The Sonos Mixtape

Charlie Dark is someone who knows his music, he’s been DJ’ing since his early teens, found fame with Attica Blues during the 90's and founded the pioneering club night Blacktronica.

I chatted to Charlie recently about his new project the Sonos Mixtape which he describes as ‘bringing back the soulful days of back-to-mine music sharing’.

Music has always played an important role in connecting people, however beyond gigs and festivals, most of it these days is primarily online through a tweet or a Facebook post. As Charlie says “the idea of going around someones house to listen to music together is something that doesn’t really happen anymore. When an album comes out all of your friends get it at the same time. The days of ‘I’ve got a Public Enemy album and I’m the only one in my group of friends who has it so you’ve got to come over to mine to listen to it’ are gone.”

The Sonos Mixtape, for the moment, is a completely offline experience that brings together an eclectic group of people for food, music and storytelling at a special venue (the next one is being hosted at the House of Barnabas). Each person brings with them one track, which is played via Sonos, relating to a theme to discuss and share with the rest of the group.

While people are chatting about the music they’ve chosen, cards (with terms taken from sound system culture) are used to evoke responses from the audience. For example if someone plays a song that is particularly liked then Charlie holds up the appropriate card and everyone collectively say’s what’s on the card.

At the end of the evening the playlist is captured and shared with everyone so that people can delve into the tracks that were played.

The inspiration for the project came from a discussion Charlie had around ten years ago with a friend about who had the best record collection. He was challenged to a sound clash and they started to play for as long as possible a mix of music which was linked in some way by title, sentiment or type of music.

Charlie see’s the Mixtape as a way of building a community around music and bringing back the mixtape as an art form.

“People don’t make mixes for people any more . The art of selecting music and putting together a playlist so that it flows from beginning to end has been lost. You’ve got a generation of people who’ve grown up not having to do that. Music is very accessible and the idea of me making a mix of music for you, to listen to and introduce you to new music doesn’t really happen now.”

It’s interesting that Charlie brings up how the Mixtape is a way for him to discover new music, being a DJ means he’s exposed to a lot of new stuff but as he says ‘most of the music I get recommended to me is from the same type of people so I’m not getting exposed to a breadth of music’.

This comment instantly got me thinking about how the internet offers us so much music to listen to that for most people its almost overwhelming. Charlie sums it up well: “with Sonos and Spotify you have this infinite record collection but to make sense of it what the digital realm needs is influencers and people to guide you. Otherwise you wake up in the morning thinking ‘what shall I listen to today’ but you don’t know where to start”.

This issue of choice and this limitless amount of music available has changed the role of the DJ. For Charlie DJ’s are more like librarians as opposed to curators these days.

“By the time you turn up to a club with your laptop and 15,000 mp3's you’re not really a curator you’re a librarian with this vast library of music that you play. People get really upset now when they ask for a request and you don’t have that record no matter what genre its from. Because now people are used to the idea that a DJ has got 15,000 pieces of music on their laptop so surely they must have the record I want to hear right now.”

With music so accessible it’s getting harder and harder for people to be ‘different’ in music, you’re not cool just because you listen to hip hop or go clubbing, these days its about the places you go to to experience music. Which is why club nights that are only vinyl based or where only 45's played are starting to appear. In lots of ways this is a good thing. It progresses the art of DJ’ing or making music by encouraging more experimentation around unique live experiences.

The Sonos Mixtape is doing exactly that, its experimental and exploring new and old ways of interacting with music. It’s a format that Charlie wants to evolve and he’s got some exciting plans for the future. Right now building an offline community is the priority because once he launches the concept digitally there will be a community of people already there.

All photographs by Nic Serpell-Rand.