The Pellicle Mixtape Volumes 8/9 —Jens Löwius and Katie McCain from The Kernel Brewery
Welcome to The Pellicle Mixtape, a regular feature where I (Pellicle co-founder Jonathan Hamilton) will be asking people from across the food and drink industry to create a playlist set to a theme of their choosing.
The hope is to gain a small insight into that person and their place of work through not only their song choices but also the thought process and level of obsessiveness they put into their mixtape. I’ll also be asking them what they’ve been enjoying eating and drinking recently, and finding out what else has been exciting them in the world of food and drink.
This week, in another double (triple?) bill from a beloved London brewery we welcome Jens and Katie from The Kernel Brewery in Bermondsey.
In 2012 I found myself living near London for the first time, just when I was really getting into beer. Options were limited then, but most Saturdays I would travel into London with my bike and visit The Kernel to stock up on pale ales, IPAs, and stout. As such, The Kernel has always held a special place in my heart, and I’m thankful to have met so many excellent people who have graced their stretch of Spa Terminus over the years.
I’ve seen friends come and go, moving on to new ventures, and I even moved up to Edinburgh to work with two ex-Kernel alumni. It’s a bit of an institution, and central to this is the working environment created. In the time I’ve got to know the team at The Kernel it has become clear that the brewery is fuelled on a passion for cycling, cheese—I’ve been lucky enough to experience the vast quantities of cheese consumed at lunches there—and music.
When thinking about who to feature on this series, there were a number of candidates from The Kernel who could have featured, including founder Evin himself, but in the end my choice was clear. Both Jens and Katie have a love for music which runs deep, both have put out records on their own labels in the past, and they both put a lot of effort into these mixtapes, with Jens posting me a physical copy of his mix on cassette, and Katie making one of the most coherent and flowing mixes so far, to a theme that not many others would come up with.
Editors Note: This volume of the Pellicle Mixtape series was put together a few months ago, before the lockdown came into effect in the UK. As such, some of the food and drink suggestions may seem a little odd right now, but hopefully these establishments be there waiting for your custom once lockdown ends.
Volume 8 — Jens Löwius from The Kernel Brewery — Side A
If you’ve ever been to The Kernel Brewery in Bermondsey, or Café Oto in Dalston, chances are you will have bumped into Jens. If he’s not at a gig or listening to an album at home, he’s waxing lyrical about the latest release from his favourite artists. Jens has been putting out records of his own bands, and other people’s music since the late nineties with his old label 7"
Layer Recordings and most recently was involved with the production of a double LP of experimental jazz recorded in part at the aforementioned Café Oto.
It seems fitting therefore that Jens has made for us not one, but two mixes for you all to enjoy. Jens has put me on to some amazing stuff over the years, and I hope you also find something new and inspiring in these mixes.
Over to you, Jens!
When Jonny asked me if I wanted to participate in the Pellicle Mixtape series, I obviously agreed to take on this task. But man, how crazy difficult was this to follow through.
I panicked! There’s just too much music and not enough time.
As a teenager I spent hours compiling mixtapes, curating the selection of songs and covers with notorious dedication and passion. Each mixtape was going to be the best one ever. I actually still have most of these cassettes collecting dust in my mum’s attic.
Anyhow, I decided to take a trip down memory lane and I´ve tried to patch together a mix of tunes I still carry with me to this day. Like a daily fix—an injection of my perfect reality and a reassurance that things are still ok. That's what music, and sometimes beer, do for me. At work I often hear, “dude don’t play those sad songs!” but I find beauty in sadness. I apologise for that.
Hopefully, I wouldn’t ruin too many of my workmates’ days playing these tunes, but you never know!
It turned out to be Side A and Side B, somehow reflecting on the correlation between emotions, taste, provocation, diversity, maturity, immaturity, simplicity and beauty. Blah blah blah blah blah…
Punk Is a Life and Jazz Is Alive, shoot me in the foot and see if I care!
Side B
What have you been drinking recently?
I do try other breweries creations, possibly not too much, but I do my best to keep up with what’s going on out there in the industrial world of beverages.
Being blessed with the work ethics of The Kernel Brewery, I’m surrounded by creative and talented brewers who get to experiment with what I personally like the most when it comes to beer, hops and their effect in a straightforward Pale Ale.
I wish I had time to try each batch but, hey that’s impossible. Not to mention what’s going on with our mixed fermentation side of the brewery—some crazy good things coming from the gang running that show.
Recently had a tasty pint of Harvey’s Best Bitter, actually. Big Up.
Where/What have you been eating recently?
My safe place in London is Café Oto, by going there almost every week, sometime several days a week to experience live music, my perception of performance and live music has drastically and radically changed. They now have a Japanese kitchen running the lunches. OKAN, they can be found in Brixton, South Bank and now at Oto.
Excellent food in my opinion. Go check ‘em out.
What have you been reading recently?
I’m afraid I consume little literature on food and drink—possibly something I should change.
I’ve been reading Pellicle, does that count?
Apart from that, it’s music I read about, last one I finished was “Message to Our Folks” about the Art Ensemble Of Chicago by Paul Steinbeck!
Future,
Jens.
Volume 9 — Katie McCain from The Kernel Brewery
I used to see Katie around the Lockwood Industrial Estate occasionally. She was working at Pressure Drop at the time and I was working a few units down at Beavertown. We never really talked that much at the time, mainly because I think I was intimated by the air of cool she gave off, dressed in all-black regardless of the weather.
A few years later, I found myself at the Black Heart in Camden to see infamous noise band Lightning Bolt. It was a tiny gig put on by Brooklyn Brewery basically for free, and tickets went in minutes. On the walk there, concerned about the rumours of their decibel-pushing volume, I popped to the chemist to grab a few pairs of earplugs. During the sweaty performance, I looked around the room and saw a few friendly faces, including Katie, with no earplugs.
Despite my precaution, my ears continued to ring for two days after the gig. I have no idea how long Katie’s were ringing for but from the playlist she’s made for us, and the records she has put out in the past with her own label, I don’t think she has any issues dealing with noise.
This is one of my favourite mixtapes to date. While the music might not be everyone’s taste, the flow of this mix is perfect and will pair well with any feelings of existential doom you might be feeling.
Thanks, Katie!
Well, the remit for this mix was to make something noisy for you, so I started with The Body and the rest kind of happened because I was making it while visiting my folks in Canada. It’s a pretty remote and pretty wild place, and also wildly Catholic. So I ended up making a mixtape for lapsed Catholics.
For a faithless person, I have a serious love of a lot of different faith music traditions and intense singing traditions like choral music, chanting, throat singing, speaking in tongues. The first track is an old shape note singing tradition called Sacred Harp, which is a religious practise rather than a musical performance, followed by a range of intense vocals that I think draw on a variety of these faith singings. This is a really loose connection, I know, but that’s where my head was. The Catholics made me do it.
I think most people at work would enjoy parts of this mix, but a lot of it would be tolerated at best. We listen to a really wide range of music in the brewery, equal parts free jazz and Vengaboys.
You don’t always like it, but it’s rarely boring.
What have you been drinking recently?
My main priority right now is trying to drink more water—I hardly ever do it. But otherwise, I’m really enjoying wines from my friend Fernando at Otros Vinos mostly because he has an incredible ability to pour things I love when I don’t know what I want. Otros represents small natural winemakers in Spain and the south of France. In particular, I’m enjoying Catalan producers like La Salada and Joan Rubió.
La Salada make wines with mostly indigenous Catalan varieties from his grandfather and great grandfather’s vines. The wines are rarely perfect but are bursting with flavour and personality. Joan Rubió on the other hand, from the same region, makes some of the most precise, clean and elegant wines imaginable out of the grape varietal Xarel-lo.
Where/What have you been eating recently?
I mostly eat peanut butter and jam sandwiches.
I really love sandwiches.
Recently, while trying to get a bottling line up and running, I ate an Oreo sandwiched between two salted crisps, which it turns out is much more than the sum of its parts.
What have you been reading recently?
I try to maintain a lineup of books where at any one time I’m reading one work of fiction, one philosophy text, and something I want to learn.
This usually amounts to me reading fiction and carrying the others around without opening them.
Right now I’m actually reading Andrea Lawlor’s Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, and pretending to read Jasbir K. Puar’s Terrorist Assemblages and Jacques Lacan’s Seminar VI.
