Besides all the regular series of mixes i do, these here are set's that i did, well kinda in between. I listen to a lot of musical genres and sometimes i feel the urge to try and make a new mix. My usual motiviation of mixing a DJ set is, because i just feel like doing it.
OST my Milou & Journey Home
With "my Milou" it was quite different. My GF had a young kitten called Milou which sadly had to die soon after she got it. The animal shelter didn't follow the quarantine rules, so he got infected with faids. It was a very sad situation and on his passing i wanted to express my feelings with a special mix. I knew that i didn't wanted to use ambient music, cos it didn't feel right, so i used OST's from movies/tv/games. I was pretty amazed by the mix and made a follow up with "Journey Home". I will surely get back to it, cos i really enjoy them both.
Drum and Bass Points in Time
This one features Drum 'n Bass the LTJ Bukem style. I liked Drum 'n Bass alot and i'm still listening to it. For me LTJ is the God of the Atmospherical Drum n' Bass. It's melodic, chilly and can be very relaxing. I own all the Logical Progression, Progression Sessions, Points in Time and the more Jazzy Earth collections on CD. My fav all time D'nB track is from Seba & Lotek "So Long" it incorporates all what i love about this kinda music. I knew i wanted to mix some D'nB myself, but at that time i didn't had enough records to do so. And i'm not the guy who likes the aggressive hard D'nB style, i'm just more mellow and soft :-) that's when i discovered some LTJ live set back in '96. I immediately fell in love with that sound and started to find out more about the man behind it. That's how i got into "goodlooking records" and bought all i could afford...With all that equipment i could finally do some of my own set's. The name is obviously taken from the GLR compilation called "Points in time" i thought this is really a brilliant name to it, and actually i didn't intend to make a bigger series out of it. I bought "Points in time" and loved some of the tracks on them and some don't. So basically i wanted to make a "cleaned up" version of it, with my own personal favorites. I thought there would be a max of maybe 4 mixes and it was intended as a personal best of for me, that's why i didn't invent a name for it and these actually are not online, cos i'm really poor when it comes to DnB mixing :)
After Volume 5, i think, i also changed the tracklist. I added some jazzy, funky tracks to it, which loosely had to do with D'nB, but i felt it belonged in there.
Italo Disco 4ever Italo :)
We all know the question "what would you pick, if you had to live on an island" Well, if someone asked me that question in terms of what music style i'd pick, it would come down to Italo Disco...yeah i know, silly and goofy, but hey, that's my music i was growing up with and i sure love it. I practically can sing along to every major italo disco classic there is (i sure can when the chorus kicks in) and i'm not joking about that! For me as a kid there where 2 different type of guys. The ones listening to Rock/Metal and then the ones who enjoyed Pop. Rap was nowhere in those days (i love public enemy and have all their albums) but in those days for me there was only ITALO DISCO. Scotch, Radiorama, Den Harrow, Sandy Marton, Tom Hooker just to name a small fraction....Italo Disco got me into buying 12" (my first was Ghostbusters Ray Parker jr. though) but i think you'll get the point. That was also the first time i've heard mixed compilations. The Italo Boot mix came first, followed by Max Mix. It was a crazy time and looking back, this influenced my whole musical way. I mean i've listened to music before, but never so intense. My sister used to listen to Abba, Boney M but never had the same crack on music like i have. From my mother i was used to listen to Elvis (which i think is truly the King of Rock) that was the good part, Freddy Quinn, Heintje and co wasn't....
Of course there wasen't only Italo Disco. I loved Rick Springfields "Celebrate Youth", the Pet Shop Boys, Madonna, MJ, Nena....for me the 80's where simply awesome and actually still are. Today i've read an interview with the Bangles (didn't know they still exist) they are having a gig in Zürich tomorrow 09.07.08 and some phrase really left me perplex. Susanna Hoffs was asked what kinda people nowadays are comming to there gigs and she replyed: "It's crazy, we got all kinds of people. There are people who where teenies in the 80's, they think 80's music is the best there was and is. That is shocking. To be honest the music then was quite simple." hmmmm im not sure what to tink of that, i mean, what's there to be shocked about? I mean when listening to radio or MTV (which i honestly almost don't do anymore) and hearing what crap they play today, i really think music is more simple then it was in the 80's. But then again, there was simple music in all of our times, since music is that. Of course you have the politically themed music, music with a message, but hey, if it's Public Enemy or Den Harrow, they all have a message and mean something to us. Ok, this is a simple and maybe a bit a naive way to discuss this, but i ain't here to ramble about any message in the music. I just wanted to say, there is a message in all the music there is, different in it's ways, but the message stays... i'm drifting away...ehrmmm...
I did tons of Italo Disco compilations on Tape in the good old days (i love that term) but strangely never did any mixing together...so here is my first mixed Italo Disco set, and yes, it sure wont be the last :-)
Trance AfterGlow
AfterGlow is my up beat Trance project. It was born outta my first up beat project Dark & Long. I had a lot of Global Underground Volumes and liked the Progressive touch, with less trancey vibes and the slight darker feel to it. DJ's like Sasha, Nick Warren, Seb Fontain and of course Oakey had much influence to my musicaly preferences. I took some tunes from those compilations to start my own series. I first wanted it to have the same dark feel, therefore the name Dark & Long. Of course, the same named track from Underworld (dark train rmx) had it's influence, since this is also one of my all time favorite tracks ever:-) But also uplifting & melodic Trance is one of my favorite music styles as well. Either with Vocals or without, i simply love it. Stuff like Satellite from Oceanlab, or Blue Fear from Armin van Buuren just keeps me dancing like a fool in my flat :-)
I've started to experiment and mixing Trance stuff together with my double CD Deck i used to have, but had to find out that i failed miserably to beatmatch. So i soon turned to my PC to look for any software that kinda beatmatches for me...yeah lazy i know, but hey, what the heck....first i used Magix Music maker, but that sucked. I acually added tracks with minimal transission at the end to each other, no beat match, and no tempo match whatsoever...i made like 6 volumes this way (yeah i could live with it) as i then discovered DSS DJ and finally i was able to beatmatch my stuff. So actually Dark & Long 7 was my first real Trance CD. It had awesome tracks on it, like Motorcycle' s As the Rush comes (still one of the best ever produced tracks) or My Religion from Pulser. I still enjoy that Volume sometimes.
My favorite DJ's where Armin van Buuren, Above & Beyond, Gabriel & Dresden, Paul Oakenfold and Markus Schulz (they actually still are as of today. With Gab & Dresden and Markus Schulz i kinda drifted more and more into the Progressive Genre, a bit darker and less trancey. So with later Volumes i added more progressive stuff into the series. It was pretty difficult to mix them together, so that it was still listenable. The main problem was the BPM difference on the tracks. Trance spinning at 136 - 142 BPM's and then Prog with just 122 - 132 BPM's that was quite a challenge. At one point it became impossible to do it in a manner too still enjoy the tracks they where meant to be. That was 'round Volume 30 or so. First i started to do one Volume with just Progressive stuff and then the other with Trance, but i felt unsatisfied by the result. So i decided to stop the Dark & Long series and divided the two genres in 2 different series. AfterGlow for the upbeat Trance stuff and Sub Level for the Progressive tunes. Sometimes i still mix Prog and Trance together in one Volume, that's when you listening to Sub Level vs AfterGlow....kinda Dark & Long revival ;-)
Usually the mixes are 'round 80 mins and BPM is 136-138 but lately i've started to hit the Gym again and my workout usually is like 2h, so the later volumes are much longer to match my Gym time :-) BPM stays the same...