Madison’s Ankur Malhotra shares part of a whimsical DJ set he recently spun at the Madison Children’s Museum.
Photo by Prashant Kurup.
Ankur Malhotra plays a lot of roles in Madison music—show booker, photographer, co-founder and co-manager of the India-based Amarrass Records label, occasional music blogger, and, as DJ Spincycle, vinyl-obsessed spinner of all manner of sounds, but heavy on the electronic and the international. When I heard last month that Malhotra would be DJing a set of electronic music and bug sounds for the August 28 installment of Madison Children Museum’s popular Adult Swim after-hours series, I decided I needed to have that documented for posterity. He was kind enough to record the first hour and 10 minutes of the set and share it with us for our guest mix series. His next DJ gig will be opening up on Saturday at the Willy Street Fair’s electronic stage. The mix is below, with notes and a track list from Malhotra.
“The event featured craft brew pairings with edible insect foods such as crickets, mealworms and and superworms, hence the theme for the set. The idea for the set was inspired by my Friday Buzz live sets on WORT 89.9FM, where the Bike Traffic Report is typically preceded with a variation of a Kraftwerk Tour de France track(s), sometimes with sounds of humpback whales, or Superman, or chirping birds, depending on the show’s theme.
“This is the first hour or so of a 3+ hour vinyl only set I played at MCM, outdoors during a torrential downpour, and features some of my favorite dub/techno artists, along with some goodies I have picked up on my travels, and obscure, esoteric stuff. and of course, plenty of Kraftwerk and bug sounds!”
Tracklist:
1) DC12 (Remastered) – Deepchord: Echospace Archival Edition (2012 Echospace)
2) Environments – Racker & Orphan: Sounds of Insects (2015 Hood Faire)
3) Autobahn – Kraftwerk: Autobahn (1974/2009 Klingklang Parlophone)
4) The Flight of the Bumblebee – Ruth White: Short Circuits (1971 Angel Records)
5) Tanzmusik – Kraftwerk: Ralf and Florian (1973 Philips)
6) Environments – Racker & Orphan: Sounds of Insects (2015 Hood Faire)
7) Vitamin – Kraftwerk: Tour de France Soundtracks (2003 EMI)
8) Too Many Kids Finding Rain in the Dust – Nicolas Jaar: Space is Only Noise (2011 Circus Company)
9) Formula Dub – Den Sorte Skole III (2014 artist self released)
10) The Killer Bees – Superman (1977 Peter Pan Records)
11) Alles Gute – Pole (12″) (2008 ~scape)
