Max HeyraudThis week’s Mix of the Week comes from Belfast stalwart selectors Conor Schmtz and Marion Hawkes, appearing under their joint After Hours moniker.
Two of Belfast’s most respected selectors, Conor Schmtz and Marion Hawkes, have earned that reputation through years spent deep in the trenches of digging and selecting. In what they describe as an era of ever-faster BPMs and a shrinking pool of true tastemakers, they take the opposite approach, slowing things down and going deeper. That means long hours combing through the vaults, sifting through crates at Hawkes’ Sound Advice record shop, and the many other digging haunts they frequent.
The result is a love letter to smooth, sexy, rolling house grooves. There are no cheap tricks or gimmicks here, if anything, the opposite. Moderately paced tracks are chosen with care, full of shimmering, glossy chords and luscious pads and stabs. It’s a heavenly blend of Chicago and New York-leaning house: from brooding gospel-tinged anthems to smouldering, heads-down locked grooves, with the occasional wonky, German-laid cut that nods somewhere toward Kraftwerk.
Across an hour, they take us on a journey through their expansive palettes. Even so, an hour only scratches the surface, a brief glimpse into the richly multifaceted worlds of two of Belfast’s most coveted selectors.