Anyway yesterday I went up to the loft, opened the skylights, and this popped out. It’s perhaps got a bit more of a old fashioned house feeling in places than normal. But I think in general the sound works OK. And the Apparat remix at the end is stunning.
This was done at the weekend when it was nice and sunny outside. Instead of trying to milk a goat, catch a leprechaun, make friends with my neighbours, learn the flute or anything else so exciting. Instead I popped open the skylights and the first fresh air of the year entered the loft…
I’m not sure exactly where this mix fits in the world. I’d like to think I could pull off a morning slot on a sunny terrace somewhere, but I think they’re becoming increasingly the kind of mixes that only elderly folk will like ;-)
Tracklist:
Midtown 120 Intro – DJ Sprinkes
Mystery of Nazereth – Marco Bernardi
Twighlight (Layo and Bushwacka mix) – Unkle
Light Through The Veins (Ewan Pearsons Downtown Lights Mix) – Jon Hopkins
Poisson Pilote – Rone
Amish Kid (Sasse Remix) – Phonogenic
Lovelee Dae (Tanner Ross & KiloWatts Remix) – Blaze
Inner 8 (Dexters DXR Mix) – Alton Miller
Roman – Trickski
Ellelli (Kalabrese Remix) – Madioko N Rafika
Guinea Pig (DJ Kozes Vocal Variation Remix) – Ben Watt
Song for Marie and Elise (Aeroplane Remix) – Lullabies in the Dark
To try and lift everyone’s spirits I’ve put together a little (30min) mix of uplifting feel-good tracks to see if I can raise the mood of the internet. It’s a mix of styles from soul / mashups / hiphop / drum and bass / other so there’s something to suit some people in there.
I’m going to stop putting my music mixes directly on Crackunit. For a few reasons. Paranoia being one. DJ mixes have always been a grey area in terms of licensing, etc. So I’m just going to tidy them over to somewhere else, just to be on the safe side. I’d hate my blog to get compromised in some way because of sharing my musical stuff. I have good reason to be paranoid about this stuff – maybe I’ll share the story another time.
I’ll still ‘point to’ mixes from here. But they’re now on a totally separate site.
If you want to listen to or download my latest mix (or just look at the tracklist) you can head over to: http://iainmixedit.tumblr.com/
It’s perhaps a bit more ‘upfront’ than some of the stuff I normally play. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing…
Sorry, I know it’s been a few musicy posts in a row. But I had to share this. It’s perhaps the most bonkers track I’ve heard recently. It’s hard to describe its genre, it’s basically like speeded up funk / soul, meets happy hardcore, meets electro-house, whatever it’s just totally out there. I’m sure if I had a heart condition it’d do me no good at all. Don’t miss the slurring pianos at the end, it’s all very messy.
It’s been a little while since I climbed the ladder into the loft to put some more tracks into a mix. But that’s what I did at the weekend. And here’s the result.
I struggle with genres these days and when I go ‘up there’ to do a mix I tend to have an imaginary audience, place or time of day in my head. Then I try to do a mix that might work in that situation I’ve invented. I don’t know if that’s something that other people do, but it really helps me to focus and direct what I’m playing.
This mix was made for a made-up electronic radio station in San Francisco to be broadcast at 1am on a Saturday in July. It’ll never reach them and it’ll never get played there. But you can pretend it came from there if it helps.
Here’s the tracklist.
Japan – Plastician
Some Way Through This (Plastician and Skream Remix) – Black Ghosts
Wide Road (Soulteks Morning Dub) – I:
Pferd (The Mole’s Lost in The Woods Remix) – Pole
Durch Die Nocht (Geiger Mix) – Dorau/Kohncke
Revox (Deadset Chase the Dragon Remix) – Tim Green
La Conga – Riva Starr
Cornflake Boy (Solomun Dub Remix) – Marbert Rocel
Butta (Original Mix) – Sassomatic
Morphine (Frencesco Diaz Young Rebels Mix) – John Dahlback
The Move To The Sun (Edit) – Serafin
Classic Reality (Original Mix) – Jay Shepheard
Smile and Receive (Apparat Mix) – Swayzak
EDIT: DivShare is down for maintenance. So I’ve stuck it on Rapidshare instead:
As usual most tracks are from Boomkat and Beatport – if you like any of the tracks in the mix please buy the originals and support the artists. Thank you. Message over.
I’ve whanged on about Boomkat before. They’re a great example of a niche e-commerce player – although I’m guessing they’re a pretty big niche player now. They sell music online – mainly electronic stuff – they started selling CDs and Vinyl and now their download site is getting pretty awesome too.
Their real strength has always been in their reviews and descriptions of the tracks – if I’d trust anyone in the world to get something right about a bit of electronic music it’d be these guys. It’s not easy writing fresh content around minimal-dub records that are all 12 minutes long and basically sound the same ;-)
They’ve just launched a new site which I really like. It’s called 14tracks.com and each week they editorially pick 14 tracks on a theme and batch them all up together and send out an email and update the site. You can then go and buy the playlist (or bits of it).
Why I like it:
I like the design (it’s got some people in a bit of a tizz, though – it’s too 2.0 the naysayers say)
They’re inviting comment – and leaving up the negative stuff – always good.
What I don’t like:
It’s too expensive and there’s no discounts for buying lots.
There’s a couple of tricksy interfacey bits that are a bit yukky.
But what I really like is that it’s like going into a record shop full of really cool muso-DJ types and having them not treat you like a leper. Imagine that!
This time on 14 tracks: “14 tracks of narcotic House”
We just love the kind of slow and sultry House Music that’s been oozing out of the Berlin club scene in recent months. With its origin in the paralysed shuffle of Detroit’s Theo Parrish and Moodymann, this is the kind of music that’s in no rush to draw you in, often making use of deep basslines and crushed percussion to play tricks on the senses. There are direct parallels between these tracks and the more robust patterns that typify Dubstep, and with a woozy aesthetic that makes much of this music sound like it’s about to fall apart there are also direct links with the Wonky hip hop that’s making waves in 2008. Even if you’ve never been into club music, we reckon this is just about as evocative and heady as it gets…
The interesting bit
What’s interesting to me is that they’ve effectively created their own affiliate store. One that feels and behaves totally different from their main store.
I like the fact they’ve taken a bit of a punt on it. But it seems like a pretty logical thing to do. If you’ve got a bunch of people who understand their stock better than anyone else, why not let them repackage it and reformat it in a way that’s right for them and their friends/audience?
Why shouldn’t Amazon encourage their Rock buyers set up a site that sells tracks on a black background with lots of fire and frizzy hair on it.
Why shouldn’t TopShop encourage their Style Advisors to go and set up their own ‘rival’ sites that editorialise stuff in their own way?
What’s the worst that could happen? I suppose the sites could be shit and make the brand look stupid.
Interestingly 14 Tracks is getting a very mixed response in the comments. But people who like it will use it, and those who don’t won’t. It’d have to be really bloody awful to ever be damaging enough to put people off the Boomkat master brand.
As I’ve said before I like the idea of Radiohead more than I actually like Radiohead. This is another part of that puzzle. Basically it’s a response to the ‘Nude’ remix contest that they set up earlier in the year.
Thanks to Steve Wyles for the tip-off. I’m pretty sure this clip will be viewed by about 1 trillion people given that it’s an almost perfect mashup of geekiness and Radioheadness.
