Happy new year to all of you (that's right, I'm talking to all five of the personalities currently occupying my skull)! My number one new resolution (after cutting down on burning, losing some bone and being nicer to dinner plates) is to make this blog slightly better than utterly awful, but you know how New Years resolutions are!So, in that spirit, here's a link to a mix that is already linked on a popular website which all five of you already read with a hangdog regularity. It's a mix by Marcel Dettmann, resident DJ of Berlin uber-luber-twofer(atenner)-klub Berghain, and is fucking splendid.
Right click and save HERE to begin your accquisition. Go HERE to read the pre-amble, including an interview with Detmann in which he talks extensively about his interest in planing wood surfaces in order to ''annhilate their grievous imperfections'', and of how his cuff-links talk to him sometimes at night.
Ø - Unien Holvit - Sähkö Recordings
Terre Thaemlitz - A Crippled Left Wing Soars With The Right (Steal This Record Remix By DJ Sprinkles) - Mule Electronic
Levon Vincent - Invisible Bitchslap - Deconstruct Music
Cheeba Starks presents The Toupe Committee - GoGo Bop (A Trip To The Bodega) - Groove On
Marvin Dash - B2 - Force Inc. Music
Rolando - Where Were You - Delsin
The Black Dog - Train By Autobahn (Robert Hood's DJ Remix) - Soma
Shackleton - You Bring Me Down (Peverelist Remix) - Skull Disco
Shake - Indagoo - Morphine
Casino Classix - Ringer - Ifach
Common Factor - In To - Planet E
Ja & Dg - The Clock (Ben Klock Remix) - Rekids
Scuba - From Within (Marcel DettmannRemix) - Hotflush
Shed - Another Wedged Chicken - Ostgut Ton
Norman Nodge - Man Made - MDR
Fix - Dope Computer (Ken Ishii Remix) - Nightvision
Unknown - N/A (Function Edit)
Louis Guilliaume - Time Relapse - SD Records
DJ Assault - Vandalism - Self Released
Lab Rat XL - Lab Rat 2 - Clone
Marcel Dettmann - Plain - Beatstreet
Shackleton - Shortwave - Skull Disco
Female - HE. 2 - Downwards
G. Family Feat. Nombongo - People With Bullets - Earthrumental Music
EQD - Equalized 002 B1 - Equalized
This mix reminds me a lot of Scuba's xlr8r podcast* - the same intermittent sense of techno and dubstep (and other sounds) crumbling in the mix into a nebulous rhythms and textures which sound like both genres at the same time as sounding like neither entirely. Of course, in both mixes, it isn't this disorientating and surprising strain of shapelessness alone which makes them worth listening to. But the quality of (many of) the tunes in these mixes is difficult to separate from this boundary breaking tendency.
Certainly, Dettmann's podcast has caught my slightly technophobic ear because of his constant (though I suppose as smooth and subtle as you'd expect from a techno jock) shifting between rhythms and moods. This measured eclecticism chimes in somewhat with my recent infatuation with DJs who are mixing funky/garage/techno/house/dubstep together, though - this being techno - doesn't seem half as wild or unrestrained, and still relies in the listener's immersion in and acclimatisation to a persistent pulse.
Dubstep (on its more techno-referencing side) has been fusing variation of rhythm with deep immersion for the past few years, and was certainly operating in a similar way when Youngsta and Hatcha were mixing early Mystikz, Skream, Benga, D1 with grime and garage three or four years ago. Perhaps this fusion, rather than a simple foregrounding of sub-bass, is what dubstep has to offer techno producers in the way of inspiration?
I've been listening to Shed's Shedding the Past, an album which has popped up on many 2008 best-of lists, and the rhythmic diversity of Dettmann's podcast (which includes a Shed tune) - not to mention a general mood of extreme moodiness - is in evidence all over it. Take this tune:
Those snares, to me, sound like they're straight out of a jungle tune, and the rhythm is generally quite steppy. I know fuck all about techno (in case you haven't guessed), so this album (along with Dettmann's mix) has been quite eye-opening to me - I wasn't aware that techno could sound like this (supposing this track IS techno?), assuming that there must always be at least the hint of a 4x4 kick to tie things down.
Anyhoo, I think that this hybrid of techno/dubstep (dubstep itself being a hybrid of garage/jungle/techno) could be the place to look for really immersive, hypnotic AND exciting and unpredictable clubbing experiences in 2009, while on the more party-friendly, raw and balls-out exciting side of things it will (hopefully) be all about those blessed DJs who decide to take the best of what past-and-present 136 (and around that) music has to offer and hurl them together in the mix.
*fittingly, given Dettmann's recent remixing of Scuba's ''From Within''.
Certainly, Dettmann's podcast has caught my slightly technophobic ear because of his constant (though I suppose as smooth and subtle as you'd expect from a techno jock) shifting between rhythms and moods. This measured eclecticism chimes in somewhat with my recent infatuation with DJs who are mixing funky/garage/techno/house/dubstep together, though - this being techno - doesn't seem half as wild or unrestrained, and still relies in the listener's immersion in and acclimatisation to a persistent pulse.
Dubstep (on its more techno-referencing side) has been fusing variation of rhythm with deep immersion for the past few years, and was certainly operating in a similar way when Youngsta and Hatcha were mixing early Mystikz, Skream, Benga, D1 with grime and garage three or four years ago. Perhaps this fusion, rather than a simple foregrounding of sub-bass, is what dubstep has to offer techno producers in the way of inspiration?
I've been listening to Shed's Shedding the Past, an album which has popped up on many 2008 best-of lists, and the rhythmic diversity of Dettmann's podcast (which includes a Shed tune) - not to mention a general mood of extreme moodiness - is in evidence all over it. Take this tune:
Those snares, to me, sound like they're straight out of a jungle tune, and the rhythm is generally quite steppy. I know fuck all about techno (in case you haven't guessed), so this album (along with Dettmann's mix) has been quite eye-opening to me - I wasn't aware that techno could sound like this (supposing this track IS techno?), assuming that there must always be at least the hint of a 4x4 kick to tie things down.
Anyhoo, I think that this hybrid of techno/dubstep (dubstep itself being a hybrid of garage/jungle/techno) could be the place to look for really immersive, hypnotic AND exciting and unpredictable clubbing experiences in 2009, while on the more party-friendly, raw and balls-out exciting side of things it will (hopefully) be all about those blessed DJs who decide to take the best of what past-and-present 136 (and around that) music has to offer and hurl them together in the mix.
*fittingly, given Dettmann's recent remixing of Scuba's ''From Within''.
