THE COLLECTOR'S GUIDE - Music from the streets

The tension felt on the streets is as inspiring as ever. Don't leave home without this playlist.

DANIEL BELL
“PHREAK”
(BLIP, BLURP, BLEEP)
Not only is Dan Bell so the guy you’d want to run into if you were lost and frantic in dodgy backstreets in need of some calm, friendly and clear directions, but his signature hard-to-define abstract ghetto funk would sound so damn fine played on a streetcorner ghettoblaster.

VELVET UNDERGROUND
“WAITING FOR THE MAN”
(THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO)
A raspy voiced Lou Reed singing about “26 dollars in my hand…so sick and dirty, more dead than alive” makes you realise street-scenes are not all about lovely days and children smiling. Waxy faced, clammy types on street corners waiting to get down with the brown are all part of it too.

CURTIS MAYFIELD
“LITTLE CHILD RUNNIN WILD”
(SUPERFLY)
With this sweet-sounding track on the film score to quintessential blaxploitation flic, ‘superfly’, Mayfield totally ruins the glamour of cocaine-fuelled street machismo with a tale of psychological misery and heartache.

GRANDMASTER FLASH
“THE MESSAGE”
(GRANDMASTER FLASH AND THE FURIOUS FIVE)
This is stating the obvious, but how on a rough day in the city when you’re walking through broken glass and piss-fumed stairs can you stop the soundtrack in your mind from breaking into “. .it’s like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under…”?

N.W.A
“FUCK THA POLICE”
(STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON)
Ok, so we don’t live in south-central, but if you want a little taste without so much risk, check out N.W.A. gangsta rap originators, these ‘Niggaz With Attitude’ got themselves blacklisted by the FBI with this tune. Pretty damn street.

DJ ASSAULT
“DICK BY THE POUND”
(MR. MUTHAFUKKA)
It’s an office concensus: if we were dudes and had a fully pimped-out ride we’d be doing laps of the hood, pounding, pumping and banging out this track on our woofers, scaring all the little kids and turning on all the hot ladeeeez – sorry, are we getting carried away?

AUTECHRE
“SURRIPERE”
(DRAFT 7.30)
To get in touch with the longing and eroticism that flows in the undercurrents of the bleak and bitter-cold winter streetscapes, take a sunday walk to the nearest industrial area and let Autechre on your oversized padded headphones warm the ears and soul.

BABY FORD
“SATELLITE STROLL”
(CITY STREETS MIX)
Deep minimal techno. subtle and dark urban emotions. The perfect city street soundtrack. Well, in Berlin at least.

THE CLASH
“POLICE AND THIEVES”
(THE CLASH)
This remains one of the best songs to sum up the feelings of unrest that existed on Britain’s streets in the 80’s, plus the reggae guitar in it was an inspired choice. Now it’s as potent as ever with certain lyrics having a new dark relevancy – “Police, police, police and thieves oh yeah/Here come.../the station is bombed/get out, get out...you people/If you don't wanna get blown up“.

NICKODEMUS AND MARIANO
“TURNTABLES ON THE HUDSON VOL.4”
This album mix presents a glimpse into the ongoing Nyc parties happening since 1998. It’s a kind of a rare and unusual mix of samba grooves, afrobeats and other soulful sounds that seem to connect the streets of New York to Brazil or Senegal. A cosmopolitan city street utopia.

By Viktoria Pelles