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I know I have been quite lax with actually giving you much in the way of feedback of late, so to make sure I actually did a review of this one I set a rule that I wouldn’t listen to any other mixes till I had written it. So I’ve been through it about 6 or 7 times in different contexts, the last one being Sunday morning walking the dog around the battlefield at Waterloo in glorious sunshine. While not quite the Peak District, it’s about as close as I could get to the intended environment around here.
I have to say I really enjoyed this, and that enjoyment did not diminish at all with multiple listens. I think it really captured that sense of being on a hike through beautiful and dramatic countryside. Track choice and placement on the whole is excellent, with everything fitting the intended vibe & sharing a similar sonic palette (with one exception, which I will come to in a minute). While the tracks spanned different sub genres of the overall progressive umbrella, they all seemed to serve a specific purpose in the flow. It was as rolling as the landscape it’s intended to accompany, while not lingering in any one spot too long, or indeed too short. There are no jagged edges here, no really big moments, and no tracks that are particularly stand out, but the whole is like being in a warm bath of groove & melody. I was very much reminded of one of my favourite times seeing Sasha on a sunny bank holiday afternoon on Clapham Common. I don’t remember any particular moments, but I do know the hours whizzed by in a blur of twinkling melody.
The mixing is your usually flawless, smooth style. In some ways I think of it as functional, not in a derogatory way but it is not the main event, which I think was your intention. You don’t really notice it, apart from a couple of satisfying gear changes (the mix into Just Joy being a particularly nice one).
And so on to the exception I mentioned earlier. The one track that I thought didn’t quite fit was Candyland. The two issues I have, which are admittedly very subjective, are thus:
1. To me it’s not a closer. Sure it’s a great track and a good "moment", but it doesn’t give me a satisfying sense of closure or arrival, like there’s still more to come.
2. To my mind it doesn’t quite fit with the same sonic vibe as the rest of the mix. What I mean by that is that all the other tracks sound like sunlight reflecting warm from an azure blue pool somewhere in the Med (I dont generally have synaesthesia, but with Nikko.Z - Sungazing I could literally see the reflections in my mind) and Candyland sounds more like sunlight peaking through leafless trees on a clear winter morning.
With those two factors together it’s kind of like at the end of the mix its not like weve reached the peak but a sudden chill has blown across the hills and we still have a way to climb into cloud. I can see how you might see things differently however.
So all in all a great mix, which would have been a 10/10 if not for that choice of closer, but a solid 9 
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Dave King - Tales Of The Future [Trance]
Dave King - Personal Classics
MIX ARCHIVE!!!
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