Drum n Bass · Mixes

DnB Overload! Pt. 3

KikiLeave a comment

I told you there were a lot of mixes. 🙂

BBS Bookings has an awesome podcast. You should subscribe to it on itunes. Just search for BBS Bookings and it should come up. They are currently on #9. It features Radiata with Entro MC. Recently on BBP we had this “discussion” about emcees. I love Entro. He totally understands the art of when to be quiet to enjoy the track and when to hype up the dj and the crowd. There’s a lot of emcees that follow that path and that’s great. Unfortunately there’s a lot that don’t do that at all. I’m not gonna harp on this topic. In a nutshell… SHUT UP, I can’t hear the track. 😉

BBS Bookings Podcast May ’08 – Radiata & Entro MC

Tracklist

Kali – Take it Slow – ???

Lenzman & Submorphics- Heat of the Night – ???

Eveson – Bluebird – Channel 82

Cubist & ATP – Treat Me – Golden Orb

CABBIE+ORIGIN – LION DRUM – Function

Atlantic Connection Ft.Random Movement – Destiny Calls – Westbay

Cybass – Japonica – Vibez

Rendered – Kubiks Remix – Trust in Music

Mathematics – Still Ill _ Social Studies

Telemetrik – Rouge City – BSE

I got to work and another lil’ gem was in my mailbox. A lovely all Offshore Recordings set by the one and only Dj Clever. Not too shabby! It’s still only 11:17a.m. and I’ve pretty much got enough dnb to last me the rest of my shift at work… We won’t discuss the fact that I haven’t done any work for the past 2 hours because I’ve been typing these posts. 😛

Dj Clever – Offshore Mix

Tracklist

01. Deep Blue – Soho Code
02. Echo – Inside
03. Sileni – Twitchy Droid Leg
04. Fanu – Defunct Drums’ Depression Decade
05. Deep Blue – Who Got the Beats?
06. Nucleus and Paradox – Think About It
07. Graphic – 1000
08. Martsman – Ago
09. Seba – Make My Way Home
10. Alaska – Rare Earth
11. Graphic feat. Beans – I Am Metal
12. Mav and Twister – The Tubes
13. Deep Blue – Soho Code (Version X)
14. Sileni – Twitchy Droid Leg (Graphic Remix)
15. Martsman – Step Up
16. Macc – Wrong to Perfection
17. Graphic – Heroine
18. Darkstar – Lily Liver (Starky Remix)

Drum n Bass · Mixes

DnB Overload! Pt. 2

KikiLeave a comment

Continuing with the dnb mayhem… It’s funny how dnb phrases always seem to allude to some kind of chaos. 1) drum and bass in your face! — that’s my personal favourite. 2) dnb extravaganza! 3) dnb maelstrom! Hmmm, maybe I’m the only one that uses those terms since I am the ultimate nerd. 😉

Alley Cat. Alicia is one of the coolest people ever. I get happy when I get to listen to one of her mixes cuz she’s a really great dj. I’m always saying to my roomate how I love it when you get to be in the presence of genuinely awesome people. I know that sounds cheesy but it just doesn’t happen often enough so whenever it does, I tend to gush.

Alley Cat – Impulsecreator 9th birthday mix

Tracklist

01. Seba – Crockett – Combination

02. Calibre – Electric Soul – Signature

03. Lynx – ??? – 31

04. Klute – Hang With Me – Samurai

05. Hobzee & Zyon Base – Rain on Lens – Samurai

06. Verse – Space & Time – Crunch

07. Alley Cat – Non – Prophet

08. Calibre – High Note – Signature

09. Insight – Never Always

10. Zero Tolerance & Survival feat Steo – No More – Dispatch

11. Blame – Stay Forever

12. Calibre – Sock It To Me – Signature

13. Soul Intent – Studio Pressure

14. Klute – Love as Divinity – Samurai

15. Seba – Blaze & Fade – Combination

16. Calibre – Round House – Signature

17. Bjork – All is full of Love (Chris Su Remix)

Drum n Bass · Mixes

DnB Overload! Pt. 1

Kiki1 Comment

I woke up this morning and just knew it was gonna be a good day. It’s rare when that happens. It’s almost like all the planets have to be aligned or something just to make sure that it does. I actually slept really well. I went running. I had a good breakfast. I watched some tivo. I replaced all the mixes on my ipod cuz it was about that time and I checked all the new releases to see if there was anything I wanted to buy. All this before I left for work at 8:05a.m. Not bad huh?

The only annoying thing that happened this morning was it was one of those times where people won’t stop staring at you. I know you’ve all had those days. I spent my train ride staring at the floor and pretending to focus on the mix I was listening to cuz there were like 4 people that were being totally relentless about it. It’s weird cuz I’m like, I see you staring… You’re looking right at me so how do you think I’m not going to see you??? At least I have the decency to master the art of secretly staring at someone. It would be nice if others learned to do the same! 😉 It makes you think that something is wrong with you and it’s totally bothersome so please stop doing it. I double checked the mirror when I got to work and there wasn’t anything wrong with me. No hair out of place, no food on my shirt, no random unidentifiable objects on my face. Maybe I was giving off the aura of being in a good mood and they could sense it and were annoyed. Everyone knows that a majority of people that are on their way to work at 8 a.m. are probably not happy about it. *end of rant*

Back to dnb… 🙂 It was like Christmas for me this morning cuz I managed to find a bunch of mixes that I actually was excited to listen to. I hadn’t checked out the new Marcus Intalex yet. My buddy Stunna said it was a must download and once I realised D-Bridge was on it too, it was a no-brainer. Right now I’m really digging that D-Bridge remix of “Dream World.” It’s on that Aaron Jay Mix I posted before.

Marcus Intalex Feat. D-Bridge @ RBMA May 2008

Tracklist

Commix – Japanese Electronics (Instra:Mental Mix)
ST Files – Fat Soul
Calibre – Remedy
Data – Muted
Commix – Life We Live
D-Bridge – Creatures Of Habit
Marcus Intalex – Cabin Fever
Lomax – Res
S.P.Y. – 8 Bits
Lynx And Hellrazor – Shady Pastimes

– D-Bridge In The Mix –

Calibre – Out Of The Box
Marcus Intalex – Pole Dance
Random Movement, Mixmaster Doc & Focus – My Sentiments
Lenzman – I Still
Naibu – Newport
Commix – Underwater Scene
Bop – Searching The Truth

Drum n Bass · Mixes · Tracks

Ravin’

KikiLeave a comment

Flight – Live @ Swerve

Just in the process of listening to this one but I’m sure it’ll be wicked cuz Flight doesn’t disappoint.

Had a pretty good weekend. Makoto was in town. Really good show. I must say that I’m really into my Chicago dnb scene. I may harp on about being old but it’s just that I think I would be pretty miserable if my city’s dnb scene was ravetastic. I really am not that into partying with young people and being around a million people at a time. I have reached the age where me and an eighteen year old really have nothing in common, so partying with one would seem pretty silly. I think it’s nice to be in my thirties and be able to go to an intimate bar, listen to music I like on a nice sound system, have a drink and be around my friends. I know that other people wanna hype it up and rave til the break of dawn but that totally sounds nightmarish to me. To each his own, right?

I’m kinda swamped with work today so this mini post will have to do. Be prepared for more of my “eye-opening” (kidding of course) dnb ramblings tomorrow.

Toodles

P.S.  My day just got a lot cooler because this Peyo track that I’ve been in love with for ages just came out.  🙂

Peyo & Cloud Nine – That’s What You Do To Me

Drum n Bass · Tracks

A-sides

Kiki3 Comments

I have a tendency to take things one step too far. Nothing hateful or mean really, more like I’m that person who’s always saying to myself “I shouldn’t have eaten that last gummy worm,” or “it would have looked a lot better if I didn’t add that red stripe,” or “I should have only cut the neck of that shirt once cuz the second cut looks crazy.” You get the idea.

I tend to apply that philosophy to listening to tracks but fortunately the outcome is usually positive because I’m satisfied with the result. The only negative outcome is I could officially be dubbed insane since it’s absolutely abnormal to listen to the same song over and over like I do. I always want to ask people if they do it to the extreme that I do but i try not to point my weird tendencies out to others if I can help it.

I’ve seen people rewind songs a few times here and there but definitely never witnessed the approach that I have. This is no exaggeration… I could, and have listened to the same song on repeat for a whole day. I’ll make up a number, 15? 20 times? I’m being lenient because I’m sure it’s more than that but we’ll leave it there cuz I don’t want anyone bringing in the white coats.

The song that I’ve been doing that to this week is A-sides “Lustrous.” I will fully admit that I totally slept on this track. It’s on the flipside to Nu:Tone’s remix of Lenzman’s “Caught Up.” I didn’t particularly like the remix so I just kinda dismissed it and didn’t even really bother to listen to the other track. I do that a lot actually. Mostly because I don’t really mix out anymore and even though I like to keep up my vinyl collection it’s quite an expensive habit. So I can’t just be buying tracks willy nilly.  Instead I try to only buy records that I feel I will die, yes die, if I don’t own.

I was at Lava and my buddy Pipeline played it and it sounded really good. Now I can’t get it out of my head. Yesterday I sat in my car and listened to it on repeat instead of getting out and putting the groceries in my apartment. There was ice cream in there dammit!! I have no sense of priority at all! I don’t know why I felt such a sense of urgency about it. I have the record upstairs in my place it wasn’t like I wasn’t going to ever hear it again. *shakes head*

In a nutshell A-sides is awesome. I don’t only say that cuz he’s my friend. I was obsessed with EastSide Records way before I even became friends with him.

I’m gonna get back to work and go listen to Lustrous one more time.

Toodles

Drum n Bass · Mixes

Mixes

KikiLeave a comment

I am not ridiculously gadget oriented. I like them but I’m clumsy and I break stuff all the time so there’s no use in getting excited about a new toy when I know there’s a 98.27% chance it’ll be broken soon. Where am I going with this? My ipod. No it’s not broken. I just have a shuffle and I got that for a Christmas present from my boss cuz I can guarantee you that I wouldn’t buy one. Surprisingly I still have it 2 years later. The only reason it’s not broken is because it’s obviously drop proof… made up word alert. Thanks folks, my dictionary will be out next year. I drop that thing at least six times a day. I’m surprised I haven’t stepped on it. I’m babbling. Basically I love my ipod because I can store mixes on it. I don’t have a single lone song on my ipod which most of my non-electronic music loving friends find quite funny. It’s just chocablock full of mixes. When I used to bring my ipod to work at Adidas, I would put on some songs that I wouldn’t mind hearing at work so I could join the ipod rotation but now that I only work there once a week, I put the kibosh on that plan and now it’s mix city!

To keep up with my dnb obsession I am constantly in need of mixes to listen to. Breaksblog definitely takes care of that for me. There’s always a ton of good mixes on there. Another one I’ve recently started frequenting is Drum & Bass Links cuz not only do they have loads of mixes but they also have good variety. To be honest I go all over. I’ve become pretty adept at searching for mixes so even though those two are my regular go-to sites I tend to go anywhere and everywhere cuz I’m a fiend.

One mix I’ve had on heavy rotation is Aaron Jay’s April mix for Breaksblog. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve actually not been too happy with the past few Aaron Jay mixes. Last year I feel like they were really good and I would download without hesitation and then they just got really bloody boring. The tracklist would look decent and then I would find myself fast forwarding through the mix. This one I’m really into though. The tracklist is nice and it’s just an all round nice public transportation mix. I would never dream of driving my car to work as I work downtown so the ratings for most mixes that I put on my ipod are on a “public transportation mix” scale. We’ll have to get to the “partying at my house while doing laundry or pretending to clean” scale some other day.

Enjoy.

Aaron Jay April Breaksblog Mix

Tracklist

01. Sinth – Redeyes (DUB)
02. Lectro – Calibre (Signiture) *Lovin’ this track!!*
03. Lower East Side – Brother (DUB)
04. Lose You – Lenzman (DUB)
05. She Should Be Mine – ICR (DUB)
06. Deadly Rumours – Sabre & Zero T (DUB)
07. Dream World – Physics (D-Bridge REMIX) (DUB)
08. Brooklyn – Eveson (DUB)
09. Untitled Housey – Bal (DUB)
10. Leeroy Jenkins – Sinistarr (Influence Records DUB)
11. Sensibileia – Furney & Big Bud (DUB)
12. Production of Space – Ill Logic & Raff (DUB)
13. Why Time – Calibre (Signiture)
14. Dawn – Survival & Break (DUB)
15. Studio Pressure – Soul Intent (Influence Records DUB)
16. Turn Around – Redeyes (DUB)
17. Other Voices – RawQ (DUB)
18. Near Miss – System (DUB)

Drum n Bass · Reviews

Calibre – Overflow

Kiki1 Comment

Calibre, I heart thee.

I got my Calibre Overflow album in the post a couple of days ago. I’m so stingy about buying records that I think I wanted to love more songs on it than I do. The songs I do like, I really really like, and I know I’d be mad if I didn’t own them but at the same time is it too much to ask that I love every song before I fork over my money? I guess it is, because it never happens. 😉

I think this is an age old argument with buying vinyl. It sucks to pay for a record when you only like one side but at the same time, the alternative is not owning the record at all. *shrugs*

I’m kind of obsessed with Chemical Records. Chicago has the worst post ever, no seriously they do, but somehow I still manage to get my records in like 4 days from the U.K, yet it takes a week to get an invitation that my friend sent me from down the street! Do they have some magic I’m unaware of? I am not complaining in the least. I love it!

Back to Calibre. I was quite a fan of Second Sun. Not so much with Shelflife, I only really liked one song on there. I think I long for the Armageddon days where I was completely overwhelmed at how I was gonna fit all fourteen tracks into my set without coming off as completely boring and a bit cuckoo at the same time.

The thing I love the most about Calibre is that his tracks always seem so effortless. I have no qualms about admitting that I’m the dorkiest of the dorks since I do believe that dnb is the soundtrack to my life. When I was in my late teens I was noisy and energetic and impulsive, so “angry white boy dnb” a la RAM and Renegade Hardware were my personal faves. Now at the ripe ‘ol age of 31, I am quite mellow and peaceful and prefer the liquid funk rollers and pretty vocals… enter Calibre. I’m an all round dnb fan at heart therefore I really do still like it all but I tend to listen more to liquid funk than all the other subgenres.

For some reason most Calibre tracks remind me of Summer. Overeaction makes me wanna lay around and drink colourful cocktails in the sun or drive around in my convertible, that I don’t own, blasting music. Savannah Heat makes me feel like I should be sailing on a yacht waiting to arrive at an island that I own… I don’t own an island. You get the picture. With Calibre it’s about the subtleties in the track that make them so lovely. Slums… man that track is sick. It kinda reminds me of Graphic’s I Am Metal on Offshore and I love DRS. I love those tracks where you can’t help but move. It’s like your body just has this involuntary reaction to the beats. I love how Alone In A Crowd rolls. It’s very much like Thoughtless. It’s definitely one of those tracks you can ride out in the mix quite easily. Suddenly, I could kinda do without. It’s a bit tame compared to the other tracks. Not bad by any means, just ok. Same thing goes for Into The Groove. I wouldn’t mind hearing it on someone else’s mix but I couldn’t see myself playing it. Leave Me, I like this one. I don’t have anything profound to say about it. I like the arrangement a lot. It leaves me with this strange sense of anticipation for some reason, so I guess if I was going to play it, I would have to drop a banger after it for sure. Lo Note, hmmm, meh. It’s a bit boring actually. It’s not dirty enough, it’s doesn’t roll enough, it’s not unique enough etc. I’m not that into it. Beat Goes On, exactly the opposite of Lo Note. I had heard this one a while ago and loved it. I like that it’s kind of grimy, without being too noisy. A lot of Calibre tracks are perfect for riding out your mix. This is another one that I would totally play til the end of the record. TV On, nice one. Very mesmerizing. I imagine having these late night dinner parties and having this song playing in the background. It’s funny how I imagine all these situations that never actually happen to me but whatever.

All in all I think it was $46 well spent. 🙂