Derek Duncan

Monthly mix roundup

For the second installment of the Easy Listening series for the month of March, I’ve chosen a handful of mixes that don’t have much in common besides being comprised mostly of danceable music (even that goes out the window at a certain point).

For the first instalment I’ve decided to put together a list of some of my favorite disco/boogie/modern soul mixes. Jam these in your home or office and get ready for some seriously uplifting, life-affirming goodness.

It’s no surprise that Ike Release got his start in Chicago, took his act to Berlin and then back to his native Midwest. The minimalist, expansive, alternatively organic and plastic textures of his productions are inflected with a weightlessly deconstructed soul.

For the uninitiated, Bass Coast is a three day music festival located in the Squamish Valley Campground one hour north of Vancouver. This was its third year running.

Hunee, as a producer, has been on our radar for quite sometime. Tracks like Rare Silk, Folga, and his anthemic Don Carlos edit are almost always in my record bag. In addition to being a fantastic producer Hunee can also hang with the best of them as a selector, if you haven’t had the pleasure… Read more

For Leisure’s 14th Mix Series installment, Must Have Records boss Jay Simon channels his birthplace in the Midwest in this bubbling cauldron of funky, soulful deep house. We asked Jay about his present life in Virginia, his past inspirations, personal highlights and future aspirations. Oh yeah, and possums.

Last year we interviewed Tom Noble. He had lots of great things to say, but in all honesty, we were a bit ignorant to how deep it all went. The Super Noble Brothers is about as close as we’ll get to a lost American classic at this point. It’s defiantly worth an hour of your time.

My first introduction to Chicago Connection Records came during a trip home to visit my family last year around Christmas time. A few hours into an afternoon at Calgary’s amazing Recordland, looking for a copy of Chicago’s Street Player, I instead lucked into a copy of Risqué Rythum Team’s ‎Risqué Rythum. Needless to say, I was elated. In… Read more

Hearing The Throne’s “Paris” or Drake’s “The Motto” mixed into the latest VIP edit of your favourite Aaliyah track is slowly becoming standard fare for the less then inspired circuit DJ’s who make the rounds of the Canadian “underground”. There’s something thoroughly unsettling about hearing ultra contemporary club fodder so far outside it’s context, and that always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. That being said, exceptions can and have been made. Hearing a dusty classic during peak time can become the stuff of legend (anyone who saw Theo Parrish play in Vancouver last year will remember this.) Sometimes it’s not so much the record you are playing, but how you are playing it. Pandering is just a turn off.