Last weekend my girlfriend and I flew all the way to Berlin only to be told "Nicht Willkommen" at the door of Berghain. I guess we just weren't Techno enough. As a consolation I decided to record my idea of a good night out, a selection of the finest banging techno and acid, old and new. Some of the mixing is a bit rough and the flow might not be that smooth in places but this is very much a "don't give a fuck" mix, and it gets pretty relentless towards the end. If anyone wants to pass it on to Sven the Berghain doorman, be my guest.



Tracklist:

01. X-Press 2 - Muzikizum [Skint]
02. Desert Dwellers - Acid Monsters [Desert Trax]
03. Full Blown - Funk Acid Machine (Asle Dub Mix) [Whoop!]
04. Armand Van Helden - The Funk Phenomena (Edge Factor Dub) [Henry Street]
05. Nick K - 80s Ball [SOG]
06. Sqartaque - Code Zero [IAMT]
07. Absolut & Blade - Crash [KumQuat]
08. Segue - Reset [Smash Bang]
09. Banco De Gaia - Obsidian (PFN Vs The Light Remix) [Disco Gecko]
10. Jan Driver - Drive By [Hope]
11. Axel Karakasis - Gobble [Remain]
12. Dax J - Elta Perfa [Natural Rhythm]
13. MCJ - Back 2 [IAMT]
14. Skaivox - Shadow Funk [AK]
15. Cosmithex - Cylinder [J00F]
16. Alexey Kotlyar - Barakuda [Groove Heart]
17. Norman Andretti - Dallas Incident [Unaffected]
18. Heaton - JRM (Goncalo Remix) [AK]
19. Skaivox - Lab Rat [AK]
20. Ganez The Terrible - 303% [Central]
21. DJ Misjah & DJ Tim - Access [Tripoli Trax]
22. Vince Watson - Timeless (Live At Berghain, Berlin Mix) [Bio]

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Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

isn't that a little too far to go clubbing?

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UnauthorizedTranceAddict Youtube Channel where I post older mixes from the TA DJ Promotion Forum

My mixes:

Still up:1:2

Down:3:4:5

Definitely checking out.

Do you think you were refused entry because you're English?

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Help me ID these sets:
Sasha - Live @ Logic, Santa Monica, CA 12-21-97 - Groove 103.1 FM
John Digweed - Live @ Axis, Boston 28-07-1997



Old & New Electronic Music Channel
Soundcloud Mixes

really enjoying this mix. right up my alley.

quote:

Originally posted by Syntonic Do you think you were refused entry because you're English?

It's mostly random. One hand, like any club in Berlin they need tourists to actually fill the club up all weekend long but on the other hand there's too many people wanting in to let everyone in. You probably do have a higher chance to get in if you speak german though and they tend to be nicer to germans than to tourists. It's pretty weird though, from what I've observed they tend to be respectful to everyone for the most part but they do seem to enjoy telling random people who did nothing to fuck off like they have some personal vendetta against them, even though they probably would have gotten in no problems had they queued an hour earlier or later.

Did you at least have some fun elsewhere?

Regarding the mix, there's obviously some nice classics in there but a lot of these newer bigroom tracks were not my taste at all. Maybe it's because I've never been a psy-head but I thought some of psy-ish bassline tracks were pretty terrible to be honest. I think JOOF plays a lot of that stuff as well but to me this psy-trance producer makes techno stuff always sounded sort of cheap.

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June 2018 mix

quote:

Originally posted by Woony Regarding the mix, there's obviously some nice classics in there but a lot of these newer bigroom tracks were not my taste at all. Maybe it's because I've never been a psy-head but I thought some of psy-ish bassline tracks were pretty terrible to be honest. I think JOOF plays a lot of that stuff as well but to me this psy-trance producer makes techno stuff always sounded sort of cheap.

Which tracks do you mean? I can only think of 3-4 maximum that would match that description. Granted, a lot of these tracks aren't the coolest or most credible strains of techno around, but as the title says: this ain't Berghain, and the point was to play something a bit more fun and 'aving it than tastefully bland boom-y Ostgut Ton techno.

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Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

This looks massive to me, I'll download asap. Love the Skiavox tunes and I've been hammering MCJ - Back to in my sets lately. Will report back soon

incidentally, they wouldn't let me in to Tressor when I went, but that was cuz I was fucking bladdered

quote:

Originally posted by JonDC incidentally, they wouldn't let me in to Tressor when I went, but that was cuz I was fucking bladdered

Haha, no surprise there. With Berghain we were both sober, the only thing either of us said was "Zwei" when asked how big our group was, and it was 12.20am. I wasn't optimistic though because I could see them turning away a lot of guy/girl couples or groups. I suppose we looked too conventional to be serious techno clubbers, but who knows?

quote:

Originally posted by Woony Did you at least have some fun elsewhere?

We went to About Blank on the Friday and I enjoyed sitting in the garden with a joint listening to some lush future garage, and after the Berghain failure on Saturday we went to Renate, as we'd been told it was very cool there. But to be honest I was pretty disappointed with the clubbing. Although the venues were busy and people were dancing, the crowds weren't very friendly and everyone just seemed to be drinking alcohol. No smiles, no water bottles, a lot of tourists milling about.

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Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Which tracks do you mean? I can only think of 3-4 maximum that would match that description. Granted, a lot of these tracks aren't the coolest or most credible strains of techno around, but as the title says: this ain't Berghain, and the point was to play something a bit more fun and 'aving it than tastefully bland boom-y Ostgut Ton techno.

I see what you were going for but for me a lot of these tracks around 60-75min for example just sound like the type stuff a Drumcode DJ might play as fodder. I'm not seeing how that type of stuff is any more fun than more restrained techno just because it's a bit more in your face. It's still just bassline, drums and fx.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J We went to About Blank on the Friday and I enjoyed sitting in the garden with a joint listening to some lush future garage, and after the Berghain failure on Saturday we went to Renate, as we'd been told it was very cool there. But to be honest I was pretty disappointed with the clubbing. Although the venues were busy and people were dancing, the crowds weren't very friendly and everyone just seemed to be drinking alcohol. No smiles, no water bottles, a lot of tourists milling about.

I can definitely relate to your experience, that type of vibe sadly happens quite often here. I think it's just what happens when you have so many tourists that there's no regulars or familarity which bonds people and creates a good vibe. In smaller scenes you'll probably have all the heads in one spot if there's a good night but here it's just always really diluted. Germans also tend to not be the most open people in the world which certainly doesn't help as well

Not that there aren't a lot of parties with a good vibe (Panoramabar tends to have a pretty good vibe most of the time for example) but the type of situation you've described does happen in a lot of clubs and it can be quite depressing at times.

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June 2018 mix

quote:

Originally posted by Woony I see what you were going for but for me a lot of these tracks around 60-75min for example just sound like the type stuff a Drumcode DJ might play as fodder. I'm not seeing how that type of stuff is any more fun than more restrained techno just because it's a bit more in your face. It's still just bassline, drums and fx.

The biggest obvious difference to me is the more driving, persistent basslines. The Drumcode sound for me is defined by being quite spacious in the low end which give the track more opportunity to "boom" in a big room. I personally find it much more gratifying as a dancer to have a really driving bassline: it creates so much more energy and it just gives you more to dance to.

And the other thing is I've tried to sequence the set to have "heads down" sections where it just bangs relentlessly, and then a couple of more big and eventful tracks to provide a peak. The problem I have with a lot of techno DJs is they just thump away relentlessly and there's no real sense of dynamics to the set. It might be a more PLUR-tastic raver mindset, but I like to get locked in for 20-30 minutes and then have a big anthem to make me rush. So while there are sections of this mix that are definitely just boom-boom techno without anything particularly clever or "interesting", I hope they exist for a purpose rather than being an end unto themselves.

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

I don't know, every time i've seen a DJ that plays this type of stuff what ends up happening is that you get this enormous wobbly bassline that drowns out the kickdrum and completely overpowers the room with bass which makes actually dancing hard. And then they play tracks with the same fucking bassline for hours on end and it just becomes obnoxious. Also i'm not a fan of the complete lack of any sort of hook in this stuff most of the time. If I hear techno without some kind of synth/chord/stab pattern to hook me I just get really bored after a few tracks. For the same reason I get really bored if someone just plays the dark atmospheric stuff for extended periods of time.

I do agree with your criticism of techno DJs, i've talked about with Adam quite a bit. A lot of techno DJs seem to not know how to properly build peaks and valleys, often i'm on the floor and thinking come on, gimme something big now but they won't deliver and just continue playing tool-y stuff for hours on end. A friend of mine has categories for 'diva' records and 'slave' (tool) records and most techno DJs just tend to play way too little diva records.

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June 2018 mix

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