There’s little we can say about Quimbie, other than that he’s a mysterious artist who forms part of Janx Records, based in Germany. He crossed onto our radars last year with Sunday Fiction, a riot of warm chords, dusty samples, booming bass, and infectious rhythms. Earlier this year, he shared via XLR8R+ “Gloria Fake,” a refined sketch from the album’s sessions, alongside exclusive tracks from D:fferent Place and Ana Helder.

In terms of background, all we know about Quimbie is that he was introduced to music through his father, who’d pull him away from playing with LEGO to show him his favorite records. He currently works as a sound engineer and makes music on the side. Towards the back end of 2020, he reached out to Philip from Janx, whom he’d known for a while, and told him that he had a concept album filled with music that he’d made over the last few years.

“I kinda like that I am not a professional musician,” Quimbie tells XLR8R. “Most of my life time I am doing other things than sitting in the studio modulating bass drums or chopping samples, but somehow I am ending up a few weeks a year and trying to express everything that’s in my head.”

For this week’s XLR8R podcast, Quimbie has compiled a podcast featuring a collection of emotional tracks from some of his favorite artists—so you’ll hear Radiohead, Squarepusher, and The Postal Service. Much like his own productions, Quimbie’s selections across this 60-minute mix are wistful and engrossing. Press play for a heartwarming mix of “hopeful love songs,” that’s imbued with a charisma and vibrancy that appeals as much to the mind as it does to the body.

01. What have you been up to recently? 
Two days ago I finished a remix for Carsten Jost to be released on the fabulous Dial Records. And I’ve been doing a lot of glitchy and dreamy trance house bits on my computer recently, though I’m not really sure if they will ever see the light of day!

02. What have you been listening to? 
I’ve been re-listening to a lot of emotional music I’ve been feeling over the past 15 years. A lot of them actually made it into this mix! It was a kind of a spontaneous inspiration just before I recorded this mix.

03. Very little is known about you. What can you tell us about your route into electronic music? 
It was through this CD I got from my parents around 2000, when I was nine years old.

04. Where and when did you record this mix?
I recorded a lot of old CDs and had a closer look through my hard-drive and the music folders that have been laying there for years. As I mentioned above, I recorded it just after re-discovering a lot of stuff I’ve been emotionally attached to.

05. How did you go about choosing and sequencing the tracks that you’ve included? 
All the tracks combine a certain sad feeling, but they are also hopeful love songs. I chose them quickly and recorded them right away.

06. How does it compare to what we might hear you play out live?
I can’t really tell. I am always struggling to strip music I have collected down to a certain selection. It will always depend on my mood and the atmosphere of a place and time and people. 

07. What’s next on your agenda? 
Deleting or saving the trance house bits I’ve been working on! And catching a lot of sleep in the next months.

Tracklisting

01. Cut Copy “The Waves” (Modular)
02. Future 3 “The Boy from West Bronx” (April)
03. Radiohead “Bloom” (XL Recordings)
04. The Postal Service “Natural Anthem“ (Sub Pop)
05. Flying Lotus “You’re Dead!” (Warp)
06. Squarepusher “Tommib” (Warp)
07. Boards of Canada “84 Pontiac Dream” (Warp)
08. Destroyer “Kaputt” (Merge)
09. Washed Out “All Over Now“ (Sub Pop)
10. Midnight Sister “Shimmy” (Jagjaguwar)
11. Sakamoto & Scott “The Left Bank“ (Epic)
12. The Radio Dept. “Pet Grief“ (Labrador)
13. OTTO “Rain Jacket and Shorts” (PLZ Make it Ruins)
14. The Week That Was “All Gone Quiet” (Memphis Industries)
15. Smagghe & Cross “Le Soleil Levant” (Offen)
16. Sun Kil Moon “Beautiful You” (Caldo Verde)
17. The Blue Nile “Broken Loves” (Confetti)

XLR8R has now joined Mixcloud Select, meaning that to hear the podcast offline you will need to subscribe to our Select channel to listen offline, or subscribe to XLR8R+ to download the file. The move to Mixcloud Select will ensure that all the producers with music featured in our mixes get paid. You can read more about it here.

Full XLR8R+ Members can download the podcast below. If you’re not an XLR8R+ member, you can read more about it and subscribe here.