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PHILIP MARSHALL

Goodbye 2009. For me and many people I know this year has been, more than usual, a year of extremes – peaks and valleys, disruption and elemental change. Oftentimes blindingly positive, occasionally bitingly harsh. Mid-October, my dear friend Finn mailed me, introducing Rayna. An invite. Loved Modyfier, of course; glad to accept! Three days later I was sitting on a grey train speeding through Belgian rain to attend the funeral of a former lover in Antwerp. In the interim I programmed a rough version of this mix and this first bare-bones sketch sound-tracked what turned out to be the most strangest of weekends...

That Antwerp visit was spent in the closest company of Gerard; he filled my blank bleak mindset with music and art; phrases rendered in neon at a Ceryth Wyn Evans installation (“In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni”) burnt into my mind. We watched Jack Smith's joyous “Normal Love” and I decided to splice its woozy nth generation VHS soundtrack into it all. On my return, I decided to restructure said sketched sequence, focussing on the work of colleagues, collaborators and friends, adding in tracks gifted to me during the past twelve months by those I love. Quite by accident, a composition of my own sat centrally – recorded a year ago for a friend in Berlin who has since moved on, whilst I was leaving Paris, retreating to London.

To call this a mix is pushing a point. Not a DJ, see – much more an editor. Maybe best think of it like scanning the airwaves; late-night radio. These tracks were finally (re)arranged in mid-November, recorded in four passes, then compiled in Logic. Sometimes you are hearing up to eight tracks, layered. It's quite dark in places and intentionally dumb in others. I guess it's about movement, space and claustrophobia – trying to make those contrasts heard. Why do I like sounds intermingling like this? Because I like to try to connect all the disparate parts of my life, my friendships, my work. Falling forwards from one experience to the next, headfirst! I particularly like the end section, which has made my neighbour bang angrily against the walls...

I sit here in London in late November writing these notes. The record covers I have been designing these past weeks are all copyrighted 2010. Falling into the future. Keep travelling forwards, not forgetting lessons learned. Goodbye 2009.

(This sequence is dedicated to Manu, who would've no doubt not much liked it and preferred me to have made a 7am-at-Berghain kinda mix for him!)


philip marshall - process part 175 by modyfier

01. Portsmouth Sinfonia - Also Sprach Zarathustra op.31
02. BJ Nilsen - Gotland
03. Ryoji Ikeda - Headphonics 0:0
04. Chris Watson - Quelja Mine
05. Daníel Ágúst - Someone Who Swallowed A Star
06. Clara Rockmore - Valse Sentimentale
07. Rachel Sweet - Wildwood Saloon
08. Oren Ambarchi / Lasse Marhaug - Devil Wolf Men
09. Tony Conrad - Extracts from the soundtrack to Jack Smith's “Normal Love”
10. Tyrannosaurus Rex - Wind Quartets
11. Henry Flynt - Blue Sky, Highway And Tyme
12. Brian Gulland & Frank Ricotti - Journey
13. The Percussion Research Ensemble - Trance Formations
14. Souls on Board - Hole
15. Hildur Guðnadóttir - Erupting Light
16. Derek Jarman - "Is that actually going? It really is…"
17. BJ Nilsen - Viking North
18. Philip Marshall - Ghost
19. Jana Winderen - Drift
20. Stephen O'Malley - Petite Géante
21. David Sylvian - A Fire in the Forest
22. A.C. Marias A.C. - So
23. Alfred Schnittke - O Thee, the sovereign of everything existing, who gives us precious gifts
24. Akira Rabelais - Gorgeous curves lovely fragments labyrinthed on occasions entwined charms, a few stories at any longer sworn to gathered from a guileless angel and the hilt edges of old hearts, if they do in the guilt of deep despondency.
25. Mika Vainio - Behind The Radiators
26. Nana April Jun - Sun Wind Darkness Eye
27. Philip Jeck - All That's Allowed
28. Panasonic - Minus 25
29. Shed - Ostrich-Mountain-Square
30. Nana April Jun - The One Substance
31. Roxy Music - In Every Dream Home A Heartache