fka boursin: The Ransom Note Mix

The latest release is out on Scissor & Thread – a suitable home for an eclectic, long playing selection of pensive tracks which leave food for thought.

This is music for late night moments alone, for foggy mornings and reflective moments.

Listen and read the interview below:

Please introduce yourself… Who are you, where are you and what are you?

I’m fka boursin, I have a stupid name. I’m currently typing this from Brussels but I live in Bristol. What am I?? Jesus! (sorry, that isn’t me answering “I am jesus”) But I guess in the context of dance music I’m the extremely rare and unique combination of music producer and DJ – wow. 

I dunno i’m also like, depressed? Anxious? Or just numb? Whatever everyone else is at the moment under the constant bombardment of horrible shit. That.

What does your music sound like? Can you draw what you think it sounds like for us (an image from the old internet is acceptable)?

What my music sounds like totally depends on the context of the consumer! For example, my last release with Accidental Meetings was briefly uploaded to Spotify and in that short window the tracks were added to “chill” playlists. Given the text I wrote about the themes of those tracks (which you can find on the bandcamp page), I’m not sure “chill” really makes sense, moreover it being bundled into “chill” totally removes any capacity of the listener to engage with the themes of the music. Having your tracks on platforms like spotify – in the words of Terre Thaemlitz – is “no different than dumping a box of 100,000 CD-R copies of your favorite track at the largest shopping mall in town, and just walking away”. Any nuanced and detailed text partnered with your audio gets totally erased and/or decontextualized!

Anyhoo.. I guess to me my tunes sound like a slightly contemporary version of a 40 year old music genre. The sounds I lean on are pretty derivative of 90s deep house. 

Otherwise I’m often trying to make music that sounds like

Where was the mix recorded?

My swanky DJ pad in the verdant bluffs of Bishopston, Bristol.

What would be the ideal setting to listen to the mix?

You’ve just come home from the club and you’re about to fuck.

What should we be wearing?

Hopefully not much, cus u be fuckin.

What would be your dream setting to record a mix: 

Average club nights are so devoid of intimacy and sexuality so a sex party is the place horny tunes truly make sense cos I dunno I think club music should be horny? At least a lot of the time? So i guess the playroom of a sex party (but like, one of the actually good, safely-monitored queer ones that isn’t filled with straight dudes just jorkin it in the corner.) Leaning heavy on the ambient and downtempo. Why do they never play ambient in there?? Ambient can be horny y’know, give it a try!!

Location/system/format?

twoyoutubevideosandamotherfuckingcrossfader.com

Which track in the mix is your current favourite?

The opening piece by Ann Lislegaard is a really moving narrative. The ending comes out of nowhere. I also love the hard panning which sounds great on a big wide system. I once played it at Partisan upstairs during a Ben UFO fundraiser and a bunch of young BUFO fans who had probably only ever been to Warehouse Project were freaking out and shouting at me to turn it off. Ah, good times.

What’s your favourite recorded mix of all time?

Hard to pick one (so I won’t and you can’t make me!) but the Sally’s II Tribute Tape by DJ Sprinkles opened up a portal to the good shit way back when I just started collecting deep house. I spent literally years alongside my former housemate 2257AD hunting down those tracks (before they were listed on Discogs) and that process really opened up the ecosystem of early 90s house music to me.

More crucially though, the tape itself is an insight to a foundational period of the DJ Sprinkles Lore and more broadly, a metaphor for how by and large the deep instrumentals many of us love to collect never actually found a home in the clubs of that period:

I got the Sally’s II Grammy for Best DJ in 1991 in January or February of 1992, and then a month later I was fired because I refused to play a Gloria Estefan record! This was because it was requested by a big-cash John. So, Sally pulled me aside and said to me, “You gotta start playing Madonna and the Pet Shop Boys, and more of that stuff”. At the time I was only playing underground house from New Jersey and the Lower East Side, mostly instrumental stuff, so I said “No, I”m not gonna play it,” and she said “Well I’m gonna have to let you go”. I mentioned that only a month earlier I had gotten the underground Grammy, so I couldn’t be doing that bad, and she said, “Well, the girls voted you best DJ, but the Johns pay the bills.”

That tape was my first introduction to understanding the early sounds and context of deep house – alongside the Midtown 120 Blues record which also deals with this subject.

(I’d also recommend listening to the recent Rave to the Grave episode interview in which Terre goes into her experience at Sally’s II)

DJ Sprinkles Deeperama Mix Series – Similarly it was such a fun challenge hunting down all those tracks labeled as untitled, and the search still goes on!

Terre Thaemlitz – Live in Calgary 06-01-1996 – Set the benchmark for me for a political, materialist, engaging ambient set that is trying to do the opposite of make people float away.

A few more off the dome:

32 ◆ Minor Science by Blowing Up The Workshop

GGHQ Mix #23 : Leewok And Curly Waters – The Long & Complicated Melting Column (Dirty Talk, Bristol)

050622 1020 by 2257AD

Trushmix 79 – LNS by TRUSHMIX

If you could go back to back with any DJ from throughout history, who would it be and why?

Selfishly, David Mancuso. Though absolutely no one would want to see him do a back to back – including me tbh, I’d just hold the flashlight. That or with Armin Van Buuren live on the Burj Khalifa. 

What was your first DJ set up at home and what is it now?

I had one turntable until like 2 years ago and now I have one broken turntable and 2x XDJ 700s – one of which is my former housemate’s which I need to pay them back for. I recently bought a Vestax PMC 250 which was such a dumb purchase but I love it –  blame the vestax for some crackles in the mix though, soz.

What’s more important, the track you start on or the track you end on?

Neither, it’s the track you play after the last track, for which you’ve professionally left a 4 and a half minute slot before curfew. I worked on the bar at Strange Brew for a number of years and tbh nothing grinds my gears more than playing significantly after the closing time unless you’ve consulted the door and bar staff prior. Otherwise, the tired workers wanna go home! End your sets on time!

What were the first and last records you bought?

I think the first record I ever bought was probs Joni Mitchell – Court & Spark or James Taylor – Sweet Baby James. The last record I bought was Anthony “Shake” Shakir – Revisionist’s Theory.

If this mix was an edible thing, what would it taste like?

Ew, what the fuck?

If it was an animal what would it be?

I recorded the mix very quietly as there was a cat sleeping nearby. I like it when a cat’s presence dictates the softness of tunes in a space.

One record in your collection that is impossible to mix into anything?

Everytime I try and blend this track by Shed I realise I need tracks with waaaaay more swing to make it work. Listening to this again now thinking fuck whyyy didn’t i put this in the mix goddamnit.

Upcoming in the world of…

The first of three releases I’m doing with Scissor & Thread dropped last month which is one of my tunes on the A and a Frank & Tony remix on the B. It’s one of my favourite labels. I’m very excited about the next one which will hopefully be out before the end of the year.

Anything else we need to discuss?

Ok bare with me but I literally TODAY just found out about this new form of natural sperm contraception called the Andro Switch (I promise they are not paying me for this) and it kinda blew my mind?? It’s more comfortable than it looks (apparently) – and you essentially put your dick n balls in a silicone ring for 15 hours a day for a few months and voila your sperm count naturally reduces. And if for some reason you want to bring a child into the world you just take it off and your count raises again. I think it’s only available in France but genuinely it looks kinda game-changing.