As many of you know, our good friend and colleague Nick Williams sadly passed away in late December. He would have turned 50 today.
To be honest, his death has taken a while for me to process and following his funeral I wasn’t really sure how to put the words together adequately for a post… though I wanted to write something about him here when I was ready.
I worked with Nick for over 14 years at Phonica and knew him even longer as a friendly face behind the counter. He was a lovely guy, very funny and was ever generous with his deep musical knowledge. He was also a truly excellent DJ… though he’d rarely sing his own praises, preferring to focus on discovering music and supporting the artists on his label Meda Fury and the wider music community.
Thankfully, plenty of Nick’s mixes exist as recordings and since his death I’ve been spending a lot of time revisiting them. They’re scattered all over the internet, so I thought that an archive collecting all of the links together should be out there, which is now HERE (if you notice any glaring omissions, message me and I’ll add them).
Nick and I played countless b2b sets and discussed music endlessly over the years (a large proportion of which was likely AFX, Rephlex and Factory related!) so it’s no surprise that he introduced me to a lot of mind-blowing records, which I’m so grateful for. Over the past month I’ve been pulling loads of them out again and slipped into piecing together a mix in Nick’s memory. These are records that I remember him really liking or I heard him playing, personal recommendations or simply those that we bonded over during our friendship. It’s an ever-evolving beast and may never be ‘complete’ – his tastes were diverse after all – but it’s been a cathartic experience nonetheless.
While there was no plan to publish anything, James from ReviveHer reached out to me in January saying he was dedicating a radio show to Nick and asked me for some music. As the timing was right, I spliced a number of those special ‘Nick records’ together for a 1 hour mix, which airs today at 3pm GMT on voicesradio.co.uk (…yes, there will be Aphex Twin).
Thank you for everything Nick 🙏
Love to his family & Liz ❤️
UPDATE: The show has now been archived. My part is the first hour, James takes over for the second:
Tracklist:
01. Jean-Luc Ponty – Eulogy To Oscar Romero
02. Aybee – Dawn
03. Niko Tzoukmanis – Blue Valentine
04. Midnight Star – Midas Touch (Hell Interface Remix)
05. Tambien – Indignados
06. Tikkle – Bubbles
07. Omar-S – Take Ya Pik, Nik!!!!!
08. STL – Loon Side Drift
09. Bookworms – African Rhythms
10. Aphex Twin – 5 Heliosphan Live
11. Link – Amenity
12. Spacemen3 – I Love You (Remix)
13. The Cure – Lullaby (Extended Mix)