Netil Radio Weekly
#062
Words
Hello & welcome back,
On this day 33 years ago, Czechoslovak dictators made the same mistake the ayatollahs are making right now in Iran. I was 12 when the Velvet Revolution happened in my country. Young enough to catch the teenage experience my parents couldn’t, but old enough to remember what it was like to live in an unfree country and how devastating it was for it and its population. I hope and believe that the people of Iran will reach the only acceptable end of their revolution: freedom.
One of the ways that we can help is to question and boycott regimes that seek to strip any person of basic human rights or that contribute to the climate crisis—to be resistant to their efforts to buy our souls. This Sunday, we all have a great opportunity to show that we can’t be bought. We can sacrifice our weakness for ball games and boycott the most corrupt football World Cup ever held on Earth. We are all aware that the bread we get served with this game is soaked in blood.
The Qatari regime is hiding its brutality behind air-conditioned, high-tech concrete monstrosities in the middle of the desert, built on the graves of construction workers and financed by our contribution to the environmental crisis we are in. It’s truly shameful of FIFA to choose countries that are not able to understand the concept of fair play and think that we should accept such insolence.
Given that Qatar is a place where you can face five years’ imprisonment under Article 296 of Qatar’s penal code for "inducing or seducing a male in any way to commit illegal or immoral actions," one might think that it’s just a country with very sensitive men, not a brutal regime. But I guess that's what we get if we let old men in skirts and fluffy dresses rule. Speaking of fluffy dresses in combination with imaginary empires and sultanates, we say hi to rogue Christians trying to conquer the US and East Europe right now. We know what you’re wearing under your skirts.
If you are asking why countries like, for instance, Qatar or russia even get to host international sport events, it’s because they can. They could buy politicians, celebrities, and regulators, and they will try to buy the hearts of football fans. But the gravity of truth is heavier than a construct of power, and we might remember this world cup the same way we remember the Fyre Festival or Woodstock 99: as the world cup of greed, corruption, incompetence, safety failures, and freedom abuse.
It's time to cancel your subscriptions to the channels that have corrupted the most in order to obtain broadcast rights; choose your method of supporting Iranians; and stay tuned to your favourite soundtrack provider.
Thank you for reading.
Miro
Coming Up
✧ DJ Ride Or Die filling Good Smells for HENDERSON today 7-9pm ✧ Lynne will join Faery this Friday 9-11pm ✧ MVCOKO teaming up with LIV.IA b2b Euchre in the next Ball Games - Saturday 7-9pm✧ catch the new show on the block Fresh from the Past on 3rd Sunday of the month 2-4pm✧ Paolla B will join haras on Monday 5-7pm ✧Birds & her special b2b sparing partner R.E.D. will be Feeding The Void next Tuesday 5-7pm✧Ryo Kurashina & Nou coming back to the box for Co-Select on Wednesday 9-11pm✧mechanoreceptor on guest duties for EKATA next Thursday 9-11pm✧
Full schedule here
It Takes Time Review Corner - November Edition
By Tony Poland / It Takes Time - 3rd Sunday of the month 4-6pm
✧ Vidal Benjamin Presents: Uprooted #1 Vladimir Ivković (Versatile) ✧
Vladimir Ivković - head of Offen Music, refined DJ and friend of Netil Radio - handles selections on this inaugural 7” edition of Uprooted, a Vidal Benjamin-curated vinyl-only series for Versatile Records. According to Vidal, the conceptual crux of Uprooted is for “appreciated music activists with a double cultural pedigree to choose two tracks that reflect respectively where they come from and the culture they have embraced.” Ivković is a perfect choice, given he cut his DJing teeth in the clubs of Belgrade as a teenager and, more recently, has become widely embraced by fans of hypnotic dance thanks in no part to his long-running residency at Düsseldorf’s Salon Des Amateurs alongside Lena Willikens and Tolouse Low Trax.
On the Belgrade side, Vladimir presents a lolloping slab of mid-tempo archival odd/off wave from the trio of Mitar Subotić, Goran Vejvoda and Milan Mladenović from who knows when. Crucial for anyone that has dug Offen’s eye-opening reissues of Subotić’s work as Suba and Rex Ilusivii! For the Düsseldorf-focused B-side, Vlad has managed the rare treat of officially licensing a track from CHBB, the short-lived project of Liaisons Dangereuses duo Chrislo Haas & Beate Bartel. The track in question, 'NBKE,’ originates from one of their holy grail cassette releases from 1981 and is a proper sludgy head-tripper. All heads-down, proto-techno rhythms, monastic chants and BB’s lo-fi guttural drawl. Big TP Tip!
✧ Niagara - Vales & Montanhas (Ascendar) ✧
Comprised of Alberto Arruda, António Arruda and Sara Eckerson, Niagara are always so prolific in their output it's very hard to stay on top of everything that this Loures-based trio release. I reluctantly gave up a while ago :( However, I’m learning to love the idea of music landing naturally rather than in some restricted timespan dictated by press attention and new release algorithms. So there is now a tangible delight in diving back into the Niagara bandcamp every so often to catch up on what you may have missed out on. Which is what happened with Vales & Montanhas, which originally dropped in July this year on their own Ascendar label.
Vales & Montanhas is an album length 12-track trip that really encapsulates everything I love about Niagara. Primo off-centre techno abstractions a la Splazsh-era Actress on ‘Infantado,’ variations on a musical theme (the triplet of F.P. voltar / F.P. ir / F.P. chegar), rough freeform experiments, and loads of intricate melodic experiments that sound like instruments trading in alien languages. If you are not that familiar with Niagara, Vales & Montanhas is a great place to change that and then go check their albums for the Príncipe label!
Side note for fans of physical media: they also release quite a lot of ltd-pressing CDrs through the Lisbon shop Flur; follow Niagara on Twitter to stay on top of that.
✧ Lee Tracy & Isaac Manning - Is It What You Want? (athens of the north) ✧
Here’s an example of how music discovery can work in 2022. Athens of the North is one of those labels I don’t keep proper tabs on, because it's impossible to check everything by everyone! So it was very nice to get introduced to the delightful music of Lee Tracy & Isaac Manning via the Stadio podcast. Hosted by the affable, Berlin-based journalistic duo of Musa Okwonga and Ryan Hunn, Stadio is, for me, one of the best podcasts about football. Each episode tends to feature the discussion you get on the more recognised football podcasts, but it’s just done with more intelligence, knowledge and wit. They also end each episode on a wide-ranging musical outro - handily compiled in an ever-growing playlist of nearly 300 tracks on Spotify if that’s your thing - that has become for me a rich source of hearing new music.
Which is where the charmingly ramshackle, minimal yet ecstatic “Love Is Everlasting” by Lee Tracy & Isaac Manning was first heard. Instant earworm status which demanded further investigation! And there is quite the story to Is It What You Want?, compiling a rich collection of unreleased mid-to-late ’80s home recordings from Tracy and Manning along with the two tracks from their sole 7” released in 1989. The B-side of which was a Whitney Houston cover! And what delightful music this is, drawing on multiple contemporaneous genres for influence (funk, rap, electro, Prince, the aforementioned Whitney) and applying these sonic ideas to a fuzzy tape-recorded backdrop of drum machines, synthesizers and Tracy’s freeform vocals.
Listen Back
✧ Emma Rudge filling in for JNKO ✧ Shimmy in conversation with Amechi & Diddy from local vintage shop The Pattern ✧ Grayblade steppin’ in for Vinyl Hunter ✧ Slowfoam in the mix for Paijata ✧ Tsui Honagi’s guest appearance in Solar Rocks ✧ Kitsta joined Nou for a late sesh ✧ Avsluta and her mind balance service ✧ Zillas On Acid in the guest mix for discøisdead ✧ rave in its pure form - Ecstasy Garage Disco ✧ every Smiling Stranger ✧ post punky leftfield side of Big Leg ✧ COLOURWORXX with Karolina Magnusson Murray & Margomool ✧ Sarjan’s takeover of Avant Garbage ✧ Nick Smart and his tape vs vinyl improvisation ✧ Canan Batur rocking the dubs ✧ last two weeks of Luca’s record shopping habits in two hours - that’s E2-E8 ✧ new and shiny show area127 with Driven By Attraction on guest duties ✧ Marie Malarie joined Meg for a two hours of quirky pop alternatives ✧ BRUXITA b2b ex.sses ✧
That’s all for this week, stay tuned
NR team
London’s community voice, broadcast live from a converted shipping container atop of Netil Market - project facilitated and supported by Eat Work Art