This one is a must-listen for lovers of… well, love! Sade needs no introduction, and neither does DJ Spinna, although it’s a crime that I haven’t added one of his mixes to my blog until now. This mix, put together by Spinna a few months ago to celebrate Sade’s long awaited return with her new album “Soldier of Love,” collects all of Sade’s greatest hits and blends them into a sublime stew of sultry vocals and sexy beats. Some excellent remixes in here as well, from dub-master Mad Professor, Nellee Hooper of Soul II Soul, Pal Joey, and Spinna himself.
Lamb, a contemporary of Massive Attack in the mid-late 90’s UK triphop & drum n’ bass scene, produced several albums of haunting, edgy electronic songs, the best of which are collected in DJ Finny’s awesome “This Is Lamb” mix. Although getting their start in Manchester, Lamb are more commonly associated with the Bristol-based trip hop sound that was popular during the nineties. Aside from trip hop, their musical style is a distinctive mixture of jazz, dub, breaks and drum and bass, with a strong vocal element and, in their later works especially, some acoustic influences.
At nearly three hours, this mix captures the best work of Lamb, mixed smoothly and unobtrusively. In Finny’s words:
After a very long drive back from an airport, my cd changer came up with Lamb’s first self-titled albumn, and i thought to myself “has anyone done a mix of Lamb’s stuff?” well, i didnt actually look to see if anyone actually did or not, i went straight to planning 🙂 And here is the final Result.
This is a journey through all 4 of their albumns, this 3 hour mix starts with their very laid back ~70bpm tracks, and gradually builds to their trip hop and ambient DnB ~150bpm tracks, and if you haven’t heard of Lamb before, this music is perfect to shag a lass to.
I purposely put “Arranged” as opposed to “Mixed” because i made a physical effort not to overlap the tracks too much, yet make the transitions as smooth as possible, because i wanted everyone to hear the very best of this duo.
The following is excerpted from a larger article, found here:
Matt Black and Jonathon Moore have been creating tracks since the mid-80’s. It wasn’t until they came together as Coldcut and formed the highly innovative label Ninja Tune that they really started to have any success. With tracks such as “Mo Beats”, “Beats and Pieces”, and “Greedy Beat” they helped lay the foundation for hip-hop instrumentalists like DJ Shadow and RJD2. The Ninja Tune label has released albums and singles from DJs and producers such as the deep hip-hop of DJ Food, turntablist extraordinare Kid Koala and Russia’s DJ Vadim.
The mix starts off with some classic hip-hop, including Sweet Tee and A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?” with the original Lou Reed vocal over it. The mix then moves in to expiremental electro-house territory, before starting the second hour with some drum-n-bass like DJ Zinc’s “Super Sharp Shooter” and Krust’s infamous roller “Warhead”. Laced in between is Wayne Smith’s heavy “Under Me Sleng Teng”. Finally rounding out the mix is Franz Ferdinand’s “This Fire” over a floating dub reggae track, they then put Bjork’s “Hidden Place” with a backing track that consists of reggae guitar, 808 drums and opera-like vocals.
This is an entertaining mix that keeps you nodding your head the whole time and leaves you in awe at some of the things Coldcut come up with — they prove that even in an era when a kid with a computer can create “Jay-Zeezer” it still takes talent and a knowledge of music and DJing to create truly beautiful music using . It is rare that you get a DJ mix that contains creativity. It is even rarer to find an Essential Mix with longevity that doesn’t just contain the newest and hottest tunes.
Clocking in at over four and a half hours, this epic mix collects Massive Attack’s vast collection of work into a flowing journey of elegiac, melancholy soul and deep, dubbed-out funk. Spanning their career from 1991 to 2004’s “Danny the Dog OST” album, as well as a number of the essential Mad Professor remixes from “No Protection,” this is a definitive document on the seminal Bristol, UK group.
Arranged by DJ Finny, who did a perfect job of blending and arranging this mix in a way that always puts the music first, and also bridges the darker, more ambient interludes with classics like “Karmacoma” and “Teardrop.” Listen and download below, and check out the gigantic track list after the jump.
Kinosport’s live DJ set at Helsinki’s Rytmikaravaani event is one of the most delicious deep house / minimal techno sets I’ve ever heard. I’ve been playing it for over a year now, and it always gets enthusiastic compliments. It’s a slow-burner that gets chunky and funky about ten minutes in and keeps it going. It’s got tracks from some of my favorite artists of the genre, including Atomly, Max Mohr, and Moodymann. Check it out below, and make sure to also visit Kino’s blog for more mixes and some great photography as well.
Artist & DJ Eraserhead assembled this excellent mix of Warp Records (and related artists’) work a couple of years ago. The 79-song track list is encyclopedic, covering every genre from ambient to breakcore. Lots of very innovative mixing and layering here, but Eraserhead also knows when to completely switch it up. In his words:
This project took me nearly a year to complete. It was made entirely on Cubase SX while I was studying for a BTEC in music technology. It was built in 12 seperate segments and then joined together to create a continuous mix.
An excellent “listening” mix with lots of impressive, head-nodding moments, and also a great way to taste some of the weirder parts of “intelligent dance music” without making the kind of auditory commitment an Autechre or Venetian Snares album demands.
I grabbed this mix from Diplo’s Mad Decent blog yesterday and am really feeling it. Here’s their description:
We live in a cynical world, and we work in a business of tough competitors, so what’s in a wobble? You don’t have to be a smart man to know what love is. <3STEP completes you and is programmed for pleasure. It’s music for starry nights and candle light…slow wine and grind time. Dirty South Joe and Flufftronix are your captains for this maiden voyage into the heart of the boom’s cosmic bosom. It’s amazing, the love inside. You take it with you.
Dubstep producer and DJ Starkey provides a short spoken forward explaining the roots of this sound and how “luvstep” takes it in a new direction. Check out their website for the full tracklist, bookings, artwork, etc or just listen & download it now:
