Nana’s Sunday Jams: The Light 3000 - Schneider TM & Kpt. Michi.Gan

Published on 2021-01-03 00:00:00 by Nana Fani-Kayode

**[Banner artwork by the majestic Trav, all of Nanas jams are gathered in this playlist.]****Yes, yes, Sunday Jammers! Happy, Happy New Year! We made it to 2021, and however you made it to the finish line, well done. Not that we are out of the woods yet, but there are slivers of light, enough to make me feel hopeful about going into this New Year.

Today’s track is the come-down after the bangers of our New Year’s mini-playlist. Hope you enjoyed them and found a way to wile out. This track is the perfect ending to my night out, taking me back to my space where I started with ‘Have I’ by Little Simz, which was full of contemplative energy. Today’s selection, however, is far more melancholy but beautiful, full of space, and folds you into the music.

A Melancholy and Ethereal Close to the Night

The track is ‘The Light 3000’ by electronic duo Schneider TM and KPT Michi.Gan from the EP Binokular, released in 2000. This is a reversion of ‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out’ by The Smiths (for anyone interested, the original is on the album The Queen Is Dead, the third studio album from The Smiths).

So, to set the scene: I’ve managed to make it home and am back in my nook, ready to chill, but I’m wired, still carrying the musical highs of the night, convinced that I’ve got some steps left in me. My body has declared its end, but my mind is still racing, and this track always finds a way to realign the two. My favorite way to listen to this is lying down, with the curtains open. If I’m lucky, it’s a clear night, clear enough to see the stars. It’s that perfect moment before evening hands back to day, when the dying lights of the stars meet the early colors of day, and for a short while the sky is a kaleidoscope, chaotic and beautiful.

From the start of the track, there is a perfect interplay between the stripped-back electric beats matched by a metallic hum that just sings. The listener is taken on a journey through an urban city at night, littered with end-of-the-night stories in every corner. The lyrics are heavy, full of dark contemplation about the desire to connect, to belong, to feel, to be alive, aching for love and yearning for a death that, on first thought, feels like a solution but is surpassed by the need to be connected. These might not sound like ideal constituents of an end-of-the-night happy track, but the musical scope elevates it, making it ethereal and haunting.

Schneider TM and KPT Michi.Gan add trance spacing and electronica to the original track, giving it a whole new perspective, moving away from an indie lament to something edgier. It feels like a trippy journey into the heart of The Light—which I always imagine is a place at the end of one of the city streets, waiting to be discovered by the traveler who has chosen life. It’s a place filled with hundreds of electronic tealights, billowing in time with the symphony. Listening to it in this way makes me feel weightless; it cools my overstimulated brain, ushering me towards sleep, finally ready to let go of my night out and ready for whatever the next day will bring.

Check out the rest of the EP Binokular if you find you aren’t quite ready to let go. It continues to expand on the styles highlighted in ‘The Light 3000’: trance, stripped-down drum ‘n’ bass riffs, electronica, and melody, and melody, and melody.

Happy New Year!

Written by Nana Fani-Kayode