Under the Stars: A house music master takes us back to Zanzibar

Just as Valkyrie fans call Chase Center Ballhalla, we are Under The Stars people.

You know the drill, lovers of music and culture. This quasi-weekly column that stays on message with strong-ass opinions, presenting new music releases and upcoming shows, wishes everyone a Happy Juneteenth and Happy Pride. As we all keep hustling with the changes, thinking outside the margins. 

Hop in. And thanks for spending some time with us.

foamboy, LOUD BOY

Forget Groundhog Day and that overblown Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and sees its shadow… argy bargy. Do you want to know a true bellwether that a new season has arrived? Set your Google Calendar or Apple Watch to this little band out of Portland, Oregon, called foamboy (one of the best bands out of the PNW), who make nifty pop tunes that burrow beneath the bouncy smile song-smithing topics that include rejecting heteronormative narratives, discovering queer identity, surviving grad school, and giving up in a good way. Like clockwork every summer, they unleash a banger. 

Of the earworm type.

“Burnout” from 2023 left snapped necks all over SF. Trust me, I saw the left-behind neck braces all over the Muni bus lines. It went as hard as a post-disco pop duo can go—hard. So now our Portland-based outfit, comprised of producer Wil Bakula and vocalist Katy Ohsiek, has gotten revenge on “LOUD BOY,” with a bottom-heavy concoction searing “an annoying drunk guy at the party that you can’t get rid of.” It’s brimming with those synth pop washes, rubbery-thick basslines, and biting sarcasm encased in that Katy Ohsiek vox humana.

Pick it up here.

Sponsored link

TONY HUMPHRIES, “RUNNING BACK MASTERMIX: KISS FM ZANZIBAR YEARS“

While the debate on late-stage capitalism rages on among those who have a full grasp of the concept, one thing remains: The value we put on things from a previous era, in this current era, continues to climb. It seems the quality control was a bit more prevalent in earlier times, before things could be replicated in an instant. You can apply this theory to many things. That AI debate rages front and center with the recent layoffs in the tech industry right here in Cloud City. But I’m going to use it here as it pertains to DJs and mixes from the late 20th century. 

Brooklyn-born Tony Humphries, the club DJ, remixer, and radio disc jockey, would break new records on Kiss FM radio station in New York City from 1980 to 1994. The former dancer at David Mancuso’s infamous Loft parties got the call from Shep Pettibone to become his right hand at WRKS and put New Jersey acts like Adeva and Jomanda, and countless up-and-coming producers from there, in the musical zeitgeist of New York City, while simultaneously playing the hottest imports from Europe, tracks from Chicago, and dance classics.

I can’t even count how many records in total—from D-Train to Vicky D’s “This Beat Is Mine” and Tony Lee’s “Reach Up”—I heard mixed on that Friday night show in the very early 1980s. It was an ongoing seminar on song selection, mixing technique, taste in music, and how to have a large vocabulary when telling a story by way of the turntables. Running Back Records has put together original recordings and an exclusive mix that never made it to air, which emblazons his stature as a landmark cultural educator in the dance pantheon. 

The 23-track compilation draws from artists including Kerri Chandler, Romanthony, Jay Williams, and Bobby Harding, alongside several unreleased edits and dub versions by Humphries himself. The selection focuses on material connected to house music’s formative period.

Those mixes off the radio cost nothing to the listener, except their time. That same care and effort put in by Humphries continued when he went on to play at Zanzibar, the landmark club in New Jersey. Pick it up, here.

JEFF MILLS, LIVE AT THE LIQUID ROOM 30TH ANNIVERSARY REISSUE (AXIS RECORDS) 

“DJing at a higher level than just mixing records together is quite complex,” Jeff Mills told Billboard. “It’s like being an athlete, like a tennis player. You have so many things you need to think about at the same time, as time is moving forward. You literally have to split your mind into multiple parts, and you have to pay attention to each one of these things at the same time, so your peripheral sense becomes enhanced.”

I cannot remember when I first heard the Live At The Liquid Room Jeff Mills mix manifesto.

If anything, I have a better memory of my DJ friends, the ones who were spinning all the things NOT affiliated with hip-hop. Running these dark techno, drum and bass, and electro tracks really hard. Like the records themselves owed somebody milk money. And dammit, somebody had to pay. But I do have recollections of some friends always talking about how mistakes in a set made people realize they’ve all had a human experience. See, that was the opposite in hip-hop. You keep making that mistake?

You’re not getting paid for your Friday night set, and some Heineken bottles might get tossed in your general direction. Jeff Mills Live at The Liquid Room mix is flawed, full of some mistakes, not fully eq’ed correctly… but none of that matters. Jeff Mills took that crowd on a journey. They were transported out of their own glum or glam existence and danced into the future. Hurriedly.

Mills is using his own body clock to keep time and tempo. Slicing between tracks to bring you into how he hears this music crossing between genres, that same technique would be adopted very soon afterwards by LTJ Bukem in his cutting between tracks of atmospheric drum and bass.

This reissue shaped I dunno how many DJs to run their sets hard and fast, punching and thuddering. To make personal references to songs that maybe others would not think of. To act human even in the most mechanical moment behind the decks. That commodity is priceless in 2026, or as Mills said in Fader a while ago:

“Maybe leaving room and space for us to problem-solve ourselves and be more involved in the process is what we want, not just hit a button, smoke a cigarette, and dance around.”

Pick up Live at Liquid Room here.

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE, JUNE 22 AT MASONIC

Don’t tell nobody, but I’m a softie at heart.

Real talk? This supergroup was first introduced to me during a scene in Ryan Gosling’s 2006 film Half Nelson.

“Stars and Sons” is caught blasting in some hipster-iffic Williamsburg bar-club as Gosling works the dance floor alongside a future paramour. That feeling, reminiscent of “New Brooklyn” in the late aughts, captured fleeting ephemerality that, like it or not, hit kinda genuine.

You can relive your sweaty hipster days (cause the 2000s are back again for the fifteenth time) by seeing Broken Social Scene at Masonic, with newer, more mature tunes.

Remember The Humans, released a couple of months ago, puts a bit of a salty tear in that evergreen blue-eyed optimism, but as always with these crazy Canucks, they hit the emotion button at just the right time.

Should be a swell show, folks.

Grab tickets here.

OMAR, BRIGHTER THE DAYS—THE REMIXES (BBE MUSIC)

When Omar LyeFook MBE decides to release something, it pays to listen. No matter if it’s neo-soul vibes, broken-beat joints for the dance floor, funk, jazz, or samba… it makes no difference. Omar, within four bars of the song, will make you believe in what he’s putting forth in that moment. Those types of artists are few and far between, but he’s built and maintained a 40-plus-year career doing so. Last year, in anticipation of his releasing 2025’s Brighter The Days, his 9th studio album, we asked him to mention some of his favorite records, and of course, he referred us to nothing less than informed choices. Go record shopping with that dude; he knows about that vinyl.

So on his Brighter The Days—The Remixes, an impressive new collection of reinterpretations plucked from Omar’s last album, we get…more greatness. Generally, I feel a certain way about remix projects because half of them smell of “cash grab” greed. But we’re talking Omar, people. So he has Kenny Dope (one half of house music’s iconic Masters At Work), Joe Claussell, Illa J, Maestro & Supa D, and none other than DJ Spinna with his soulful-dreamlike, boom-bap clap of a banger on the rework of “Brighter Days.”

This feels like, once again, an Omar situation that begs for your attention.

Forget the FOMO; pre-order here.

PIONEER WORKS 2027 MUSIC RESIDENCY

New York arts and performance space Pioneer Works remains an influential and career-changing venue that helps artists find their voice and vision at a heavily discounted rate. As announced on Instagram, the Pioneer Works 2027 residency is now open for applications. The initiative offers free studio space and access to facilities, visits to curators, gallerists, critics, and artists, and financial awards. 12 residents each will be accepted to the visual arts and music programs, and the application is open now until July 13.

The late great avant-garde trumpeter and composer jaimie branch (1983–2022) had deep ties to Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Branch, a 2018 music residency recipient, along with drummer Jason Nazary—longtime friends and collaborators—recorded in that shipping container-turned-recording studio in Brooklyn, pushin timbres of electronic sounds that feel shaken, vaporized, and blared. That Tour Beats Vol 1, a beastly project by the duo, who recorded it collectively as Anteloper, crafted a four-song EP that put so-called ‘proper’ EDM producers on their ass.

In a time where the arts are still greatly under duress, it’s timely and helpful to remind everyone who, like branch, at one time was trying to find her way, that the path to a career in the arts can and still does exist.

Other upcoming and previous music residents include DJ Haram, Lia Kohl, Nourished by Time, Astrid Sonne, and more. Pioneer Works was founded in 2012 and has hosted artists this year like Oneohtrix Point Never and Jeff Mills. 

Find more info on the 2027 residency here.

The post Under the Stars: A house music master takes us back to Zanzibar appeared first on 48 hills.