FvF Mixtape #108: 36minutes - Friends of Friends / Freunde von Freunden (FvF)

FvF Mixtape #108: 36minutes

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Since creating FvF Mixtape #74 for us, LVNCE and Nick Forsberg have started their passion project 36minutes.com along with some friends and continued to develop their tastes and skills for mixtape making—so naturally we invited them back for a new mixtape, with the whole 36minutes crew sounding off.

The boys behind 36minutes invite other DJs and friends to create 36 minute-long mixtapes, they’re passionate about fostering the mixtape culture and sharing music with friends—things that we at FvF are all for as well. They’re always keeping an ear to the ground in the music scene, and have an intuitive sense for what makes people move. We love their unpretentious and carefree approach to compiling tracks for their mixtapes. They’ve created a special “day” mix for us that keeps an uptempo pace of both familiar and new tracks that everyone can enjoy. Everything from the Notorious B.I.G. to Arthur Russell have made it onto the playlist. It’s the type of mix that you’d put on while at the park with friends or driving along the coast in the early summer. We spoke to LVNCE about 36minutes and the craft of musical storytelling and got some insight to their selection process.

Tracklist

    • 1 Jazzanova – Cyclic
    • 2 RJD2 – Peace of What (feat. Jordan Brown)
    • 3 A$AP Ferg – Strive (feat. Missy Elliott)
    • 4 Gigamesh – Control (feat. Caroline Smith)
    • 5 Drake – Take Care (feat. Rihanna) (Vocal Addition)
    • 6 Exile – Baby, U and I
    • 7 GUSH – Siblings (20Syl Remix)
    • 8 Arthur Russell – How We Walk On The Moon (Youth Return to Base Edit)
    • 9 Orlando Julius & The Heliocentrics – In The Middle
    • 10 DrewsThatDude – Iced Tea (feat. Fortune)
    • 11 Pat Van Dyke – Forrest St. Blue
    • 12 Notorious B.I.G. – Sky Is The Limit (Vocal Addition)
    • 13 Nas – Street Dreams (Vocal Addition)
    • 14 Vicky Flint – JTC SW & Vicky Flint
    • 15 Enoq – Meine Stadt kocht (feat. Zwang)
    • 16 20Syl – Ongoing Thing (LEOPARD Remix)
    • 17 Bluestab – Rodalquilar
    • 18 ELJAY – Breathe (feat. Kimani)
    • 19 Jay Prince – All You
    • 20 Verzache – Winter Rush
    • 21 Krs. – Make Her Dance
    • 22 Lakim X Mikos Da Gawd – Untitled
    • 23 Oddisee – That’s Love

“Sometimes it feels a little bit like back in the old days, digging through crates at the record store.”

  • How did the idea for the 36minutes project come about?

    When we were talking about music and mixtapes in general and especially about the mix we put together for you in summer 2014, not only did we discuss tracks, genres and mood, but also the length of the tape. We quickly agreed on not unnecessarily extending the playing time. Here’s why: A lot of mixtapes simply don’t get the full attention they deserve, mainly because it’s very tough to listen carefully to a one- or two-hour mixtape from the beginning to the very end. That somehow stuck in our minds and eventually turned into 36minutes. “36” is the former postal code of Kreuzberg, Berlin, our home and the area where we get a lot of our inspiration from. And no matter where you want to go in Berlin, you better calculate roughly 30 minutes to get from A to B. So that was a nice timeframe for us and a good story to tell. We understand our mixtapes more as musical short stories that convey a certain mood or feeling, that’s why they all have a title and some teaser texts to get the audience into the topic.

  • How do you decide which DJs you’d like to create mixes for you?

    We mainly reach out to our circle of friends. It doesn’t necessarily need to be DJs, but people with good musical taste. We are not confined by any genre or period of time. It is much more about the story that music can tell. Sometimes we also get approached by people who submit a mixtape to us and if we see that it has this storytelling element that we’re after and if the quality is right, we are happy to publish it. For us it’s really for the sake of sharing good music, not trying to make a business out of it. If only ten people were to like it—well, we’ve still reached ten people and hopefully given them some listening pleasure. It’s pretty cool that we’re reaching more than ten people though.

  • What sort of music are you listening to now?

    We listen to a lot of genres like hip-hop, soul, R&B, house, techno, ambient, jazz, Brazilian Folk and so on—music based on beats and rhythms. But we are always open for the unexplored. Important might be to feel the intentions behind the musicians or creators and not necessarily finding the next number one hit. Soundcloud or Bandcamp are a much more diverse source of inspiration than Spotify or Apple Music are right now, as anyone can upload music. Feels sometimes a little bit like back in the days, crate digging in the record stores.

  • How did you go about selecting tracks for this mix?

    We set up a shared folder and uploaded our selection of songs, having the idea in mind of a “day” and “night” mix. It was really nice to see that ‘“day” and “night” had a different meaning for both us. It wasn’t that easy to compile it in the end, but we are super happy with the result. Here you can really see that music has a different meaning to different people and this is exactly what we are talking about when saying we do musical storytelling.

  • When is the best time to listen to this mix?

    For us the tape represents a day, where you go to bed thinking: that was a good one! Sometimes you wake up in the morning and can already feel it is gonna be a nice one, still with all it’s little ups and downs. It is about seeing the good things and realizing that life is beautiful. Get on your bike or take the U-Bahn in the morning and enjoy a fresh start into a new day. That somehow describes our intention behind it, I guess.

Thank you, 36minutes for putting together yet another amazing and fun mix for us to enjoy. Also be sure to check out 36minutes.com for more mixtapes from them and their network of friends.  

Text:Kevin Chow
Photography:Charlott Cobler
Video: Bryn Silverman

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