FACT mix 749: W00dy

A mind-melting, world-expanding soup of kinetic sound from US DIY club vanguard W00dy.

Vocals have always played a huge role in W00dy’s music. Initially this was more obvious, as the young artist fused vocal-led pop with DIY noise on their early slew of releases. Raised in Baltimore and classically trained as a vocalist, W00dy took the essence of pop and juxtaposed it with the messy immediacy of punk, stepping into a vividly psychedelic sound-world in the process.

After a stint living in Boston and becoming involved in the local experimental techno scene, W00dy began toying more with rhythm, releasing the genre-dissolving this world has rendered me in 2017. Here, vocals were dissolved to mere syllables, hiccuping around booming kicks and acidic, clanging hi-hats. The transformation continued on 2018’s Relentless Kickdrum, a delightfully fluid full-length that challenged club conventions by fusing footwork and jungle patterns with the textural weirdness of US basement noise.

Last year, W00dy released My Diary, a release described as their “most personal thoughts & feelings”, with chopped voices again sitting at the forefront of the record. The album made it to FACT’s list of our favorites of 2019, and was described as “an amyl haze of popping synapses, 12-bit breaks, polyrhythmic bass and dislocated voices.”

W00dy’s FACT mix expands their sound in eye-popping high-definition, highlighting their own tracks, and boosting them with work from their friends and collaborators, baking in tracks from faves like Kromestar and Porter Ricks for good measure. It’s a wild mash-up of essential, eccentric sounds that’s challenging without being tiring. Most of all, it’s deliriously fun.

Tracklist:

Jeff Host – ‘Side A (Bleach Mixtape)’
W00dy – ‘A Choice’
Kromestar – ‘Budwise’
Porter Ricks – ‘Port of Nuba’
Lindred – ‘Disarming Fear’
Pamela_and her sons – ‘K Bliss’
Axine M. – ‘What Is This Place’
Liquid Asset – ‘Nurturing Hostility’
Yakui x Tchan – ‘She Tracks’
DJ Delish – ‘Florida Water’
Gudiya – ‘Bure Bure Coytada’ (Linn da Quebrada x Yazzion x Arash)
Precolumbian & Estoc – ‘CCT02’
DJ Love – ‘Respect’ (Queer Club Dub)
Deflector – ‘Zerø RA’
Paralycyst – ‘Filth’
Eel Tank – ‘Inside’
W00dy – ‘Claw’
W00dy – ‘Crazed’
Abdu Ali – ‘Free Body’
Moth Cock – ‘Jack-0-Lantern’
J.R.H.N.B.R – ‘My Wretched Beauty’ (Tripp Edition For Chlo)
‘فناء fana’ – ‘kîne em
Concord Dawn – ‘Morning Light’
Divtech – ‘Going Down’
Homemade Weapons – ‘Networth’
W00dy – ‘Can’t Resist It’
Bastiengoat – ‘Dolla’
No Eyes – ‘Yue and I’
Nightcore – ‘Another Night’
Dreamcrusher – ‘Cishet’
Muqks – ‘Stolas’
Machine Listener – ’80!’
Sofia Reta – ‘Alexandria’
Wolf Dem – ‘3am Cavalcade’
Five Star Hotel – ‘Hexagoness Rising’
Tati au Miel – ‘the power of being a metal techno slut’
Spednar – ‘Bayz0ne’
Adassa – ‘Bang Bang’
Guanabanas – ‘A Oscuras’
Yeli Fuzzo – ‘Abande’
Ivy Queen – ‘Besame’
Machine Girl – ‘mg2019 100 c’
Jenny – ‘La Carretilla’
Morgantics – ‘Sake Dreams’
Xanopticon – ‘Bedowra’
Bath Consolidated – ‘The Great Filter’
Cube – ‘Silhouette’
{arsonist} – ‘Suppose We’re Hypnogogic Elopers’
Patrick Star – ‘Is Mayonnaise An Instrument?’

Listen next: FACT mix 743 – DJ Haram