Each week, FACT’s Mixtape Round-Up trawls through the untamed world of free mixes, radio specials and live blends so you don’t have to.
Change is afoot here at FACT HQ – the weekly mixes column will now be coming to you every Friday, with the mixtapes column being compiled into a biweekly list dropping every other Thursday.
This week’s round-up includes Lorenzo Senni-inspired trance deconstructions, boss-level instrumental grime, du jour club heat, and nostalgic trips through IDM, house and techno.
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Mix of the week:
DEADBOY
TRUANCY VOLUME 102
Deadboy has quietly reasserted himself over the last year, and judging by his mix for our friends at Truants, he’s just getting started. His Truancy set is a lush tour through current trends — drugged-out rap, irresistible PC Music pop, crystalline club constructions and cinematic grime — that maintains a distinct Deadboy flavor.
At several points in the mix, he nods to the chopped-up R&B bangers with which he first made his name, whether via Mssingno’s ‘Brandy’ or his new collaboration with Murlo, ‘Ride With You’, and tracks by contemporaries Moleskin, Ikonika, CYPHR and M.E.S.H. fit perfectly. Plus, his forthcoming material on Local Action sounds like a treat; we’ll be on the lookout for that — and for Murlo’s nasty edit of Zuse’s ‘Red’.
TEKI LATEX
DECONSTRUCTED TRANCE
All you have to do is take a peek at the tracklist to know this one’s going to be a winner. French producer and DJ Teki Latex was inspired by Lorenzo Senni’s recent corker of an album Superimpositions and its drum-less trance variations. He saw parallels between Senni’s compositions and the wave of drum-less grime tracks doing the rounds and decided to throw them against a variety of drum tracks from all genres, resulting in a mix that’s almost totally unique.
Latex used 3 CDJs (no edits) – interestingly digging up a suite of trance tools to fill in the gaps – and it’s bloody convincing stuff, so much so that it’s a wonder nobody’s actually done this before. Where else are you going to hear Moleskin, Slackk, Rabit and Wiley blended with big room trance and techno? Proper.
SLACKK
RA.436
It’s not the first time we’ve featured one of Slackk’s mixes in the round-up (and we’re sure it won’t be the last) but his set for Resident Advisor requires special attention. Recorded in one take, the hour-plus mix gives you an idea of what to expect when Slackk hits the decks at the increasingly-important Boxed clubnight. “Occasionally I’ll plan out a mix and try and figure out a flow and that,” he tells RA, “but I wanted this one to be a bit more loose and spontaneous as that’s what I sound like when I’m playing out, really.”
The result is a testament to the diverse sounds grouped under the instrumental grime umbrella — from Eastern synth assaults to gun-cocking, bed-squeaking Jersey-goes-grime edits to cyberpunk freak-outs to manic R&B reworkings — and no one knows this stuff better than Slackk.
Download via Resident Advisor
XHALE
LEFT DOOR TO MACHINES
Ahh IDM, how we miss you. If you didn’t already know, FACT’s been getting a little misty eyed over the Artificial Intelligence era lately, and that hasn’t gone totally unnoticed. Deaf Center member and producer of bone-chilling dark ambience Erik Skodvin (aka Svarte Greiner) was inspired enough to dig up this 2004 blend of a few of his favorites from the sorely-missed genre, and it’s a real corker.
Skodvin hand picks barely-known gems from DiE, Seltzer and Grandma and more familiar numbers from usual suspects Autechre, Aphex Twin, Richard Devine, Plaid and Machine Drum (under his more IDM-friendly Syndrone moniker) and blends everything into a veritable soup of glitches, drones and chirpy melodies. We might be dwelling on nostalgia here, but who can blame us when it sounds this good?
DEV/NULL
CLASSIC HOUSE & TECHNO MIX
Breakcore producer and world renowned hardcore collector Dev/Null (aka Pete Cassin) is usually found blending 180bpm brawlers on his Blog to the Oldskool page, but this time he’s pulled the tempo down to mash together a selection of classic house and techno 12”s.
He knows his shit too: not only are there some tracks on here that are so rare, Cassin isn’t even sure whether they were ever released or not, but these rough diamonds are welded with floor-filling bangers from Rhythim is Rhythim (‘Nude Photo’ obviously), Lil Louis, DJ Pierre, Unique 3 and loads more. If you’re all mad that Disclosure and Rudimental have ruined music, you’d probably be advised to check this one out and remind yourself that life’s still worth living, almost.
MIGHTY MARK
BMORE MIGHTY MIXTAPE
Baltimore club is having a moment (again) and it’s thanks to a slew of up-and-coming DJs, producers and vocalists that are updating the sound’s architecture for a new generation. Mighty (né Murder) Mark is one of the city’s most exciting talents, and his latest mix is a 30-minute Bmore workout that reps the city from ‘Cherry Hill’ to ‘Green Mount Park Heights’.
Assembled for French club fiends Moveltraxx (the label that released his excellent Mighty EP), Mark mixes in tracks from veterans like Rod Lee and KW Griff and younger talents like James Nasty, TT the Artist and DDm with some of the vicious rap remixes that remain the genre’s calling card. As he says from the get-go: “Baltimore up in the bitch.”
