This year, FACT turns 10.
FACT began life as a bi-monthly print magazine in 2003, before transforming into an online-only publication in 2008. To mark a decade of operations, we’ll be using this week to assess our favourite content from the last 10 years – much of which is being made available online for the first time.
So far this week, we’ve collected our favourite features, top interviews and New Talents, best list rundowns from the archive. This is the hard one though, our favourite FACT mixes over the years. We launched the FACT mix series in 2008, and in the years since it’s featured exclusive sessions from big names (Carl Craig, Maximo Park), up-and-coming acts (Jam City’s one of several to do a FACT mix before they even had a record out) and the sort of people that we honestly never expect that we’d get mixes by (Autechre, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti). Choosing our favourites was like choosing between your children – but if you had almost 400 of them running about.
Regardless, here we go. We’ve plumped for a combination of office favourites that still get aired on Friday afternoons at FACT HQ, mixes where the artist really went above and beyond what we expected, and some that just arrived at the perfect time. Tomorrow, we’ll probably have changed our mind, but right now this is our chosen 10. Enjoy.
Use your keyboard’s arrow keys or hit the prev / next arrows on your screen to turn pages (page 1/11)
08: Ben UFO (2008)
One of Europe’s most acclaimed DJs captured fresh-faced in 2008, several releases into his Hessle Audio label.
58: Untold (2009)
We asked Untold for a FACT mix just after we heard ‘Anaconda’ – several months before it came out, on Brackles’ FACT mix – and he delivered a session that offered the world its first listen to his game-changing Stop What You’re Doing material.
93: Jam City (2009)
We fell hard for Night Slugs’ Jam City before he’d even released a record: fans of his 2012 album Classical Curves who’ve not heard this need to check it on the strength of the unreleased JC material (‘Running Yr Mouth’!) alone.
112: Deadboy (2010)
Another early spot: we asked Deadboy for a mix shortly after hearing his first 12″ single ‘U Cheated’ (and subsequently tracking down his past cassette beat-tapes), and this slow-burning house and garage session was an instant favourite in our office. The best bit, obviously, is the pitched-down Burgaboy track.
126: Space Dimension Controller (2010)
Detecting a theme here? It’s always a special feeling when you take a punt on an unestablished artist and they deliver something special – like Deadboy and Jam City, that’s what SDC did here.
234: Pangaea
Another entry from the Hessle Audio label, and 100% deserved.
292: Raime
The Blackest Ever Black duo turn to the (other) darkside, with a jungle session focussed on ’94-’95.
316: Julia Holter (2012)
Remember what we said about certain artists going above and beyond? Julia Holter’s FACT mix, released just before her second album Ekstasis, is a half-hour set of original field recordings, stitched together under the title All My Love for You.
352: Ryan Hemsworth (2012)
Jeremih meets Chrono Trigger, Danny Brown meets Final Fantasy and Waka’s never sounded more wistful, but Ryan Hemsworth’s bootleg-heavy FACT mix is far from a cheap tricks session – it’s one of the best-flowing mixes we’ve even run.
379: Grouper (2013)
Liz Harris falls pretty firmly into the category of ‘musicians we love but never thought that we’d manage to get a mix out of’, and we’re confident we’ll still be playing her old music session another five years down the line.
