I’m back with a new DJ mix, and this time it’s a selection of techno from the late 1980’s and early 90’s. The first wave of acid house had passed and the tempos had increased, the sonic landscape widening as the genre began to mature. The roots of the Trance genre are here, alongside harder-edged sounds from Germany and New York, mingling with the Afro-futurism of Detroit. This is when EDM “grew up” and went from a popular dance craze to the exploration of whole new worlds and visions.
DJ E.A.S.E. aka George Evelyn is known as the positive force behind Nightmares on Wax. Since 2009, he has been hosting the weekly WAX ON records radio show called WAX DA BOX, streaming worldwide via IBIZA SONICA radioevery thursday 6-7pm CET – with the repeat going out every saturday 2-3pm CET. You can check out the full archive of Wax Da Box mixes at their Soundcloud account.
This particular mix is my favorite one of all. some of the tracks in the mix include Waldeck’s dubby “Our Day Will Come”, “Dreamer” by B.B.&Q Band, the “Soul Clap” instrumental by Showbiz & AG, “Rocking Chair” by Mr. Scruff, “Mas Pan (DJ Day Remix)” by Quantic, the “Luck of Lucien” instrumental by A Tribe Called Quest, and a rare old-school hiphop nugget from Jibri the Wise One, “The House the Dog Built”. Quite a mix of rare and classic tracks with newer selections – truly worthy of the Nightmares on Wax name. Check out the full tracklist after the jump…
Beyond being acclaimed Canadian DJs, Skratch Bastid and the Gaff share a love for ’60s- and ’70s-era soul music. Over the past couple of years, the pair spent two years in the lab concocting Soul Sisters, Stand Up! – a funky as hell 80-minute mix of sister funk n’ soul tunes. In Scratch Bastid’s own words:
Well, here it is. Soul Sisters, Stand Up! is our long awaited, brand new 80-minute mix filled with 100% Female Funk/Soul/R&B/Breaks. 2 DJs. 2 years in the making. Featuring the sounds of soulful ladies from the mid-60s & mid-70s – a snapshot of love, pain, happiness, oppression, strength, struggle and more from an era where records were the primary outlet for these voices. These messages are driven home by the beats and grooves from what is undeniably the funkiest decade in music history. From Freda, Aretha, Nina & Diana to Betty Everett, Lavette & Davis, we take you on a journey to a mindset, using tunes both classic and criminally overlooked to tell the story. Mixed together in classic mixtape fashion… you know, with mixing.
The selections are funky, sequenced and blended flawlessly, showcasing the voices of Marlena Shaw, Lyn Collins, Merry Clayton, Etta James, Aretha and many more. Some of the O.G. samples are looped live, recreating the classics on the fly in the context of the mix without losing momentum. Stream the tape to preview if you must, but smart money says a download might be in order as this is likely to get repeat listens from any avid fan of quality music.
Download here (both parts 1 & 2 together in one mp3) – 105mb, 1 hour 27 minutes, .mp3 format
… or it’s full title of “Beats, Rhymes & Features – The Extensive Adventures Of The Abstract Poetic Q Tip mixed by Colm K”.
Colm K, Irish DJ and producer extraordinaire has taken time out to lace us with this great little mix of Q-Tip’s solo work.
Some gems on here featuring Q on the mic and behind the boards. You can’t beat an emcee that rhymes, produces and collects records. It’s the epitome of hiphop and something you don’t see too much of these days but then again there’s not many emcees who can stand up to Q-Tip in terms of rhymes, production and overall legacy. Old school and New school – the mix below speaks for itself. (re-blogged from ChoiceCuts’ website, home of this mix)
Download here(right click and “save as”) – 109mb, 1 hour 20 minutes, .mp3 format
Doc Martin is one of the most revered DJ’s in the American house music scene. His career goes back to the earliest days of rave culture, and he has toured the world many times over and held numerous residencies at top dance clubs. His many recorded mixes are collected in a number of places around the web: Rave Archive, Ezeskankin, and MPiii to name a few. This particular one is a favorite of mine, collecting many of my favorite house and deep house anthems in one epic journey. This recording combines all four parts of the Visions of Paradise set into one long mix, which was originally spread across two cassettes. I don’t know the year it was recorded, but given the track selections, I would say it was sometime in the late 1990’s.
Greg Wilson has been a pioneer in electronic music ever since the early 1980s. Specializing in jazz-funk and disco, Wilson is known for being the first DJ to ever mix live on British television, as well as the teacher of a young Fatboy Slim. Yet perhaps the British producer is most famous for his DJ sets, in which he scratches and mixes using two reel to reel tape machines. I’ve posted about him before, specifically his awesome BBC Radio Essential Mix and later an except from his essay on the roots of electro.
His set in May 2012 at the Movement festival in Detroit was a tour-de-force of disco dancing and seamless remixing. Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Garbage, and many others get a disco rework that’s both surprisingly funky and faithful to the originals. I’ve been listening to it constantly since May and have to share it here:
I’m back with another DJ mix – this time it’s all about the 80’s! Electro Classixxx is a non-stop megamix of 34 of the best electro jams from 1980-84, and is a great introduction to this massively influential genre. According to British DJ and music historian Greg Wilson,
Electro is the missing link of Dance music. All roads lead back to New York where the level of musical innovation and experimentation throughout the early 80s period was quite staggering. It wasn’t one narrow style that never strayed from within the confides of an even narrower BPM range, Electro-Funk was anything goes! The diversity of records released during this period was what made it so magical, you never knew what was coming next. The tempo of these tracks ranged from under 100 bpm to over 130, covering an entire rhythmic spectrum along the way.
There was no set template for this new Dance direction, it just went wherever it went and took you grooving along with it. It was all about stretching the boundaries that had begun to stifle black music, and its influences lay not only with German Technopop wizards Kraftwerk, the acknowledged forefathers of pure Electro, plus British Futurist acts like the Human League and Gary Numan, but also with a number of pioneering black musicians. Major artists like Miles Davis, Sly Stone, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, legendary producer Norman Whitfield and, of course, George Clinton and his P Funk brigade, would all play their part in shaping this new sound via their innovative use of electronic instruments during the 70s (and as early as the late 60s in Miles Davis’ case). Once the next generation of black musicians finally got their hands on the available technology it was bound to lead to a musical revolution as they ripped up the rule book with their twisted Funk.
