Sharp FM 014: Prince Language for Drops
For our latest mix, one of NYC's premier underground DJs forgoes the dance floor for an unexpected hour of transcendent beauty—but don't worry, he's also headlining our first Sharp FM party in NYC, which promises to be a body-moving affair, just in time for the holidays!
For our latest mix, one of NYC's premier underground DJs forgoes the dance floor for an unexpected hour of transcendent beauty—but don't worry, he's also headlining our first Sharp FM party in NYC, which promises to be a body-moving affair, just in time for the holidays!
Last December, our friend Bianca Lexis set the bar with her Winter Solstice mix—our first proper Sharp FM release—and now, another friend of the studio, Prince Language, rounds out the year with an hour of unexpected beauty. We've spent long afternoons at his Brooklyn home, drinking his navy strength coldbrew while poring over rare books and listening to rarer records that span genre, time, and feeling; so we knew a mix like this was possible, coming from him. But for those who only know Prince Language for his incredible dance sets in New York and abroad will find themselves moved in other ways. For the occasion, Sharp Type's My-Lan Thuong started a sketch that, unsurprisingly, turned into a proper typeface—the inky, rhythmic Drops—while Lucas Sharp's bold expansion of his unreleased Fraktur offers counterpoint and further illumination.
"The constituent pieces of music on this mix have long been held in my memory, and made indelible by their palpable effect, sheer beauty, and the transcendence that they seem to imply. It's been decades since I've made a mix in this vein, and while it's a detour from the dancefloor, I'd love to imagine someone moving to this. When assembling it, I thought about the elision of surfaces, texture, fictive aural spaces curving, languorous and drifting. Above all, "emotion" that eludes the maudlin. A resistance to representation that instead emphasizes the specificity of feeling. Smudges. A progression of music that might loosely tether one to a meditation, or just be a whisper and atmosphere. Either way, a salve, and a bit of sustenance and healing, at a time which pleads for any of that. I hope this helps." —Prince Language
Tracklist
Harold Budd - Nove AlberiBlue Cassette - Andrew ThomasPataphysical - Dream RevealPopp - SalbnußIury Lech - BarrerasK. Leimer - Assemble And DiffuseRaymond Richards - Denton, TexasDaniel Lanois feat. Rocco DeLuca - SatieNeu! - NovemberDaryl Hall - The Farther Away I AmCharles Lloyd - KotaJacqueline Humbert & David Rosenboom - How Much Better if Plymouth Rock Had Landed on the Pilgrims (Section VIII, excerpt)
Taking Tiger Mountain
