Fact Mix 868: mi-el

Mi-El turns in an irresistible session of formative music, ferocious club flames and some personal favourites, all as hot and humid as a 40-degree storm moving over London.

If you have so much as a little finger on the pulse of south London’s unfuckwithable club scene, chances are mi-el needs absolutely no introduction. As co-booker of south Bermondsey institution Venue MOT and one of the driving forces behind the livestream and party series Late Night Shopper, as well as the brains behinds the reliably incredible design for both organisations, mi-el’s impeccable sonic and aesthetic tastes have been instrumental in setting the vibes throughout the pandemic and post-plague celebrations. All this following stints in Leeds, where she had her first radio shows on Sable Radio, and Leipzig, where she fell in with the Music Of Color collective, playing on Radio Blau, at the Institut fuer Zukunft and at various queer and BIPOC squat collectives across the city. More recently she has lit up Corsica Studios, Keep Hush, NTS and HÖR Berlin during a whole host of exceptional sessions, regularly appearing alongside her Late Night Shopper partner-in-crime Allecto. For her Fact mix, mi-el turns in an irresistible session of formative music, ferocious club flames and some personal favorites, all as hot and humid as a 40-degree storm moving over London.

“I recently started using recorded mixes as a space to really delve into exploring all the different parts of what I guess you could call my musical identity,” mi-el explains. “This particular mix draws on music I heard growing up in Catholic schools and churches, my Congolese heritage, films I’ve watched and a selection of tracks by producers and performers who keep me excited about music and life in general.” Opening with an evangelical radio broadcast lifted from Soul Jazz Records’ Faith: A Message From The Spirits compilation and a contemplative note from Karl Frid’s OST for Pleasure, director Ninja Thyberg’s unflinching glance at workplace exploitation in the porn industry, mi-el sets the temperature with Vapauteen’s feverish technoid hallucinations, Objekt’s intricate alien dancehall stomp and the monsoon sizzle of Seven Orbits before unleashing a deluge of biblical proportions. Rowdy soundsystem shenanigans from Ploy, eviscerated bass experimentation from JK FLESH and a post-apocalyptic d&b shapeshifter from Diessa line the stomach for a ballroom obliterator from DJ Love, who chases that lethal combination Philadelphia and Jersey house, an abyssal dub excursion from Kellen303 and stroboscopic vocal chops from Osheyack’s high-velocity death rattle ‘Thrall’.

“When it comes to recording, I’m super lucky to be able to record my mixes at Venue MOT,” continues M

mi-el. “I usually spend about a week or so staying up late after work and playing things over and over until I find something that makes my heart sing.” Reaching the eye of the storm with field recordings of water drumming and night insects, Colour Plus’s radioactive ambient pressure and the hellscape theatrics of ‘Frankie Teardrop,’ we’re plunged back into the one-two haymaker of Walton’s ‘Rush’ and ZULI’s ‘Basseous,’ the horrorshow screams and military-grade percussive bludgeons of the former beating us into submission for the garbled hiccups and drum machine dissociation of the latter. Emerging drenched, with sweat and warm rain, a wry wink from Johnnie Frierson brings us back down to earth, a welcome break for reflection amidst the summer party schedule. “Honestly, whenever I play I want to create a journey,” concludes mi-el. “I want to make people think and feel new things and go to new places. I suppose I do this so that I can feel it all too.”

You can find mi-el on SoundCloud and Instagram.

Tracklist:

Faith – ‘USA Radio Broadcast’ (Faith: A Message From The Spirits)
Karl Frid – ‘Ignis Tartari’ [Feat. Caronline Gentele] (Pleasure OST)
Vapauteen – ‘Drawing Blood From A Stone’
Objekt – ‘Ballast’
Tzusing & Hodge – ‘LCD’ (Estoc’s TFW Your Name Is Written On The Ostrakon Remix)
Pilo – ‘Adapt Tactics’
Seven Orbits – ‘Tallinn’
Giant Swan – ’55 Year Old Daughter’
Ploy – ‘Stinky’
Blastto – ‘Terrorcorp’
JK FLESH – ‘Kontorted’
Diessa – ‘Day After The Last Day’
DJ Love – ‘Dance Master’
Kellen303 – ‘Pinehearse’
Osheyack – ‘Thrall’
Sstrom – ‘Solid Residue’
Unknown – ‘Water Drumming’
Space Afrika – ‘Kitty’
Unknown – ‘Bayaka Night Insects’
Colour Plus – ‘3’
Frankie Teardrop – ‘Suicide’
Walton – ‘Rush’
ZULI – ‘Bassous’
Marginal Men – ‘Footworkzzzz’ [Feat. Omulu]