Our 500th episode of MailTape this morning!! This year and since 2012, we’ve welcomed so many wonderful guests, sharing love for music with our loyal listeners every Sunday. It’s hard not to feel sentimental with this special project of bringing music into peoples’ hearts. We hope you’ve loved these moments as much as we have, cheers to the next 500 :)
To celebrate with us, we welcome Charlotte Adigéry to MailTape! One half of the duo with Bolis Pupul (welcomed last week, our episode 499!), Charlotte Adigéry’s work spans R&B, jazz, techno, and club movements, creating catching collages of textured sound. Charlotte Adigéry joins us following the release of the duo’s latest album, Topical Dancer. The creative collaboration counters heavy topics with humor and grace, offering surprises with each subsequent listen.
Charlotte Adigéry’s selection
Erykah Badu - Bag Lady
Charlotte Adigéry: ” One of my all-time favorites. I finally saw her live right before the pandemic… I forgot about my body and felt connected to everybody in the audience and on stage. En Erykah Badu is funny as hell, you could see she was having fun. “
The Slits - Typical Girls
Charlotte Adigéry: ” When I first sat down with Bolis in the studio he asked me if there was something that inspired me at that very moment. I played him The Slits and he also loved them. I told Bolis I didn’t necessarily want to make post-punk music, but it’s more the approach to music, which was very childlike, playful, and intuitive. “
Talking Heads - Born Under Punches
Charlotte Adigéry: ” I absolutely love David Byrne and everything he does. His Stop Making Sense documentary actually served as an inspiration for our song Making Sense Stop. “
MailTape’s selection
Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul - Ich Mwen (feat. Christiane Adigéry)
Sarah: ” My favorite track off of Topical Dancer. As always, the group brings such fresh sampling with every release, the layered chorus builds into the ominous, the intense - so perfect for the complicated subject matter of changing roles from daughter to mother. With this track, the meditation on motherhood and femininity is evolving, a passing down of advice from mother to daughter, done very literally with the sampling of Charlotte Adigéry’s mother, Christiane Adigéry. “
Pierre Barouh - Le Pollen
Sarah: ” My favorite track from Pierre Barouh’s collaboration with Yukihiro Takahashi (Yellow Magic Orchestra). The namesake of the album, the track’s ambient spoken overlays, electric rhythm section, and intricate synthwork build an immersive 3D experience of sound; it’s unforgettable. The album features legends from French and Japanese new wave and synth music; Le Pollen was written by Barouh, arranged by Takahashi, and features Tetsuro Kashibuchi, Hirobumi Suzuki, Yoshiaki Shirai, Keiichi Suzuki, Tohru Okada, and Massahiro Takekawa. The cross-pollination collaboration seems like a perfect addition to celebrate number 500 at MailTape, a track and album crafted from the sincere love of music. “
Say She She - Blow My Mind
Sarah: ” Hypnotizing groove on this one, obsessed with the funkadelic feel. The latest release from Brooklyn-based funk trio Say She She. It’s so easy to get lost in their harmonies :) “
Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul - Reappropriate
Sarah: ” Another treasure from Topical Dancer to finish our 500th playlist of MailTape. The meditation on sensuality and femininity empowers as it elevates, complemented so well with the upward spirals of synthwork. As throughout the album, the lyrics of the group are striking, at times unsettling. Many of the album’s reviews comment on the humor and irony in the lyrical choices, citing the verses of Blenda, Thank You, and Esperanto. In this strategic irony, the group’s writing reclaims the words and phrases previously used as weapons, reappropriating them into art. “
That’s all for the 500th episode of MailTape! We’re delighted you could join us. Our thanks to Charlotte Adigéry for this celebratory Sunday selection and to Anthony Dujardin for this episode’s wonderful illustration!
