FSQ [FUNK STYLE QUALITY] SELECTIONS_004

The idea of our FSQ Selections mix for Paradise ULTD is to have a living musical document of the most current new releases each month of each year so we can go back and remember what was new and fresh. No more looking through old playlists or digging through file timestamps to remember songs we may have shuffled away too quickly or passed over. While this monthly mix is really for us only, capturing a vibe at a particular time, we think the listener will appreciate the sonic journey.

The volume of amazing new music coming out each month is beyond comprehension in 2016. In our youth, maybe you’d buy 10 12″ mixes on vinyl a month, plus maybe 5 more full lenght albums. Ok wait, so maybe the volume between then and now isn’t that much different at all actually doing the math. But the curation process was a little different – no streaming. We used to get the Face from the UK, cut out all the new album and single advertisements out of the magazine. Then we’d go and buy those records from places like Sound of Market or 3rd Street Jazz and Rock in Philadelphia on the strength of cover art, reviews and music videos.

We want to re-create that experience of curation we had when we were young. Back then too, in the early 80s, there were no genre boundaries – everything was just cool and funky. We were playing Yello, Cabaret Voltaire, and Blancmange right along side Prince, Cameo, George Clinton records. Our mixes today for Paradise ULTD reflects this non-genre specific sensibility around picking good funky music.

Today in 2016, we spend hours each day scouring so many reviews in the magazines (a la DJ Mag, Mixmag) and online XLR8R, SoundCloud, a dozen of sources we can’t probably remember to come up on new music for our montlhy mixes. Also, we look to record labels to help steer us to the music we know we will like.

Being signed to Soul Clap Records, FSQ can start there with the label’s Crew Love promo service which also rolls up the sister label, Wolf + Lamb. The Crew Love folks are sending us something new once a month so we have a base there to stat with. Then there are our producer friends who may give us a taste of their unreleased material. We usually try to wait for these jams to come out properly before dumping them into our Paradise ULTD mixes, just for protocol’s sake but there are other times, where jeez if you put a major heavy new jam in a NTS Live or BBC Radio mix, we will rip that right out of a stream and put it in ours! W

We may also crib from someone like Ben Gomori’s Turned on Podcast. Really a myriad of amazing sources to come up something really fresh. We hope our favorite labels add us to their promo services. For instance, we turn to Nang Records for amazing disco output, Spirit Soul Records for more Balearic house stuff, Cherries Records for the boogie funk, Bastard Jazz is always on point with something soulful. Record labels send us your monthly promos!! [email protected] ! We hope this monthly mix is a great way to support independent labels.

In our monthly FSQ Selections, we also always put one or two old school tracks from our library of music we have been curating for 30 years. We roll up all of our selections too into a separate SoundCloud playlist on FSQOfficial, but you may not find those older tracks on the playlist.