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Non Heralded Awesome Music – NHAM Mixtape 2

I’m really pleased with this collection. Belonging to July it’s a summer mix that transports the listener through day and night; from earth to air; between conscious reality and subconscious dream states; and even to different geographical locations. It did for me anyway. Have a listen and see where it takes you. More info below the mix.


  1. Six UmbrellasRise
    The first of the two tracks aptly called Rise that bookend this mix. With the Euro final being played here this month there’s no better place to start the July 2024 mixtape than Berlin: Six Umbrellas is Thomas Bartz and the city I’d call the home of industrial techno is lucky to have him. This one is from the album Ad Astra.
  2. Lehto x SocoolSierra
    Sierra dropped just last month and is ethereal breakbeat at its finest. I can’t not move to it. It’s a wonderful collaboration between two producers, Lehto from Germany and Canadian Socool, who have combined to make Four (Tet) – Combining deep with delicate and luscious with lucid.
  3. BENDYHaunted
    Fittingly, Haunted has a haunting vibe which is pretty dark lyrically and darkly pretty sonically. BENDY is self-described lunatic music dispenser, Eliot Bendinelli. A London based Frenchman* who works for a brilliant organisation in Privacy International, Eliot has recently dedicated one day a week to making music and the result is a brilliant 4-track EP from which Haunted came. (*I’m guessing he’s French based on a combination of his name and his Mastodon instance!)
  4. Ordos Mk.0Awash
    I love a bit of deep house and I’m reliably informed this is somewhere between that and Dub Techno. -The EP it’s from, ‘Echoes’, comes with a thoughtful and technical insight from the producer as to how each song came about and what was used to make it, as well as some cool sleeve artwork. Deep, rhythmic, dance, all, night.
  5. Roberta Fidora In Your Neighbourhood
    Bloody hell, this is good. Wistful electronica so often gets me. This could easily sit on Joe Godard’s Electric Lines album, which curiously came out in the same year (2017) as Roberta released this one under her previous moniker, ‘Curxes’.
  6. Jonny FalloutThere’s Hope For Us Yet
    The opening track of Jonny Fallout’s 2024 album, ‘Concentric Circles’. There’s Hope For Us Yet is a song title whose message is something we all have to cling on to, while the music itself offers the belief that it just might be true. This is dream-synth dreaming big and I love getting lost in it.
  7. Day DreemsThere’s a Light
    Day Dreems is a solo artist from Oregon, and Day is their real name, not just a stage name! They have such an enchanting and compelling voice, drawing me in both solo and when harmonised. There’s a Light has what I think I’d call a gypsy-folk vibe with added oomph and pop-personality. The song explores the magic place between limitless dreamland and limiting ‘reality’, and it builds beautifully with perfectly positioned layers until reaching crescendo.
  8. sideSisterLovelock
    The intro is an instant hit-maker and the subsequent interwoven funk in this multi-time signature get me moving and thinking in equal measure. Positivity, hope and slap bass from a super-talented mother and daughter duo, bring it on.
  9. Hy VybMoonlight Dream
    Hy Vyb creates an ecclectic mix of music from pop to prog rock through house, drill, drum & bass, afro-beat and more. This lovely number though sounds like a Grimes jam on a sunny day somewhere in West Africa. Dancing!
  10. LiotiaHand in Hand
    My immediate reaction to hearing this one was, ‘CocoRosie does trip hop’, but Liotia are not CocoRosie, they are Abigail Hubbard and Matthew Smyth. It’s got such a hot, summery city vibe. Personally it connects me with times at the start of the relationship with my now-wife, walking through Bristol in the heat together: Feet on concrete and birds in the trees as we wander past and under. Very happy feelings. From the Let Down EP.
  11. Hello Midlands Outside
    Hello Midlands are not wrong, they’re quite right: Everything is a little bit easier outside. Cautiously optimistic, wonky melancholy. -Their words, not mine but I couldn’t put it better. Serene, but not for the sake of it. Erudite, but unassuming. Earnest, but forgiving. See. I’m going Outside now.
  12. Schalle und StilleRise
    As an ex-Bristolian myself the trip-hoppy Portishead vibes of Schalle und Stille drop me right back in to that beautiful city. It’s the second track in this mix to have done that and also the second called Rise! I love how it does exactly that to you: The song has you grounded to start and just lifts and lifts until you’re floating and dancing in hazy summer air, still rising as it peacefully ends, while you remain afloat, gasping for more. It had to be the closing track, leaving you suspended there …at least until the August mixtape.

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