YL Hooi and Tarquin Manek unravel the perfect comedown for the heatwave fever dream.
Valya Ying-Li Hooi, the artist otherwise known as YL Hooi, and Tarquin Manek are both essential shapers of a sound that has emerged from the Melbourne / Naarm underground over the last five years. Playing within a borderless ecosystem of artists, including HTRK’s Jonnine Standish, Carla dal Forno and CS & Kreme’s Sam Karmel, under a variety of different aliases, such as Kallista Kult, Silzedrek and Static Cleaner Lost Reward, and as part of various groups and collectives, like Bum Creek, F ingers and Tar Car, both YL Hooi and Tarquin Manek inspire and expand the work of the other, probing deeper into their shared web of influence.
Following the feedback loops between Melbourne and Manchester, Berlin and Bristol, the pair entwine twisted folk, head-trip jazz, gnarled electronics and viscous dub into new, fluctuating forms, finding visceral sensuality in amniotic throb and saturated clarity in hypnotic blur. Their Fact mix is a fitting synthesis of these elements, 45 minutes of what they describe as “purled and pearled,” folding group A into Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell, Chunky into Astrid Sonne, and John T. Gast into Pessimist alias Stigma, overdubbed with Tarquin’s own virtuosic clarinet drones.
“Spider lives in here,” the duo write in an enigmatic poem accompanying the mix. “Webs out of winter into the spring / splice into you; Streets Splice pine lime ice / – but too cold to eat today.” Tripped out and tapped in, it’s the perfect comedown for the heatwave fever dream.
You can find YL Hooi on Instagram and Bandcamp. You can find Tarquin Manek on Instagram and Bandcamp.
Tracklist:
Act Now (Tarquin Manek & James Vinciguerra) – ‘Last Drop Of Golden Liquid’
group A – ‘Circulation’ / Don Cherry & Ed Blackwell – ‘Voice of the Silence’
Omen – ‘Bucket Rain’
Genghis Cohn – ‘Job’s Knife (Forbidden Version)’
Eric Dolphy – ‘God Bless The Child’ / ET Vascular – ‘Animaison’
ET Vascular – ‘Toulouse Sausage’
Scutal & Bogues – ‘Skinwalker Instrumental’
Chunky – ‘Yes I’
Astrid Sonne – ‘How Far’
Tolerance – ‘Misa (Gig’s Tapes in “C”)’
Bezbog – ‘Alba’
Anthony Pateras – ‘There Is A Danger That Only Our Mistakes Are New (Excerpt)’
The Craags – Side A (Excerpt) [Forthcoming on Are You Before]John T. Gast – Phantasy (Unreleased Version(?))
Stigma – ‘Listening Now’
Listen Next: Fact Mix – Anetha
