Throughout my seven years writing and curating on ASIP, every now and then I stumble across an artist that introduces me to a new music style and opens up an entire rabbit hole of discovery. It's why I love doing this; maybe it's a self-preservation thing; a perpetual cycle of discovery and education; but it's artists like Nick Huntington and his aliases that keep me searching.
You may know Nick as one half Freescha - that warm, analogue, bubbly electronica duo (alongside Michael McGroarty) I've talked about for years on here, responsible for superb albums such as Kids Fill The Floor, and Head Warlock Double Stare, which contains one of my favorite electronica tracks (an example of just how much I enjoy Freescha). Talking of favorites, Nick also released music as Christmas Lights, the only album to stem from that name so far, but an absolutely beautiful piece for anyone into warm, downtempo synthesizer focused music.
Nick is also behind, Attacknine, alongside Erik Alwill, a California based label born to release Freescha music, that's ultimately gone on to be an extremely well-respected underground electronica outfit including artists such as Casino Versus Japan.
But it's Nick's more recent, strobe filled, colorful, outer-space themed soundtrack alias Night Sequels that's jumped aboard the isolatedmix rocket. Nick just released teasers and pre-orders for his debut album, The Children Of the Night Make Music, and it's a warm summers evening jam through a spectrum of psychedelic light. It's Freescha on acid, which is sure to be nothing short of astounding if you know and enjoy Freescha. And now, we're lucky enough to get a taste of the hallucinogenic drones, dream-drifting vocals and never-ending filtered warp-holes with Nick's isolatedmix. Featuring music he outright enjoys and previously unreleased Night Sequels tracks and remixes, isolatedmix 56 is another very special addition to the series, with Nick also taking the time to talk us through his selections in glorious detail below.
Never has the artwork been truer to the music in this mix too - take a seat in a dark room, whilst the kaleidoscope of color from the outside world and a small breeze, seeps through the dusty windows. As Nick quotes, "turn out the lights, touch your volume knob, and turn it up".
Tracklist:
01. Jerry Goldsmith - Outland Main Titles
02. Claudio Gizzi - Old Age For Dracula
03. Queen - In The Space Capsule (Love Theme)
04. Steve Moore - 248 Years
05. Philip D'Aram - La Valse Grinçante
06. Gary Numan - Down In The Park (Night Sequels Tweak)
07. Night Sequels - All Cats Are Grey (Previously Unreleased)
08. Night Sequels - Mainstreet Meltdown (Previously Unreleased)
09. Black Moth Super Rainbow - Psychic Love Damage (Night Sequels Remix Mk. II) (Previously Unreleased)
10. Brian Grainger - Swamp Bike (Re-synthesized by Night Sequels) (Previously Unreleased)
11. The Beach Boys - Feel Flows (Night Sequels Treatment)
12. Night Sequels - Star Car Bizarre (Previously Unreleased)
13. Valentyn Silvestrov - Der Bote
14. Tones On Tail - Rain
15. Schubert - Trio in E-flat (Drenched)
You can pre-order Night Sequels' new album here, containing the usual brilliant Attack Nine colored vinyl + tshirt combos.
Tracknotes:
Jerry Goldsmith - Outland Main titles
What can I say, he's amazing. One of my favorite composers, perfectly capturing the vast isolation of space.
Claudio Gizzi - Old Age For Dracula
From Paul Morrissey's Blood For Dracula. Mike and I (Freescha) are big fans. The whole score is great, as well as his score for Flesh For Frankenstein. Incidentally, they've just been reissued on vinyl by Dagored.
Queen - In The Space Capsule (Love Theme)
There is no Freescha without Flash Gordon. I remember sitting in the theater watching this movie as a little kid, and in particular this scene. The beautifully eerie synths, billowing clouds of colors, and subtly erotic staging left a big impression on me. Dream Zone 101.
Steve Moore - 248 Years
I stumbled across this record a few years ago. Somewhere, this is the music to a New Age of my fantasies. From the album "Primitive Neural Pathways". Steve Moore Bandcamp.
Philip D'Aram - La Valse Grinçante
From Jean Rollin's film "Fascination". I was watching this movie on repeat around the time of recording Freescha's "Kids Fill The Floor". I was in love with the music. It haunted my nights in the Fall of 2000.
Gary Numan - Down In The Park (Night Sequels Tweak)
The Ruler.
Night Sequels - All Cats Are Grey (Cure cover, Previously Unreleased)
Still my favorite Cure song of all time.
Night Sequels - Mainstreet Meltdown (Previously Unreleased)
A Bob Seger cover. I remember being a little kid, in the back of some friend's car, their parents driving us home at night, and hearing Bob Seger's "Main Street" come on the radio. I seem to hear this song on the radio more now than I did then. It was always a treat when it would come on. I thought the guitar lead was so dreamy, and perfectly captured this feeling of sadness-happiness-yearning. I've been addicted to this feeling in music since I can remember.
Black Moth Super Rainbow - Psychic Love Damage (Night Sequels Remix Mk. II) (Previously Unreleased)
In 2013 Tom (aka TOBACCO) from Black Moth Super Rainbow asked if I'd like to remix a track off of their album Cobra Juicy for a remix album*. I chose Psychic Love Damage, and you can currently hear the remix on Soundcloud. I liked how the remix turned out, and thought for this mix, it might be interesting to try and do a remix of the remix. Turns out, it's not interesting. BUT this alternate remix did come out of that attempt, and I like this one too. *(release date of this album still unknown)
Brian Grainger - Swamp Bike (Re-synthesized by Night Sequels)
A previously unreleased remix. I have a few incarnations of this, but this one works best for this ASIP mix I think. The original version of "Swamp Bike" is on Brian Grainger's awesome "Highschool Guitar", and was also released as a digital single.
The Beach Boys - Feel Flows (Night Sequels Treatment)
As awesome as Brian Wilson is, Dennis and Carl were just as great in their own right. "Feel Flows" was written by the late greats Carl Wilson and Jack Rieley, with Carl singing, and it's a great example of classic Beach Boys piano bass work that I hear pop up in my own playing from time to time..
My dad played a lot of Beach Boys when I was a kid. He had all sorts of rarities on reel-to-reel tapes, bootleg vinyl (if my memory serves), and cassettes. This was long before a lot of this stuff became available in box sets. There were no CDs yet. The only way to hear this stuff was to find a friend of a friend of a friend who knew a guy that heard of another guy that knew someone who had some unreleased Beach Boys session recordings.
So I may have heard this song when I was a tyke. But the first time it made an impression on me and turned me on to a whole era of the Beach Boys that was, for the time (and possibly still is), forgotten, was in the Summer of 1995, when it came on the radio late one night. It blew my mind, and I immediately had to know who it was, but the DJ never said. I had a feeling it was the Beach Boys because the voice sounded familiar and the way the bass notes moved around on the piano, I thought the odds were pretty good it was them. But since I had no idea what it was called, I didn't have a recording of it, and I didn't know the lyrics, it became very difficult to track down. What made it harder (I would later learn) was that in '95, the albums from this era of The Beach Boys were all out of print on CD and very hard to find, so when I would listen to their CDs at used record shops, this song would never turn up on any of the them. So I started scouring Salvation Armys and Goodwills, buying any Beach Boys vinyl that I hadn't come across on CD. I started to doubt that it was even the Beach Boys. Maybe some other band that sounded similar? Who could that be?
And then eventually, after months and months of searching through The San Fernando Valley, I found a ratty ass copy of "Surf's Up".
And Low.
And Behold.
When I flipped it to the B-Side.
There it was in all it's the glory. The song I'd been looking for. The feeling of elation when those sweet sweet sounds came out of my speakers I'll never forget.
And thats's my Beach Boys story.
Here it is for you with a little treatment from me, but it's pretty spacey and flange-y even without it.
I hope you dig as much as I do.
Night Sequels - Star Car Bizarre (Previously Unreleased)
A little jammy I put together that also mixed well coming out of The Beach Boys.
Valentyn Silvestrov - Der Bote
From "Der Bote - Elegies For Piano " by Alexi Lubimov. Things like this make me sad that one day I will never hear it again.
Tones On Tail - Rain
If there is no Freescha without Flash Gordon, I think I speak for Mike and myself when I say there is definitely no Freescha (or Night Sequels) without Tones On Tail. When Mike and I met in high school, Tones On Tail were an endless source of inspiration for us. They have the perfect sound palette: a balance of weirdness and pop, cool synth sounds and strange guitars.
Fridays after school, Mike and I would usually drown in the pool during a water polo game, then go to his house and jam in his family's band room for hours, miking everything through delay pedals, and playing "A Forest" and "Bela Lugosi's Dead" nonstop for hours. Then we'd crash out, usually listening to Tones On Tail's "Rain". I remember lying on the floor listening to this, staring up at the shadows on the ceiling and thinking how cool it would be to be able to record music like this.
There's still nothing that sounds like them.
Schubert - Trio in E-flat (Drenched)
A recording from the 1983 film "The Hunger". This film had a big impact on me. I love everything about it. Impeccable style. Neon classical. And the Bauhaus segment in the beginning was a life changing moment, it was that impactful on my musical and visual sensibilities. A nice place to end this set.
