Barry Can't Swim - LateNightTales

The Late Night Tales mix series turns 25, with a mix by Barry Can’t Swim, the scottish DJ specializing in lush downtempo works; the mix includes various obscurities, and some new works by BCS himself, outtakes and unreleased cuts from earlier in his career, and a new single

FCC on 3, rest is clean; quite varied in what we got here, take your pick


1. [Jackson Mico Milas] (1:48) *** Soft piano, woozy beachy; sax, some faint voices -- vague and romantic
2. [Majid Bekkas & Magic Spirit Quartet] (5:39) ***** Echoes of soft smooth jazz over beachy jazz bass and percussion: vocals in Moroccan, emphatic, aching energy with a midtempo groove
3. FCC -- "fuckin'" [Jesse Bru] (2:11) *** Mumbly hallway chatter in bg, beach waves, soft and inviting exotica atmosphere; casual chatter (including FCCs)
4. [Loket] (6:22) ******* Spacey rapid synths-- some triumphant brass, chill xylophone, nice and cool, plummy rich instrumental atmosphere, resolves in bittersweet strings
5. [Superpitcher] (4:07) ******* Spacey sweet harp glissandos, fading into aggressive midtempo dance beat, then everything warbly/warp-o, start and stop, repetitive hypnotic strangeness
6. [Scott Orr] (1:39) ****** Some chatter about "the banjo setting" on a synth, then some crooning over some plunky little lush atmosphere; sweet, nice
7. [Marigold Sun] (1:49) ** Some atmosphere over simple plinky piano melody
8. [Barry Can't Swim] (2:43) **** The single--soured synth riffs; a plaintive distorted vocal floating over it, then the beat drops... insistent beat, some nightmarish distortion, lush full sound, an overall mysterious atmosphere
9. [Freddy da Stupid] (6:47) ****** Nice caribbean beat, with weird hush-ing beat over; mysterious 1980s vibe with whoop-ing cyber-caribbean atmosphere, odd, interesting instrumental... repetitive and haunting... last 20 seconds are a very quiet and fluttering fade-out
10. [Factory Floor] (8:27) ***** Straightforward beat with some echoey sighs over it... more of a straightforward (but loose, handclap) house beat; repeated, monotone "how did you do it" vocals; atmosphere becomes buzzier, richer, then chaotically echoey
11. [Ronald Langestraat] (4:16) ***** Casio keyboards, weird distorted scatty vocals; cyber jazz club, odd atmosphere, bittersweet musical evocation
12. [Lance Desardi] (6:50) **** Heavy, housey straightforward beat with some warp-o distortion... two minutes in, spoken-word woman monologue, simple but rich mood
13. [O'Flynn] (3:31) ***** Fragmented, odd, haunted atmosphere, distorted vocals sounding in pain with heavy liquidy sounds, strong straightforward beat, but dreamlike impression
14. [Accelera Deck] (3:11) ****** Buzzy, polytempo percussion; hypnotic and chaotic and also chill effect - instrumental
15. [Pepe] (5:15) ****** Odd minimalist woodwind cuckooish sound; chaotic atmosphere of different timbres. Simple instrumental but hypnotic weird effect; cool experimental vibe
16. [This Mortal Coil] (4:07) ****** Vibey bladerunnercore atmosphere, foggy minimalist synths, whale sound-esque sighs... female vocals, jazzy lynchian jazz club atmosphere ... fades into dignified string quartet
17. [St Francis Hotel] (1:47) ***** Epic and dignified strings into chill slow beat; cool weird atmosphere but short
18. [Barry Can't Swim] (2:16) *** Minimalist fuzzy atmosphere with simple piano melody
19. [Seamus] (4:25) Spoken word monologue (no bg), heavy scottish accent ... very droll
20. [Barry Can't Swim] (1:52) **** [vinyl-exclusive bonus track] Foggy misty atmosphere with dramatic piano, ethereal chorus, glitch-out, it's over