A Way From Home #2: Nicole Mckenzie

This week Jon Hillcock travels down to Wimbledon to drink tea and delve into the heaving record shelves belonging to Nicole Mckenzie. Formerly head buyer/manager at one of London’s finest record shops - Sounds of the Universe in Soho - Nicole also worked as an A&R/label manager for the iconic associated Soul Jazz label, and now runs her own label, MIC, and works as a music consultant, DJ and programmer.


As you’ll hear, she has the record collection. And the best laugh.


Along with killer music by the likes of Gloria Ann Taylor, Dog Eat Dog (not that one) and releases on her MIC label from Sun Palace/Mike Collins and Lord Tusk, there’s all sorts of different stuff, including a heap of vintage dubstep, given Croydonite Nicole was right there buying in the records in at the start of the mid-noughties movement. Could a scene like that ever happen again? Is it a wrench finally leaving Sounds of the Universe behind? Is having broad taste a good or a bad thing? What do you do if you get musical burnout? Is the Motown museum in Detroit really any cop?


The music on this podcast is edited due to rights reasons. A full unedited version can be streamed at Mixcloud (search: “A Way From Home”)


A Way From Home is in association with CALM, the Campaign Against Living Miserably.


email: awfhpod@gmail.com

twitter/instagram/bandcamp: @jonhillcock


AWFH#2: Tracklist


1. Mahalia - Proud of Me (ft Little Simz) (Atlantic)

2. Locate, S1 - Owe It 2 The Girls (Sybaritic Peer)

3. Lord Tusk - Shyne Eyed Gal (MIC)

4. Stevie Wonder - Bam (UMG)

5. Batsumi - Itumelang (Matsuli Music)

6. Gloria Ann Taylor - What’s Your World (Selector)

7. Kode 9 - Magnetic City (Soul Jazz)

8. Burial - Unite (Soul Jazz)

9. Joker - Gullybrook Lane (Soul Jazz)

10. Digital Mystikz - Stuck (DMZ)

11. Sun Palace - Rude Movements (BBE)

12. Mike Collins - Phat Back Beats (MIC)

13. Dog Eat Dog - Rollover (Claremont 56)

14. Dog Eat Dog - Jail Space (Claremont 56)

15. Blank Square - Bangers (Castleface)

16. Once & Future Band - Rolando (Castleface)

17. Mica Levi - Lee Harvey Oswald (Milan)

18. LAPS - Who Me? (MIC)

19. Dean Blunt - 100 (Rough Trade)


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