Image via DJ Platurn/Bandcamp
Chris Daly says that the world needs more electro-funk cowboys.
Look, there are crate diggers and then there are music scene curators. As he has proven time and again with mixes that capture everything from the Icelandic musical scene of the 70s/80s (which incidentally sounds like a lot of US music from the 70/80s, only in Icelandic; go figure) to perhaps the greatest De La Soul mixtape of all times (Rest in Power, Trugoy), DJ Platurn clearly belongs in the latter category. By this point in his two decades-plus career, he’s rocked the party everywhere from Asia, Australia, Europe and Canada to South America, Scandinavia and countless venues throughout the US and in his home base of San Francisco’s Bay Area. Whilst doing so, he’s shared the stage with a virtual who’s who of the hip hop DJ/producer scene: DJ Maseo, Prince Paul, Z-Trip, Quest Love, DJ Premier, MF Doom, Triple Threat DJs, Pete Rock, Mixmaster Mike, Jazzy Jeff…you get the point. Globetrotting with such rarified company has paid off, clearly introducing him to a plethora of worldwide sounds that he’s deigned to share with us mere mortals. On his latest, “Doce Galaxias,” the Oakland Faders founder (say that three times fast) revisits the fertile ground first explored on the “Siete Galaxias” joint, his collaboration with Wax Poetics.
Kicking off with another Star Wars album clip en espanol, Platurn takes listeners through a Saturday afternoon drive blasting A.M. radio at full volume, top down. The true joy of a foreign language Platurn mix, for me at least, is playing the audio equivalent of “Where’s Waldo,” finding the tracks you know in a foreign tongue. Is that Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale?” Good Lord and Butter, that can’t be “Jesus Christ, Superstar,” can it? HE DID NOT CLOSE ON “MY WAY,” DID HE?
Well played, Platurn. Bien jugado, indeed.
