Popstatic presents 'Kaleidoscope Pt. 8'

Tuesday, June 30 2009

Greetings good listeners the world over! We are now on the verge of a new July and the summer is fully upon us. With our new month comes a new mix from my 'Kaleidoscope' series and as is usually the case, this one is about two months in the making. However, what it lacks in the quickness of it's arrival, it surely makes up for in the quality of it's programming and hopefully after all is said and done, I'll have crafted something that the rest of you lot can appreciate for the remainder of this lovely summer.

I started this mix about a year or year and a half ago and this should be no surprise to those of you who pay attention to the various happenings around the world of techno because you'll notice that the mix is front-loaded with tracks that came out around that period of time. The second half, however, is full of tracks that are very current; some virtually brand new. This is because I revisited the mix after having originally abandoned it, liked the early results more than I initially had, and then began re-working it until I eventually finished it now. Not to worry though, I worked hard to retain a certain amount of stylistic consistency across the entire mix and the end result is in my opinion a mostly successfully one.

You'll also notice that this mix is a completely 4/4 techno/tech-house mix, which is of course SLIGHTLY outside the boundaries of what I'm used to doing. The bottom line though is that I feel more excited than ever before about techno and it's evolution. There is such a huge wealth of spectacular music coming from the global techno community that seems to be going relatively un-noticed on these shores. Yes, of course there is and always will be a dedicated techno faithful in the United States who remain very much entrenched in the subculture's most current trends and ideas and I certainly would never under-value these people in any way. However, speaking as someone who makes a living as a full-time DJ in the city of Chicago, I feel like this music is enormously under-represented in our city and also as someone who would LOVE more than anything to be out playing this music in public, I find it virtually impossible to get involved in events where I can push this music and still pull something more than even a modest crowd. Seeing as that this is the general route that my personal musical evolution is taking, and that I plan future musical endeavors of my own to fall in line with these sorts of musical aesthetics; it would seem that barring a huge social transformation of this city's musical identity, the future of my musical career seems to likely reside in other, distant locations. What this means to me will remain to be seen but the bottom line is that Chicago is no home for someone with aspirations to launch a techno career and that's an unfortunate reality for those of us who want to help make this music flourish.

Location-specific issues aside, I'm still feeling good about being a local ambassador for these sounds and feel like my personal growth with regard to programming this music has come a long way. I don't believe I've yet reached the degree of programming excellence that my favorite techno DJ's (folks like, say, Michael Mayer or James Holden) have and of course just getting there takes years of practice in front of live audiences (something I'm not getting a lot of around here, as previously mentioned), but I'm undoubtedly confident I'll make those strides in time and further build upon my ability to sequence techno and house music with the best of them. Perhaps this here mix could be the beginning of a sort of permanent re-invention of my musical identity... I suppose we shall find out.

So anyways, without further ado, here is the mix itself in all of it's glory...

1. Deadset 'Farm House' - Front Room Recordings
2. Sascha Funke 'Mango' - BPitch Control
3. Silicone Soul '3AM' - Soma Quality Recordings
4. Daso 'Meine' - Spectral Sound
5. Robert Babicz 'Dark Flower' (Joris Voorn Magnolia Miix) - Audiomatique
6. Kolombo 'Acai' - Boxer Recordings
7. M.A.N.D.Y. vs. Booka Shade 'Donut' - Get Physical Music
8. Anja Schneider & Lee Van Dowski 'La Roulette' - Mobilee
9. Anton Pieete 'Players' - Intacto Records
10. Visti & Meyland 'Yes Maam (All Nite Long)' (Trentemoller Remix) - Eskimo Recordings
11. Voodeux 'Just A Spoonful' - Mothership
12. Ada 'Maps' (Michael Mayer & Tobias Thomas Mix) - Kompakt

... As is always the case, you can stream or download the mix in it's entirety from my podcast page, you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or you can always catch all my 'Kaleidoscope' mixes directly from my Samurai.fm showpage. Feel free to chime in with any thoughts, comments, suggestions, or whatever else you might have in mind. Most importantly though, I would suggest you take the mix out in your car or on your soundsystem of choice and let it lend a little bit of bump to your summer. ;)

Cheers!

Photo courtesy of Shayna Fontana.

Tags: Popstatic presents Kaleidoscope, Samurai.fm

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