So, beloved reader, I bet you’re wondering how the WRCT Dance Party came out.

Well, let me tell you, ace, it was quite a night. Here are some morsels to give you a taste of what it was like:

Dancing duos, lips locked and hips entrenched in the loins of their partners, grooving to wobbling square waves.

Architecture students bouncing to the beat in a genderless free-for-all of grinding, packed so tightly they looked like human accordions.

Crafty remixes that had the crowd guessing at the next batch of music to go into the sonic bouillabaisse.

A break dancing circle that lasted for a half-hour.

Lasers and an ingenious video jockey set.

Down-tempo pleasure in the blue room, rocked by five DJs.

The company of your friends.

Tell me if that doesn’t sound like the best night you had in a while.

Oh, you weren’t there? Well, by gosh you missed out on the hootenanny of the month! A night where you could truly get lost in the maze of musical mayhem crafted by WRCT’s DJs.

If you’re looking to experience the glory of a WRCT dance party, keep your eyes out in the spring for announcements regarding our spring semester dance party. Idioms aside, it’ll be sure to knock you off your rocker.

Some warm and fuzzy songs to keep your spirits up in the face of the cold: “Angel Echoes” by Four Tet (UK) “Alohamora” by Pogo (Western Australia) “A Gigantic Dub” by Tommy McCook & the Aggravators (Jamaica) “Perverted Undertone” by Prefuse 73 (Atlanta, Barcelona, New York) “Cabildo” by Chico Trujillo (Chile)

-Juan Fernandez

I’m going to write about a song that I honestly believe should make its way into the lives of every human being. Recently it has been influencing every aspect of my life.

Let’s go over the progression of this song: Giselle speaks. A piano gently backs her. This is a song of longing. What’s funny is that I’m in no way in a rut of lonely unrequited love. I’m no beautiful damsel dripping in gold, but the song resonates because it captures an emotion so fully. The lyrics are effectively paralleled in the instrumentation, and together they create an image that’s impossible to shake. Tasting the hushed blazes of orange behind plum-speckled clouds, feeling like you’re floating gently through a glowing forest of jellyfish, you are wrapped in Giselle’s words like the gentlest smoke of incense.

What makes this song such an earworm? I would have to say that it’s due to the simple layered progression of the song. Each layer is simple and memorable and satisfying in its own right. Nevertheless, the song is a gem because whenever a single constituent part of the song is remembered, the rest of it hovers in your mind, gently holding your memory like a lover easing into bed. Despite how memorable each individual piece of the song is, there’s a particular inimitable reverb on Giselle’s voice that makes every listening drip with pleasure.

This is the kind of song that, oddly enough, makes you want to make sure that your mom knows how much you love her and how fortunate you feel for having been raised by her. So, that’s what I’m off to do. By gosh, I’m going to make her proud of this kid she’s brought into this beautiful world! Again, the song is “Crave You (ft. Giselle)” by Flight Facilities. Look it up online. Readers, I promise you’ll love it.

As per usual, if you want to get down with the WRCT sound, check out the following artists and their respective songs: “Duck Sauce” by Barbara Streisand, “El Remolon” by Cumbia Bichera (Tremor Mix), “Minotaur Shock” by The Downs, “Rye Rye” by Sunshine ft. M.I.A., and “This Unfolds” by Four Tet

-Juan Fernandez

I would talk about Bauhaus and Bela Lugosi being dead, but Halloween’s not my style. Sorry folks, I’m an All Saints Day kind of guy. Speaking of saints, let’s talk about Benoit Mandelbrot. He passed away this week. That’s right; that guy who was responsible for the entire field of mathematics that you’re currently studying was still alive a week ago. Let’s just take a minute and think about how radically he morphed how we as humans experience reality.

Ah, good reader, you’re back! So, you’ve come to the realization that you’re nothing more than an emergent behavior phenomenon and that the way in which you interact with other humans and the world around you is paralleled by the way that cellular structures interact with each other, have you? Well, that’s great. I guess that it’s only natural then that we talk about psychedelic music. Psychedelic musical history is a funny one in that at the time of its origins — the late ‘60s and early ‘70s — the music that was being produced under this name was some pansy-ass folk. You had the Grateful Dead, the Mamas and the Papas, Moby Grape, the Yardbirds, and the 13th Floor Elevators. Simply put, psychedelic music started out slow. Boy, have things changed! Thanks to the pace of audio recording technology, things have gotten loud, abrasive, euphoric and stupidly complex, all of which are good things.

If you’re interested in exploring the truly avant-garde psychedelia that was manifesting itself throughout the world in the ‘70s, explore the Finders Keepers catalogue. Dedicated to introducing fans of psychedelic, jazz, folk, funk, avant-garde, and whacked-out movie muzak to a lost world of undiscovered vinyl artifacts from the annals of alternative pop history, you’ll find the artists that paved the road for contemporary psychedelia. They can be found at .

You don’t have to be tripping hard to experience psychedelia. Check out the following and you’ll see what I mean: Flying Lotus, Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Kristin Miltner, Boards of Canada.

-Juan Fernandez