DJ Richard

DJ Richard first came to our attention in 2012 as one of the label heads of cult imprint White Material. Raised in Rhode Island, DJ Richard was based out of Berlin back then, one of a clutch of US-DE transplants infecting the city with mutant, DIY, defiantly un-quantised sounds and setting up feedback channels between the German capital and New York.

White Material, whose limited pressings grew infamous after 12″s began changing hands on Discogs for eyewatering amounts, released music from the likes of co-founder Young Male and collective member Galcher Lustwerk. As you might expect, the label had little truck with techno purism, instead, much like fellow New York label L.I.E.S., the club-ready productions felt borne from some other history entirely. In DJ Richard’s case, that could be traced back to the Providence noise scene. Certainly, his period scrapping about in the experimental underground informed his outlook and his sound. When DJ Richard – not his real name, by the way – released his debut on Berlin label Dial in 2015, he had hit upon a distinct identity: poignant, analogue and unvarnished.

Today, some three years later, he returns to Dial for his second album, Dies Iræ Xerox. When we asked him to submit a mix to our series to celebrate, we couldn’t have anticipated what he delivered. “It’s a mix of mostly psych, which melodically is probably my favourite genre of guitar music,” he told us over email. “A lot of these records are really pop but with super dark or heavy subject matter and melodies, and I can appreciate that greatly. I don’t listen to much club music while at home, so I wanted to make a mix that represented this. I picked tracks that I was listening to a lot while finishing work on Dies Iræ Xerox. There’s a sub-theme throughout the mix of images of hell and Satan, but in a way that’s sometimes serious and sometimes tongue in cheek. On the other hand, some tracks are just there because I like them.”

Tracklist
01. Ultimate Spinach – (Ballad of) the Hip Death Goddess
02. Eric Burton & The Animals – Hotel Hell
03. The Louvin Brothers – Satan is Real
04. The Styrenes – Drano in Your Veins
05. Fifty Foot Hose – If Not This Time
06. Riz Ortolani – Fino all’ultimo colpo – Version 2 (I giorni dell’ira)
07. Clear Light – Night Sounds Loud
08. Hallelujahs – 季節はずれのクリスマス (Christmas Out of Season)
09. Taman Shud – Heaven is Closed
10. Kevin Ayers – The Lady Rachel
11. Earth & Fire – Storm and Thunder
12. Les Rallizes Dénudés – White Awakening – Version 2
13. Kites – Something About America
14. Dave Bixby – 666

DJ Richard plays at Farr Festival, Hertfordshire, 5-8 July