Maya Jane Coles - The High Life (Original Mix)
Deniz Kurtel feat. Jada - The L. Word (Guy Gerber Countryside Remix)
Prommer & Barck feat. Lois Longerling - Lovin' (Andre Lodemann Remix)
Daso, Jin Choi - Teer (Rodriguez Jr. Remix)
Motor City Drum Ensemble - L.O.V.E. (Original Mix)
Dolphin Boy - Don't Stop (Andreas Saag's Dolphin Deep Perspective)
Martin Dawson - Sunday Smoking (Jay Shepheard Remix)
Thug****** - Disco Gnome (Tale Of Us Remix)
DJ T. feat Cari Golden - City Life (Maceo Plex Remix)
Laura Jones - Love In Me (Original Mix)
Anette Party, Anita Coke - Moreno (Original Mix)
J. Phlip feat Lailah Reich - Fever (Original Mix)
Carlos Sanchez, DJ Ray - Building Emotion (Original Mix)
Byron Stingily - That's The Way Love Is (Kolombo Remix)
Kate Simko feat. Kevin Knapp - Flight Into BA (Original Mix)
1. DJ Meko & Miss Sheila - Hang Man [Glender Remix]
2. Alex Dario - Tzartzan
3. Rainforest Project - Poisoned Frog
4. Diego Sanchez & Elias Roku - Natondi
5. Franksen & Tom Wax - Rhythm Section
6. Mr. Kush - Iberican Culture
7. Coco Silco & Gabi Cubero - Hey You
8. Karlos K Sound - Beach Moments
9. Steven Kass & Oriol Farre - Move Your Body
10. Luis Mendez & Raul Fernandez - Cachaza
11. Del Horno - Iemanya
12. DJ Goozo & Kevin Ayala - The Bubbles
60:19, 320kbps mp3, all wax, improv'd from start to end on 2.5 x 1200 (2.5 = running three decks, but not at full-throttle )
Tracklist:
1. 8088 - The Waiting - Sidereal Records
2. Gemini - Kiva Song - Cyclo
3. Rennie Foster feat. Aaron Carl - Savior - Rebirth
4. Aphrodisiac - Pressure Drop (altitude mix) - Fragile
5. Dj Bone - Ritual Mask - Subject Detroit
6. Ryan Hines - One Good Reason - Premier Records
7. Santiago Salazar - Your Club Went Hollywood - Wallshaker
8. Track Head Steve - Music - Dust Traxx
9. Virgo Four - Take Me Higher - Trax Records
10. Dopplereffekt - Voice Activated - Dataphysix Engineering
11. Saturn V - Locomotion - Nation
12. Two Of A Kind - Like This - Soul Jazz
13. DJ Hyperactive - S.O.S. - Contact
14. Robert Hood - A1 - M-Plant
15. Jay Denham - The Myth - Cosmic
16. Claude Young - Dark 3 - Djax Up-Beats
17. Andy Toth - Murder Scene - Intuit-Solar
18. Suburban Knight - The Art of Stalking - Transmat
19. Kosmic Messenger - Flashed - Plink Plonk
20. The Vision - Explain The Style - Metroplex
21. ?? - Hiccup Track (Original It's House) - White Label
22. Fresh - Dum Dum - Trax Records
1. David Forbes & Alan Nimmo – Galapagos (Original Mix)
2. Mike Koglin vs. Genix – Helion (Norin & Rad Remix)
3. Foylee & X-Vertigo – Freak (Lost Stories Remix)
4. Abstract Vision – Hurricane 2011 (Elite Electronic Remix)
5. M.I.K.E. – Unity (Mr. Pit Remix)
6. Ben Gold & Jonas Stenberg – Avalanche (Original Mix)
7. Marco V – Unprepared (Marcel Woods Remix)
8. Taylor & Close – The Good vs. The Evil
9. Orjan Nilsen – Mjuzik (Orion Remix)
10. Orjan Nilsen – The Mule
11. Andain – Promises (Adam Sheridan Remix)
12. Marco V – Song In My Head (Revixed)
13. Darren Tate vs Jono Grant – Let The Light Shine In 2010 (Arty Remix)
14. Lee Osborne – Flex
15. Binary Finary & Matthew Nagle – Replode (Jordan Suckley Remix)
16. Armin Van Buuren vs Ferry Corsten – Minack (Orjan Nilsen Superchunk Remix)
TIMING IS EVERYTHING. CURRENTLY, I'M WRITING TO YOU FROM THE NORTHWEST FACE OF LOBUCHE FAR EAST, A SMALL MOUNTAIN IN KHUMBU, NEPAL. IT'S VERY WINDY UP HERE, WHICH IS WHY I HAVE TO TYPE LIKE THIS. ANYWAY, THIS MIX IS ABOUT TIMING AND HUMANNESS AND RECORDS AND COMPUTERS AND MUSIC.
Of course, the actuality of things is that it's 1:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, and I'm laying across the loveseat in the front room after having spent a half hour slowly and painfully extricating myself and the laptop from the bedroom, after having spent the hour and a half before that writhing around in post-cycling accident, cramped tendo calcaneus agony, trying to simultaneously focus on my breathing, shift to a semi-comfortable position (there wasn't one) and not wake T., whose weekday rise time is now 6:15 a.m., (with a kickass new job to make it worthwhile).
But back to the bike accident. If my rear axle hadn't broken on Friday night on the way to work, I most likely wouldn't have taken my ride in to have it repaired and tuned up. If the most competent Mike at Newson's Bike and Skate hadn't tightened up my brakes, I probably would not have slammed on them in time to safely roll off said ride as it was rapidly being pushed to the curb by a car that swung a hard right on a green, sans signal. The driver was apologetic, I ended up bruised in a few places (no breaks – the now herb-quelled pain was simply cramping and stiffness that accompanied the ½ hour of sleep I'm guessing I nabbed earlier), and hopefully in Mike's skilled hands I'll get away with just needing to have my front wheel trued.
Timing. I make mention of this often to others, that when recording a mix, I always endeavour to recreate that 'live' experience - that of going completely off the rails in a hazy, dark, sweaty concrete box at some ungodly hour where strangely enough, given the right combination of audience, sonic messengers and substance (in complete fairness, anything from clean air to the more illicit fare), the concept of time can appear to vanish altogether. Having experienced playing both the bedroom and the big room, I can understand how difficult it can be for many neophyte DJs to come up with mixes that express something more than “these are a bunch of tracks I like that I think fit well together” - it can never really be proven how well they do fit until you obtain the opportunity to try to get someone other than yourself to dance to them.
If I could proffer one piece of advice regarding getting-out-of-the-bedroom DJing, it would be that programming is a huge aspect of the craft – MASSIVE (back on Lobuche Far East for a second...) Rely too much on what's hot, what everyone else is caning for the next 24 hours, and you'll quickly find yourself swallowed up in a sea of vacuous intellectualism and baseless one-upmanship – have fun sloughing your way to the mushy middle. When heart-centred, DJing is a deep, visceral expression of the self – the best of the best convey the sum of their personalities and experience each and every time they step up. In my ideal world, that's how it would be for everyone – powerful, moving stories, void of trendy superficiality and profit-minded motivation.
So, back to timing. If I hadn't been born in '69, I wouldn't have been a teenager when my friend POA bought his vinyl copy of Funky Alternatives 1 (peep Discogs, peeps...), and I probably wouldn't have ended up securing my second copy (the first having been left behind, somewhere) of this absolutely deadly compilation LP a couple of years back when DJ Iain (of Toronto's Lizard Lounge – I took over the club's 'Sex on Sundays' residency in 1990, when he gave it up after several years at the helm) cleared out about 6,000 pieces from his old collection.
And if I hadn't purchased that record, I wouldn't have dropped the instrumental version of Colourbox's 'Manic' somewhere in the first third of this mix, distractedly off-beat, with a couple of seconds of fruitless salvage effort before I bailed on it. And timing is such that in all likelihood, 6 months ago, when I was feeling less than confident about my own sense of timing in regard to most aspects of my life, I would have used that DJ-dreaded shoes-in-the-dryer moment as an excuse to not put out what's actually an otherwise pretty tasty, burn-through-twenty-platters-in-under-an-hour ride, if I don't say so myself.* I play vinyl, I play all of what I own and am no longer enslaved by trends and mindless consumption, I work quickly, improvise and take huge chances, believing the the end result will be fruitful – more often than not, I'm finding that as long as that
GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD AND INTO YOUR BODY
CHALLENGE YOURSELF
LOSE YOURSELF
SURPRISE YOURSELF!
spontaneity is in full effect, occasional glaring fuck-ups in a mix merely serve as a reminder that there's a real human being at work and play, actively seeking to convey the sum of their personality and experience to those who love to be moved.
Tales from the Westside, y'all – here's hoping this one moves ya!
52:55, 320kbps mp3, all wax, improv'd from start to end on 2.5 x 1200 (2.5 = running three decks, but not at full-throttle )
Tracklist:
1. Headroom - Ekab - Planet Rhythm Records
2. Untitled - Oliver Ho - Light and Dark
3. DJ Bone - The Music (Rennie Foster's No Lights, No Fights Remix) - Subject Detroit
4. Surgeon - Machine Language - Downwards
5. Johannes Heil - P.A.X. Part 2 - Kanzleramt
6. Untitled - Frankie Bones - Remains
7. Jovonn - Drum Drum - BBE
8. Colourbox - Manic (Instrumental Mix) - Trance Records
9. Roy Davis Jr & Jay Juniel* / Men From The Nile Featuring Peven Everett – Watch Them Come!!! - Underground Therapy Muzik
10. Maurice Fulton Presents Melonsniffers – This Is What You Want (Dr Scratch Stomp Mix) - Pagan
11. Traxx - My Soul - Nation
12. Moodymann - Music People - Planet E
13. DJ Slip - Player - Kanzleramt
14. DJ Slip - Work Me Over - Kanzleramt
15. Lenk – Narcotics (Fred Remix) - Planet Rhythm Records
16. Anthony Child – Over Napoli - Slut Smalls
17. Dafluke - Outta Bodai (Mossa & Pero Mix) - Complot
18. Random Noise Generation – Falling In Dub - Filth Records
19. Coco Steel & Lovebomb - Feel It (original mix) - Warp Records
20. Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft - Der Räuber Und Der Prinz - Virgin
(*Also doesn't hurt that this mix was made in the presence of the magic triumvirate mentioned earlier...necessary elements for a good tone!)
Kaine - Love Saves The Day (Soul Clap Remix)
Vincenzo - Sometimes Saturday
Pional - Where The Eagles Dare
Lovebirds feat Stee Downes - Give Me A Dubfuck
Chris James - I Know What Ya Thinking
Seuil - Ultravision feat Jaw
Miguel Migs - Everybody feat. Evelyn Champagne King (Akis Formant Experience Dub)
Tiago Fragateiro feat Tracey K - Lovefool (Jay Shepheard Remix)
Pol On - Secret Love
DJ W!ld & Shaun Reeves - Wish I Din't Miss You
Jacques Greene - Lay It Down (The Whatever Remix)
Michael Mclardy - Deep Nothing (Lazaro Casanova Remix)
Fabio Neural - Rise My World
Tiger Stripes - I Found U
Midland - Through Motion
Eats Everything - Heard That
Rob Small - Bad Wednesday (Mute Remix)
Osunlade - Envision (Dixon + Yoruba Soul Mix)
London FM - Checkpoint Charlie (Francesco Remix)
Inkfish - I Wish I Was Tina Turner
Subb-an feat Anomaly Jonez - Positive Expression
Homework - Im Into This (Andre Crom & Martin Dawson Remix)
Tracklist:
1.28 North Atlantic - Lights Out (Lemon 8 Remix)
2.Jaia - Out of Orbit (Vibrasphere Remix)
3.Purple Haze ft Frederick - Timezone
4.Synthetic - Planet Flex (Flippers Remix)
5.David Tort - Jack It Up (Original Mix)
6.Orjan Nilsen - The Mule
7.Arty - Around The World (Original Mix)
8.Mr. Pit - Avion (Original Mix)
9.Ummet Ozcan - Reboot (Original Mix)
10.Setrise & Oleg Espo - Outrageous
11.Ernesto & Bastian - Bonanza (Original Mix)
12.Cosmic Gate - The Theme
13.Heikki L Lovetone - White Out (Original Mix)
14.Markus Binofli aka Big World - Meganite (Original Mix)
15.Ferry Corsten - So Good (Original Mix)
16.Space Rockerz - Crooked Hook (Original Mix)
17.Dakota - Katowice (Mr. Pit Remix)
18.Sied van Riel - Bubble Blower
19.Orjan Nilsen - Between the Rays
20.Lisa Lashes - Distant Drummers
21.Ernesto vs Bastien - God is A DJ (Dub Mix)
22.Giuseppe Ottaviani - Linking People (Giuseppe Ottaviani Remix)
23.Christopher Lawrence & Sean J Morris - Rock It (Reaky Remix)