend & anonymous producer Deeper Kenz just put out a fantastic tape on the always-excellent LA-based label 100% Silk. They put together a disco-laced mix for us and we chatted about wandering, relationships, and of course, Kensington.

Peep the mix & our discussion below:

KDU: Where did the Deeper Kenz alias come from?

Deeper Kenz: The name of the project was meant simply to pay homage to the place in which the music was made. I first moved to Kensington in 2007 and was 19 at the time. I feel like I became an adult there. I owe a lot to the neighborhood and its different residents.

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KDU: How did Philadelphia influence the sound of this tape?

Deeper Kenz: The Sound of Philadelphia is a wonderfully dense landscape and so many parts of it have affected me deeply- the city’s towering contributions to Soul, Disco, and Hip hop, the Experimental and Noise music communities of which I was a peripheral part, the Saturdays of Caribbean music on WKDU, the talented people I DJ’d with at clubs and parties, the dancers there- I felt so connected to and inspired by all of this while I was working on the tracks that would end up on the tape. I spent so many hours wandering around the city but I was always most attached to Kensington. The track names were an attempt to create a map of some of the details of the area that were most important to me.

KDU: Were there any artistic influences that went into Deeper Kenz?

Deeper Kenz: I was obsessively digging for Techno, House, Disco, Funk, and Soul tunes at the time I was working on these, so I’m sure I was fully processing my education. I also was trying to make music I could play out Djing and would fit in the context of my sets. I was also inspired by the personal relationships I had at the time and the inexhaustible current of music flowing through so many of them. I hope the gratitude I feel shows in the music.

KDU: How did you get involved with 100% Silk?

Deeper Kenz: I got in touch with 100% Silk through some mutual friends- Britt Brown had written a review of another project of mine and we first began corresponding about that. He was interested when I told him I had some music that sounded vaguely appropriate for the label and I was ecstatic when they agreed to release it. I hadn’t exactly intended for these recordings to come out- they were just for myself and my friends. All this comes as a pleasant surprise.

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KDU: What is your favorite food and/or drink to eat before or after hittin tha club?

Deeper Kenz: Ha- thanks to everyone at W/N W/N who fed me whether I asked for it or not.

Pour yourself a nice covfefe & enjoy the full Deeper Kenz tape here.

Making Time History with Dave P

Last week, we had the honor and pleasure of hosting the ever-RAD Dave P in our studios to help him celebrate FIFTEEN YEARS of legendary Making Time parties. Our station actually goes way back with Dave, as he made his FIRST EVER RADio appearance on WKDU to promote the VERY FIRST Making Time in 2000.