Moods 36: Tom Giardini
May 2021 introduces Tom Giardini, a farmer and figurehead behind New England-based record label and publishing platforms @green-house-recs and @babyblue_babyblue. Giardini explores the sounds and songs of the “miscellaneous.” From that aptly named playlist on iTunes we all have to the CDs burning in the backseats of our cars, Giardini’s mix takes time to (re)discover his gems scattered across time. 90s rock, folk, and acoustic rhythms take you down that memory highway.
Tracklist
Wave - Melody English
Peace When He Comes - Wayne & Thelma and the McAllister Singers
Can You See Me - Spike
Breakin’ My Heart - The VanDykes
Black Pride - Brown Sugar
Since You Went Away - Dear Nora
That’s All I Need - Sensational Saints
+ - $3.33
Four Floods Of The Point - Craig Leon
Cloud Killers - Doubler and Sometimes It Closes - Ezekiel Honig
Reporter Missing - Mark Templeton
Westwinds Of Truism (For Otis) - Kan Kick
Where, geographically, did you grow up? Was it a single place or many places?
I grew up in central Connecticut. Following high school I moved around between New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. While I will forever believe that I’m going to move to the West Coast, I can never seem to get away from the Northeast. I’m currently living in NYC.
Can you pick one song in the mix and explain where you first listened to it?
Spike first entered my life when I was cat-sitting for Wyatt’s cat, Rizzo, in Los Angeles last winter. Wyatt (the other half of Green House) has a craaaazy record collection. One day I pulled out Orange Cloud Nine and threw it on the stereo. It ended up on heavy rotation for the next few months. In a failed attempt to find a physical copy of the record, I found the Soul Jazz Records Brown Sugar compilation, a track from which is also included in the mix. I must’ve been thinking about that trip while making this mix.
Who "introduced" you to these songs? Was it a person, a radio station, a CD?
Most of what I listen to tends to come through a web of recommendations and browsing - friends, record shops and the internet mostly... also, shows (which I sorely miss)!
Where and when did you first hear techno?
It’s hard to say when I first heard techno, but it was probably end of high school, beginning of college. When I first moved to NYC I had a mentor who came up during the DnB renaissance. Through working with and learning from him I was exposed to a lot of club music that I hadn’t heard before which inevitably branched out into the techno sphere.
You've got the mic. What do you want to say?
I’m using the mic to share the words of Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing because I’ve been thinking a lot about them recently: “We change through our collaborations[...] The important stuff for life on earth happens in those transformations. Collaboration is work across difference, yet this is not the innocent diversity of self-contained evolutionary tracks. The evolution of our “selves” is already polluted by histories of encounter; we are mixed up with other before we even begin any new collaboration.”
We've paired Giardini's mix with an essential work by land artist and environmentalist Mary Miss. Read here to understand why it's a perfect pair: dsmpublicartfoundation.org/public-artw…ouble-site/
Giardini also moved his $40 mix commission to READ 718, a nonprofit dedicated to closing the literacy gap in Brooklyn and to help ensure educational access and equity for all Brooklyn children through after-school tutoring. Currently, approximately 65% of 3rd-8th graders in Brooklyn are not proficient in reading and approximately 35% do not have “basic” literacy skills. Students with poor literacy skills are twice as likely to drop out of school compared to their peers, and—as adults—are less likely to find employment and support a family. READ 718 is on the ground fighting this and offering a better, literate foot forward. www.read718.org/whatwedo