MIMS Guest Mix: BECKER & MUKAI (Osaka / Paris, SaS Records)
Becker & Mukai’s fans include Alexis Taylor, Caribou, Andrew Weatherall, Floating Points, Trevor Jackson, Ed Banger, Vanishing Twin and loads more.
Parisian cinema composer Jean-Gabriel Becker is best known for idiosyncratic soundscapes, whilst Susumu Mukai is a world-renowned Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist. Together they’ve created fresh new music that floats effortlessly above traditional genre delineation, with a dubbed-out and experimental melange of modern acid house, post punk, global grooves and clattering beats.
Susumu Mukai, originally from Osaka, Japan, is one of London’s most sought after musicians, whose list of collaborators includes Floating Points, Vanishing Twin, Alexis Taylor and Fimber Bravo. His discography includes releases for XL, Ed Banger, Multi Culti and Kitsune, with remixes for Trevor Jackson, John Cale and Air Most renowned for fabulously oddball recordings as his alter ego Zongamin, this new adventure in Becker & Mukai marks the long-awaited next chapter from a singular virtuoso.
TRACKLIST
Haruomi Hosono – Strange Love
Nicola Cruz – Aima
Matias Aguayo – Laisse-moi parler
Art Of Noise – Paranoimia (feat. Max Headroom)
Steel An Skin – Afro Punk Reggae (Dub)
Golden Bug & In Fields – Dust
Becker & Mukai – Spice War Part One
Jas Shaw – Freedom For The Pike
The Mauskovic Dance Band – Cosmic Slop
Maurice Fulton & Peggy Gou – Jigoo
Aksak Maboul – Saure Gurke (Krikor remix)
MORE INFO…
Becker & Mukai began when the pair held jams in an underground studio/den in Shoreditch around 2017. Beginning as exploratory and spontaneous, these improv sessions evolved as the duo found their own blend, which came to combine Tunisian saxophones and West-African shakers with FM synthesisers and Eventide harmonizers.
Their first recordings were unveiled in 2018 on the artfully unusual and vivacious ‘Eyes’ EP, which gained support from Love Vinyl, who included it in their best-of-year list, NTS, who played it on repeat, and Andrew Weatherall and JD Twitch (Optimo), who provided further rotation.
Released earlier this year, a collaborative EP of space-disco-meets-experimental-electronics called ‘Auf Togo meets Becker & Mukai’ moved in a dance orientated direction, and was championed by Dublab in California and Sonar Kollektiv in Berlin, amongst others.
Still not complying to genres, ‘Time Very Near’ is their tentacular new album, which gathers sounds and inspiration from an ever-expanding palette of influences, assembled into something amorphously intangible that’s simultaneously refreshing and sharp, meandering and cosmic, futuristic but timelessly vintage.
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