I know you know

Look, you know I love indulging in all the discourse-about-discourse, where things are always unstable and contingent, and any traffic in words necessarily entails ongoing negotiation over their meanings. This constitutes a whole terrain of struggle, to be sure, and the labour that goes into understanding is a beautiful thing. But let's not confuse process for results: we're here to work, and we've got to be clearer on what all these words help us actually accomplish, both in our heads and out in the world. Because if you're not careful, the newspapers will have you believing the real front lines are in language – rather than in Palestine, or on the Yintah, or in the kitchen or the hospital or the warehouse.

Let's remember, for example, per Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes, that "If spitting horrifying facts at people changed minds and built movements, we would have overthrown the capitalist system long ago, because the facts have always been on our side." It's not just about what we know, but how we put that into practice: the meanings we generate and the knowledges we produce aren't as important as how they're mobilized and deployed. Let's also remember that the potential meaning of any statement will be conditioned (if not determined) by the discourse(s) that frame its expression, not just the words in themselves. Again, that's an invitation to think not just about what's being said – or better yet, what's being known – but why.

Old theory dudes would have us believe that meaning derives primarily from differentiation: a given signifier is only meaningful in relation to that which it is not, positioned within a whole field of other signifiers. But of course "difference," broadly, has a history and a politics, and this vision of ultimate relativity can obfuscate the very real power relations that underwrite and structure the entire encounter. What we're after is agency, and "The problem with Foucault, to put it brusquely" says Stuart Hall, "is a conception of difference without a conception of articulation, that is, a conception of power without a conception of hegemony."

Now, that Audre Lorde line about the master's tools is all well and good, but if you dig a little deeper, she takes up much more than whether or not we should be engaging with mainstream media or whatever. "Difference," she says, "must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic. Only then does the necessity for interdependency become unthreatening. Only within that interdependency of different strengths, acknowledged and equal, can the power to seek new ways of being in the world generate, as well as the courage and sustenance to act where there are no charters." It's about the ways in which power differentials necessarily structure the ways we're able to produce and organize knowledge about the world, but more pointedly about strategies towards breaking through that: towards building a genuine collective subject through coalition, without treating difference as something to be overcome.

What I'm trying to get to is this: what do we do with all this will to "radicalism" that's floating around lately? We all know that the institutionalization and incorporation of once-critical perspectives and/or countermovements into the machinery of the system itself is the very lifeblood of liberal democracy – it's what keeps everyone going in to work while the catastrophes continue to pile up, and obviously this is something we need to resist. But on the other hand, we also know how putative radicalism can effectively function as a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card: it can enable a retreat from the exigencies of actual material life and a disavowal of any responsibility to engage with the social structures that mediate daily existence for the vast majority of human beings – effectively another variation on idealism (our great enemy), and it's clearly not going to save us. This is the challenge we've always been trying to confront, of course: how to chart a path towards the scale of change we need, rooted in the daily struggles of the people most intensely exploited and dispossessed by things as they actually are, while resisting attempts at recuperation.

So yes, of course, don't let all this horror lead you to despair, and yes, of course, we need to get at "the roots" of the thing, and yes, of course, we need to build movements (I agonized over whether to pluralize that) that people can see themselves in. But what can it really even mean to imagine something as "radical" in this moment – that which is not "liberal," the remedy to "reformism"? Can it effectively describe a set of tactics, or a political framework, or an organizational form, or a movement's trajectory? Does it mean we continue to call for genuine decolonization, for a complete overhaul of the postwar economic and geopolitical order, while the liberals do the work of getting people housed and fed in the present? Really, what are we trying to do here?

Anyways, here's some rules:

1. Listen more than you speak, read more than you write, ask more questions than you answer. But don't show up empty-handed.
2. Power, as such, is not a bad thing. It's not something we seek to eliminate from the world – that's impossible – but to reclaim and redistribute. It's not about being right, it's about winning.
3. We're passing the event horizon, I know you know. Don't fucking give up.

Okay, here's some songs. I'm trying something a little different this time, which is to say this mix may lend itself as well to listening on your feet as on the couch (typically my preferred listening posture, as you know). Bear with me?

First off, Chicago trio Purelink break the ice with a spacious drift of gauzy synth and elevator-shaft reverb, grounded by a steady but unhurried bass pulse that gently starts the whole thing moving. Then it's Tunisian-Cambodian producer Azu Tiwaline – “A master in the dark arts of percussion” according to RA – with “Long Hypnosis,” from her 2023 LP The Fifth Dream. Its precise construction – as much a meditation on sonic world-building as a proper song in itself, really – belies an almost feral energy running underneath, never quite rattling the control Tiwaline holds over all the moving parts (while certainly still showing its teeth). Stage set, next it’s on to the proper bass with Englishman Joy Orbison’s hip-hop adjacent and really just impossibly cool “bernard?” I was only introduced to this one just a couple of weeks ago, when we spent the first (late) night of my fortieth year lying on the floor listening to records, a handful of incredibly dear friends arrayed around the room making me feel pretty fucking lucky; if I'm honest this whole mix is really just about chasing after that high. To that end, next it’s the first of a few oldies I’ve indulged here, in this case a cut from Arca’s classic 2015 LP Mutant (an absolutely essential record if you’re not already familiar). “Front Load” is a slightly more straightforward passage relative to the rest of what’s admittedly not the most accessible record ever produced (though I’d nonetheless count it among the smartest); it’s not particularly flashy, but as effortlessly groovy and richly textured as her diva-era work, and rooted in the same sort of sexy, traumatized, post-human queerness that defines her whole oeuvre. One day, FYI, I will write my devastating essay about “Desafio” and it will make you all cry, so stick around.

Up next is a selection from back then i didn't but now i do, the latest from Miami producer Jonathan Trujillo under his Jonny From Space moniker. "Luna Dance" anchors a wash of buoyant, spacey blips to a propulsive and muscular flurry of organic live drum textures and bass pulses that seems to expand and contract as though refracting through a kaleidoscope. As Mr. Sherburne writes, "For all the simplicity of [Trujillo's] arrangements, they’re sneakily crafted: The beats twist up in ways you don’t expect, giving even his most relaxed cuts an unsettling air, as though everything could fall apart without warning." Then it's a blast of driving and hypnotic minimal house from The Field, the longstanding solo project of Berlin’s Alex Willner. He's an expert at stretching simple loops into elegant and enthralling long-form compositions, and though "Divide Now" demands a bit of space to fully breathe, I feel like it's very much worth the investment. Next it’s “Understand,” from Nigeria’s Omah Lay, rising star of the contemporary West African Afrobeats scene. This morning I learned that pluralizing that latter term denotes some aesthetic distance from earlier forms of Afrobeat pioneered in Nigeria in the 1960s and 1970s, this newer genre casting a wider net in terms of influences and I’d dare say leaning more into pop sensibilities than the jazz and psych you can hear in the work of someone like Fela Kuti. I’m not going to pretend I’m adequately literate in this kind of music to say anything profound, but the sweet spot Omah Lay hits here between taut, propulsive rhythm and low light, a bit of horniness and a lot of introspection, feels pretty magical to my ears. The beat then continues into “Play” from London-based artist and producer Alewya, wherein things get a bit more fluid and intuitive and sensual, playful indeed though not without a bit of danger in the mix as well. Many thanks to Anna M for the introduction to this one.

With New York-based producer Despina, next, the rhythm section get a little more aggressive. Their latest EP Fire from Heat (released in October), was the result of a search “for their voice as a trans, non-binary person in a country continuously stripping the rights of their trans siblings,” and bearing this in mind – and this is quite a reach, I know – somehow “Trickle Down Baby” feels to me of a piece with “Well Fed Fuck,” though here referring as much to the labour of performing gender (and gendered labour specifically) as to that of the white-collar everyman evoked in Born Against's rendition. Maybe that's just a ridiculous line to draw, but in any case this track is a banger. It’s followed by eminent Ramallah beatmaker Muqata’a with “Tanafur,” a single he originally released in 2016, where woozy, staccato bass stabs rumble against a polyrhythmic percussive shuffle and impressionistic string and key samples. Like most of his work, it threatens to disintegrate at any moment, imbuing the whole thing with a very human sense of urgency and purpose. Next it's another one from awe-inspiring Egyptian-Montrealer Nadah El Shazly. “Banit,” which puts her breathy vocals right out front to demonstrate a truly stunning level of precision and control, was released as a single last year, teasing her next full length LP (which I’m told will drop later this year). She’s playing at PHI on March 21 if you’re in town, by the way. And then because phew, why the fuck not, I’m throwing in “Pass This On” by The Knife, like we’re a bunch of 20-year-olds paying $250/month to live on the Plateau. An absolute classic, of course, as well as the subject of one of the great music videos of our times (remember music videos?!). Next up is Rival Consoles, which is to say London producer Ryan Lee West, who uses angular, metallic techno aesthetics to create work that still ends up feeling as close to post-rock as to dance music. “Eventually,” a highlight from his 2022 LP Now Is, feels a bit like what the dreams of friendly robots might sound like (if there were such a thing as friendly robots, that is).

As we approach the finish line, there's another oldie from the vaults, courtesy of Voices From the Lake, a collaboration between Italian producers Donato Dozzy and Neel. “Circe + S.T.” was issued as part of VFtL’s self-titled double LP released in 2012, though they’ve since released a reworked version of the album which seems to have replaced the original’s footprint on the internet; the excerpt included here is less than half of the original track’s 14-minute run time, and I’d highly recommend checking that out if you want to get the full experience of this really exemplary piece of sublime, subtle ambient techno. And finally, things close out with Dawuna’s “Foreshadowing,” a sort of world-weary supplication before the mounting darkness, both unsettled and unsettlingly groovy, on point for the current moment, I think. I’ve been hyping up his glorious 2021 LP Glass Lit Dream since it was introduced to me last year (thanks Don!), and it’s still blowing just about everything else I’ve heard since right out of the water, so do give that whole thing a listen if you haven’t yet.

Okay that's it!

• MP3: 24/03 - I know you know.zip

• Mixcloud: I know you know

NB: I've included the folder of discrete MP3s as usual, though for this one I really recommend listening to the whole set properly mixed, so I've included that in the zip file as an extra hour-long MP3 for your convenience (and of course it's on Mixcloud as well).

Okay thanks thanks, and as always, please don't be shy if you've got any thoughts on this, or want to call me on some shit, or modify the rules, or whatever else really. I'm around.

xo, graham