“Hello, Earth Calling” sings Natalia Kukulska on “Halo, tu Ziemia”, one of the tracks featured on this month’s selection. Although, the lyrics of the song are more concerned with relationship between heaven and earth, its title gave me an inspiration for this intro. While I was putting this mixtape together, a jolly thought passed the peripheries of my mind: “What if this one made it into space! Somehow its digital code left the Solar System and somehow was picked up an alien civilization (or the sent in space on the next Voyager mission). Well, the extraterrestrials would have a pretty cool selection to study on. Hello! Earth calling! We are sending you a message and the message is music.
There’s no better way to make an introduction of us Earthlings than with the return of the planet’s best know biophiliac, the one and only BJÖRK. The flute infused “The Gate” opens the path to her new album, “Utopia”, out next month. It might be a coincidence but there is a slight resemblance between the organ motif on “The Gate” with the one used by the scientists to communicate with alien mothership in 1977 sci-fi classic, “Close Cncounters of he Third Kind”. Which fits the theme perfectly.
Another big name hitching a ride in our space capsule is Mr Bigmouth himself, MORRISSEY. You can only imagine would “The Smith” have to say upon meeting an alien? But this time we’re only sending his new single in space not the artist himself. Although a lot of people would like the latter to happen.
“Man, it's good to see you. This must be the airship and are these your fellow crew? Where are we headed?” sings WILL WIESENFELD of BATHS on “Yeoman”. It just happens that some of pieces would fit the interstellar trip perfectly. Like BADBADNOTGOOD and COLIN STENSON’s sonic exploration, as well as OR EDRY’s “Cheder Choshech”, made perfectly for floating in zero gravity. And the boys from MASTODON may prove “In space no one can hear you scream” tag line to be completely untrue.
Now, would the alien life forms have appreciated the dance music the way we do? This month we go into the full body motion mode with FORMATION, HORSE MEAT DISCO and JORJA SMITH among others. Or maybe they have would preferred much gentler flamenco vibes via LA BIEN QUIERIDA. Would Tricky’s demonic murmur scared the hell out of them? Would the beautiful cover of “Cucurucucu Paloma” by ARTUR ROJEK made them ooze liquid from one of their body parts? I wonder.
The alien linguist probably would scratch their heads with their tentacles after hearing the diversity of languages incubated on one planet (just check out the tracks by LUNA, ELEN MIGRAU, TÉMÉ TAN, HÖNGI, YEAJI, dear aliens). Even more diverse are the ways of musical expression. From KAMASHI WASHINGTON’s uplifting jazz, through CHARLES BRADLEY (RIP) emotionally charged soul and BURIAL’s claustrophobic club trip to angst ridden grunge revival from CCFX, to name few. Different places on the globe lit up on our dashboard map, too. CLOUD, CASTLE, LAKE are sending their signal from Dublin, LUNA from Minsk, POGODNO from Szczecin, PIERRE KWENDERS from Montréal, RYUICHI SAKAMOTO from Tokyo. The Earth is a diverse place where some beautiful noise is made. That’s always been the message behind our selections.
Make sure to check it out as well, before “literally” everyone in the galaxy gets into it ahead of you.
Your captain,
