Y/N GUEST MIX 023 :: GOODNIGHT CODY

HAPPY NEW YEAR! It's 2015! Imagine that! We made it! We're still here! And to kick-start this year – whose numbers, if you're into numerology, add up to 8 (v lucky number) – we have an exclusive tasty guest mix from a producer whom I admire quite a bit. What a New Year's surprise this is!

First time I stumbled across music created by this man he went under the name Snorlax. As any good Pokémon fan, I followed my nose and leapt into his pool of music and found it to be like, well, just a delight, if I'm allowed to say so. Now creating music under Goodnight Cody, a moniker little closer to real life (his name is Cody Farwell) this producer and bass-player from Los Angeles creates music that at once introduces groove and atmosphere in scene-setting unions, tracks that jiggle your body and your mind at the same time – take, for instance, the wonder that is 'Full Count (Bases Loaded!)', it conjures an actual baseball game, a cartoony, Peanuts-esque baseball game. And that bass, right?!

And yes: he plays bass, has been since age 12, soon after realising he was "a horrible drummer" (which he started playing when he was 8). Then he started writing songs on guitar and piano at 15. "I've always been drawn to music," he tells me, "and I believe that is what started me to create it."

Coming from a punk background, the first electronic music that attracted him was that of Squarepusher; Cody "fell in love with his extreme sounds." Afterwards it was a case of "digging deeper and deeper for new sounds & styles, looking for inspiration."

After I asked nicely, he very kindly agreed to make a mix for YES/NO. And what a mix. Self-confessedly "constantly digging for timeless music from all over the world," it really shows in the collection he's put together for us.

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I think what continues to inspire me is the search for the perfect song for the perfect moment

CODY FARWELL

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"These tracks in the mix are very important to me," he explains, "as they are all by artists that have changed the way I perceive music." He tells me he never understood or enjoyed electro-pop until he heard Sonic Coaster Pop a few years back, and likewise with blues or gospel – "I didn't think [it] was very interesting, or that it would eventually change my life." He divulges it was listening to Blind Wille McTell that changed all that for him: "I found it to be an experience like no other."

This selection of music – "a good look" into the sounds Cody loves, an international hotch-potch ("I also love hearing a melody or an instrument and knowing what country or region it's from," he says) – is a pick-'n'-mix of wildly different flavours, from the soul-elating gospel of 'It's Been a Mighty Good Day', penned by Dr. Maceo Woods, and its sleepy, acoustic-guitar-laden neighbour 'Doçura Forte' by Brazilian singer Joyce, to the frenetic 'Amscray' by LA producer / boss of label Magical Properties, Daedelus, and the sugary hyperactivity of international J-pop phenomenon Perfume on their track 'ポイント'.

That's not to mention two gems from the brain of Yann Tomita, namely the heart-melting 'Some Day, That Place In Time' (by Doopees) and mix opener by Astro Age Steel Orchestra, 'Living Message From Pan Yard #2', or the v famous 1928 song 'Statesboro Blues' by Blind Willie McTell, or a spot of raï singing in 'El Fermlia' from Algerian artist Boutaiba Sghir – it's all lovingly patched together with Goodnight Cody's mixing skills, a mélange of seemingly disparate genres, jarring time periods and contrasting artists, all united with heart and soul.

So, now it's time for you to enjoy this, the longest mix ever made for Y/N! Have fun! :)

• T R A C K L I S T •

1. Astro Age Steel Orchestra - Living Message From Pan Yard #2
2. Sonic Coaster Pop - Spiral Neo Wave
3. Sonic Coaster Pop - SOCOPOGOGO
4. Gangpol & Mit - la comptine
5. Gorillaz - Dub Dumb
6. naivepop or petitfool - Chopstick Rest -休息は大事だよ-
7. Harpo Marx - They Say That Falling In Love Is Wonderful
8. 800 Cherries - Frozen
9. Hello Astronaut, Goodby Television - Masterpiece Backwards
10. Oleg Kostrow - Falling Dreams
11. Daedelus - Amscray
12. YMCK - 左折して右折して
13. Soundmurderer - Awamori
14. Bells Of Joy - There'll Be No More Sorrow
15. Perfume - ポイント
16. Boutaiba Sghir - El Fermlia
17. Itsutsu No Akai Fusen - I will kick a pebble
18. Squarepusher - Rebus
19. Hazel Nuts Chocolate - Kitten's Breaks Dub
20. Mount Kimbie - Maybes (James Blake Remix)
21. Blind Willie McTell - Statesboro Blues
22. Doopees - Some Day, That Place In Time
23. Sam Cooke - (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons
24. Dr. Maceo Woods - It's Been a Mighty Good Day
25. Joyce - Doçura Forte / Água e Luz

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• Mr Cody is a part of beat collective Team Supreme – go check 'em out!

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☟ Goodnight Cody Social Media Presence ☟
Facebook • SoundCloud • Bandcamp • Twitter

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DEAP VALLY BABY I CALL HELL

Fancy a rock band meeting at a needlework class in California. Fancy that. Well, that's exactly how the pair of people who make up Deap Vally met. How strange. Well actually not so strange because people have a lot of varied interests and needlework certainly isn't one of the weirdest.

Anyway, who cares. The girls of Deap Vally are Lindsey Troy, who guitars and sings, and Julie Edwards, who bangs the drums. They are rock rock rock. Their particular rock vibe is the stripped down rock style similar to White Stripes or Black Keys, fuzzy guitars and thumping drums, but with fearsome energetic vocals that scream as if from the heart of rock itself - a little Robert Plant, just a little one (haha), high and acrobatic.

I came across the video for their newest song 'Baby I Call Hell' like at the start of May, but why it slipped down my priority list I have no idea. Because I discovered it again today and loved it, all over again. I kept meaning to write but... just listen to the song and watch the kooky colourful lo-fi green screen glam-rock video.

It's a bad ass tune. Can I say bad ass? Does that make sense? I never write it, let alone say it, but I think it fits. But yeah, that's what it is. I love that guitar sound, barely any treble at all, just earthy and meaty and low, fuzzed and muffled to the max - and it's a great riff as well. Bluesy and catchy. It's a great sound overall - the amount of distorted earth-shaking noise you can get from a voice, a drum kit and a guitar eh?

The beat is one of those beats that you would just love to play on the drums (you know you would) and it seems as if Edwards is very much enjoying it - and usually if someone's enjoying what they're doing, and they're good at it, it turns out to be even better than if they were just going through the motions. Same with the singing, it's vocal-chord-stretchingly brilliant, properly belted out with all the soul. Get me? It's the passion of this song that shines through - not only does it sound good but it FEELS good yo.

And hey: Deap Vally's debut album Sistrionix is out 24th June.

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THE STRYPES BLUE COLLAR JANE

I was very surprised when I heard this last week. Yeah, I was watching Later... with Jools Holland last week and The Strypes came on. Now, I'd heard of them previously as a new band, mainly for the fact that they were very young and very good. For some reason or another though I never checked them out. It took their performance on Jools Holland's show to shake me out of my intertia and get writing about them; so here I am.

First of all, I can see why people were talking about them to begin with, why they were getting sessions on BBC Radio 6 Music and all that - they're well good. That's as simple as that. Talented fo sho. And that's no mean feat especially when you're aged between 15 and 17 years old (as all members of this Irish fourpiece are). Yes indeed, as Elton John - under whose wing, in the form of Rocket Music Management, the band is tucked under - said: "They have a knowledge of R&B and blues at 16 years of age that I have only amassed in my 65 years. They're just like a breath of fresh air."

Bit of a cliché, Elton, but yeah: a breath of fresh air is what they are. It's not often you get this kind of music done this well by a band so young. And shit me, they even LOOK like they're from the era of the music they so obviously love.

And so here is 'Blue Collar Jane'.

This is a rollocking track, a clashingly distorted guitar, a blues bassline and wild-yet-tamed drums thrash around a voice at once slightly slurring in its sound and filled with rockstar potential. Every ounce of this song gallops along at near breakneck speed, gets your heart dancing like it's been transplanted back to some sweaty basement club in the late '60s and surprises in how of-the-time it can sound in a so long-way-from-that-time era. A total revival, just like what The Jam did for that kinda stuff.

Could they be as big? Well they're helped a little by Elton, but the main thing is their music and that has to come only from their brains. Sure they can do covers just like The Rolling Stones did but the fact is that they aren't doing covers at the moment - it's original stuff. The only thing I would say is that old spiel of "it's been done before" yadda yadda what-the-eff-ever, who cares. It sounds good and it's a NEW band with NEW songs playing in an OLD style that people love anyway. What's not to like?

Clearly a lot say YouTube haters. "so boring and uninventive. the mod haircuts, the indoors sunglasses, the forced singing voice, the whole image... it's horrible, so horrible. and because they're kids, they're allowed to get away with it..." said one person. "slightly depressing seeing a covers mod band, making it big." said another. Yes they're young, and perhaps that is a part of it (maybe if the word 'impressionable' or 'malleable' comes into it; who's to judge), but for the moment: it sounds good. I like it.

How can people say that when tripe like One Direction captivates the world? Even themselves think old 1D is "manufactured candy floss pop." So there.

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