quote:

Originally posted by chris1011 If you want Jack, I can throw my mix onto a USB and mail them to you the old fashioned way. I don't think a USB would cost me that much in terms of shipping. Just so that you aren't caught at work. Let me know.

Bloody hell mate, are you still in Canada? No need to go to all that trouble! I should be okay on the work connection - I've downloaded mixes and stuff before, although nothing quite as massive as yours. I need to get my home Internet sorted out, anyway. I have a 4G modem at the moment (long, dull story), and this house appears to be lined with depleted uranium, because almost nothing gets through the walls. Every time I'm ready to throw the thing out the window, it suddenly gives me a burst of good signal, like an abusive spouse trying to stop me walking out of the relationship.

EDIT: Also mphreak, for the reasons listed above, I'd be grateful if you could enable downloads on your set. Otherwise, I won't be able to listen to it any time soon.

___________________
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/

Last edited by SYSTEM-J on Jul-03-2019 at 12:18

I can only apologise for missing this but I took on too much. I was trying to clean all my vinyls ultrasoniclly and have only got so far as to N on my 03-06 prog racks

I have came across some real hidden gems thanks to buying stuff I never heard of for this mix and I enjoyed those I have listened too so far so thanks everyone there is a positive

___________________
1999 Mix series

Rare Vinyls spinning on video If you like that sort of thing

Dave, I've finally managed to get through all of your set. There was a bit of a gap between listening to Part 1 and the rest, which I'll explain shortly, but on a looong coach journey across the north of Poland this weekend I had four hours to kill, and managed to listen to most of this in one big sitting.

In contrast to my reviews of everyone else so far, I thought you did an excellent job in the opening section. Given the stated context, the way you built it up from light and party-vibe hip-hop and funky cuts into more pumping fare was perfect. As you go from the first to the second hour I could immediately picture the steady descent from tipsy revelry into full-on drugged-up sweaty madness as the sky darkens above sweeping Somerset farmland.

However, I have to say you lost me big time about 10-15 minutes into Part 2. There's an electro-ish tune in there that's borderline EDM in its pulverising sonic palette, and in real life you'd be in danger of having me step out in search of another beat boutique at that point. Perhaps unfairly, this prompted me to stop the mix the first time through, rather than do the sensible thing and just skip ahead a few minutes (the home listening equivalent of sitting down for a chat and a fag).

When I came back to the set with the mission of finishing it off, I skipped clear past that section and landed squarely on what turns out to be your own production Echo. And that made me realise how over-hasty I'd been previously, as the mix swept me up from that point and held me rapt for a good hour. I was already chair-raving pretty hard on the coach by the time we reached the Shiloh track (albeit with no idea Shiloh had ever delved into such cheeky acid disco), but then the transition into Sports Complex had me impulsively cranking the volume right up, and it didn't come back down until long after First Light had left the tent.

From then on, you kept the energy and the vibe in the right place with lots of variety. There were a couple more electro breaksy moments that I didn't get on with, but for the most part you captured the classic festival nexus between kaleidoscopic fun and out-and-out debauchery, and as an execution of your concept, I think you nailed it. Perhaps my only criticism of the closing stretch is that Flyertalk isn't quite a big enough climax. I felt like we still had a couple of big monsters to come and felt a bit short-changed to realise things were already over.

As a note on the mixing: yes things weren't completely tight in places, and I'm not one of these insufferable bellends who thinks it sounds more "raw" or "real" when the DJ is loose. However, what you demonstrated here is what I've said for a long time: good mixing is about far more than just tight beatmatching. That is the most basic element of it, and in some ways the least important. Transitions like the ones into Sports Complex might not have been technically perfect, but you made those tracks work together, and the energy created had me gurning out of the window at some passing pine forests all the same. This game is about combining sounds and structures, and most DJs will never be able to do that like you can.

___________________
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 Bloody hell mate, are you still in Canada? No need to go to all that trouble! I should be okay on the work connection - I've downloaded mixes and stuff before, although nothing quite as massive as yours. I need to get my home Internet sorted out, anyway. I have a 4G modem at the moment (long, dull story), and this house appears to be lined with depleted uranium, because almost nothing gets through the walls. Every time I'm ready to throw the thing out the window, it suddenly gives me a burst of good signal, like an abusive spouse trying to stop me walking out of the relationship. EDIT: Also mphreak, for the reasons listed above, I'd be grateful if you could enable downloads on your set. Otherwise, I won't be able to listen to it any time soon.

Hey Jack, I'm really sorry for only getting to this reply now. It's been... well how can I say it. Busy, yeah. Lol.

I'm still in Canada yeah, just thought I'd be one of those typical Canadians and offer if you need it. Hope you got your internet in the time it took me to write this reply, which probably felt like a decade later.

Luke, I really enjoyed your mix! The first part for me was FANTASTIC – I love the old-house/disco vibes and the first part of your set hit all the right buttons for me. It reminds me of a lot of the handbag house I used to play on vinyl a few years ago when all I could do was buy 90s house. This kind of opening section reminds me of being on a sunny patio at about 12PM-2PM – just enjoying the blistering heat, feeling the sunshine and bobbing my head.

The shift you made from the first-part mood to the second, at the transition from 1:04:00 to 1:05:00, wasn’t my cup of tea – I feel you kind of just hit the reset button. That quite possibly could have been your intention but I feel in a marathon that transition could have been made over a few songs rather than just one. That being said, this feeling only really lasted the one track for me, as when I heard Marco Grandi – Butterfly coming in a big smile came over my face (love this tune). Again, you sort of went into another sort of vibe right after this track, which I feel made Butterfly a little misplaced. This is where the mix to me was at its lowest point, up until Uone & Thankyou City - Good Morning Sunshine, where it again started to pick up. This actually was the start of my favourite part of the mix, spanning the following:

Uone & Thankyou City - Good Morning Sunshine
Sous Sol - Eventually
Budakid - Anxiously
Cut Snake - Desire (Original Mix)
Dee Montero - Solace (BOg Remix)
Brassica - Time Tunnel (The Sphinx Edit)
ARTBAT & Rafael Cerato - Uplift (Original Mix)
Darren Emerson, John Digweed & Nick Muir - Fanfare (Darren Emerson Osaka Rework)

The transition between Eventually and Anxiously was going sublimely well until Eventually ended abruptly at 2:10:38, but I’m going to chalk that up to being in the moment and just forgetting to loop the outro haha. My god what a tune Budakid – Anxiously is; I haven’t heard this before and am happy to say it already went in my shopping cart. From here on out the mix went by super quickly for me and it wasn’t long after I was at the last track. As Jack echoed I think you nailed the closing wind-down very well.

In conclusion, this is again a very fine addition to the challenge. To me, the mix as a whole sounded like it could be played for a super chill patio vibe get-together, as the mix had a good sprinkling of the long-drawn out basslines with some of the chunky low-end as well. I’m not that well-versed on explaining sound haha but I hope you catch my drift.

________________

Dave - what can I say. This is a stellar set and please do not think you trainwrecked any transitions. From what most I can tell, it was all smooth. The slight pitching and warping you hear is to me when you have Track B gradually coming in and it sounds perfect on the monitors, then you forget for a bit and the track slightly starts dragging. Then, in a moment of sheer panic, you realize that it's happening after you put your headphones back on to check right after you fully insert the mids/highs into the mix. What ends up happening is the super quick adjustment where you hear the DJ adjust the jogwheel at lightning speed (which by the way, happens to me all the time when I'm mixing vinyl). It did not detract from the mix at all though... in fact it made it seem as if there was a human behind it.

So to start, Part 1 is a really great intro into this set. I really love how you are able to jump around super comfortably between different genres and sounds. I'm definitely a tad jealous. The track at 44:00 was downright filthy (in a good way) - I felt like I needed a change of clothes after listening to it. Then you followed it up with a pure classic deep house jam - as surprised as I was when I heard the transition, I think the contrasting vibes worked. I loved how you gradually built up towards the end of Part 1 - sort of teasing here and there by playing a bigger tune, then a slightly less energetic track, then a bit bigger one than before, etc.

I'm going to echo Jack's sentiment here, I did not enjoy the start of Part II that much. So much so that as soon as you played your own track it felt like I could go back into the club again lol. I would have been right with Jack with the classic "you wanna go for a smoke" gesture when Part II started Silverlake Pills is a dear long lost friend of mine and I'm glad it managed to find its way in some form into your mix. I remember when Digweed played Montel - First Light [Bedrock Records] when it was first an ID and people were desperately trying to ID it, that's how massive a track it was. I'm glad it found its way into this mix and couldn't have picked a better spot. Part II was going great for me until you delved into a little bit more electro-ish breaks, which definitely would have caused me to get a breath of fresh air outside the club again. No offence, it just isn't my thing if it's in bigger chunks than a random sprinkling here and there.

Now for my favourite section: Part III. Everything about it is awesome, except for maybe the last 15 mins orso. The change into breaks a quarter of the way through, then back into 4/4, then back into breaks a bit later - the variety was great and it allowed the listener to jam out without fear of getting too bored for 6 hours. Ironically I think that's where my mix sort of lacks in some places - I can name you at least a couple spots, at least 30 minutes long, which were waaaaay too boring and would have needed a nice injection of something to change things up.

Honestly, and I'll be fanboy here, but my favourite tune and moment of the entire mix was Muse - Knights of Cydonia (Future Funk Squad Remix) [SoundCloud]. My god the chills and smile I had on my face when this came on in the car. I personally feel it would have suited as a closer, or somewhere closer to it as it has such a grandiose epic feeling to it, but perhaps that's just me being a massive Muse fanboy. I just felt as if the ending sorta happened abruptly - something that Jack has pointed out many times on some of my Prog-trance mixes in the past and that I see has also raised as a criticism.

Otherwise, this was such a treat to listen to and I think you nailed your concept. It didn't feel like it took itself that seriously, at least until Part III and it had just the right amount of weirdness sprinkled in with the usual Dave King prowess.

________________

So that just leaves wotyzoid and mphreak's mixes for me to listen and review. I apologize again that this is taking me so long for posting reviews.

Last edited by on Sep-11-2019 at 01:42

On a side note, I hope that everyone has had a chance to give my mix a listen. I'm a bit curious as to what everyone thought of it if they dared enough to give it a listen. I have a few criticisms myself but I'll reserve them for after

Chris, Jack - thanks for taking the time out to both really listen to the mix and give such detailed feedback!

I deliberatly didnt write down the things I wasnt happy about in terms of the track selection in the description as I didnt want to colour peoples judgement. But whats interesting is that you both picked up on the things I wasnt happy with (i.e. the electro bits at the start of part II and the ending).

I think the two really offewnding tracks in the early electro section are the General MIDI and Kiwa ones and I think as soon as I played the Kiwa track I thought it was probably a bit much but, well it was too late by then haha!

And as for the ending, I did consider finishing on the Muse track but only breifly. I wanted to amke it to 6 hours plus, although I hadn't planned an ending particularly I knew I wanted to end on that Fatboy Slim tune. Its a tune I've used before at parties at 6am when the sun is up and I felt very strongly that it should be the last track! I think in the end though I should have plannedthe last 20 mins or so better, I was tired and really running on empty and I think you can hear that in the tune selection. I basically decided to call it a day before something went completely tits up and I ruined the lot

___________________

Dave King - Tales Of The Future [Trance]
Dave King - Personal Classics
MIX ARCHIVE!!!

Thank you so much, Jack and Chris, for taking the time to listen to my mix! I wanted to do a bit of the slow-mo, nu-disco stuff at the warmup but was finding it a tad difficult to build into the more progressive/tech house peak time.

Chris, I did listen to your mix (all the parts, twice!) and really dug it... I think my only complaint, if you'd call it that, is I'd flip the names of the Peak and Expanse sets... since the Expanse set felt extremely Peak Time to me, especially with tracks like I Dream, Cowgirl, and Xpander.

___________________
9-9-99 Never Forget

Quarantine Music Festival 2020

All My Mixes!

quote:

Originally posted by Mr Game+Watch Thank you so much, Jack and Chris, for taking the time to listen to my mix! I wanted to do a bit of the slow-mo, nu-disco stuff at the warmup but was finding it a tad difficult to build into the more progressive/tech house peak time. Chris, I did listen to your mix (all the parts, twice!) and really dug it... I think my only complaint, if you'd call it that, is I'd flip the names of the Peak and Expanse sets... since the Expanse set felt extremely Peak Time to me, especially with tracks like I Dream, Cowgirl, and Xpander.

All good man haha. Honestly I agree with you... I was torn between the naming convention... I wanted to sorta do it like climbing a mountain, and I envisioned it as sort of after getting to the peak there was this giant pasture/valley that was expansive. But honestly you are 100% right as those two parts definitely had different energy levels lol.