There’s a lot of free mixes available online right now. Like, a lot. We’ve churned out almost 250 of the things for a start.
This new Ben UFO mix, however, is a little different. It inaugurates Nothing New, a mixtape series just started by the Boiler Room designed to, in the site’s own words, “allow people to demonstrate their influences by playing you some of their favourite older records. The real insight being that you get to see what different people see as older music. One might be stuff from last year and the next might be a mix of medieval druid anthems. It’s all part of the ‘internet-speeding-up-the-rate-of-musical-transitions’ school of thought – or something like that.”
Ben UFO’s mix is designed to sound like a Metalheadz session at the Blue Note club in the mid-’90s. The catch? He’s never been.
In Ben’s words, “it was a small place in Hoxton Square with a big sound system, designed in such a way that the DJ was almost in the crowd. The descriptions of the night I’ve read sound achingly distant from drum and bass now – the same crowds week in week out, producers and DJs mixing with ravers, an open music policy and the kind of accelerated development that comes with fierce competition and regular sound system tests. People talk about it with the same reverence and nostalgia as dubstep people describing the early FWD>> sessions.
“For all I know a lot of the tunes in this mix might never have been played at Metalheadz, and I wouldn’t expect the sets there to have covered as much different territory as I have – the tunes in this mix are were mostly released from ’94-’98, which doesn’t sound like long, but a huge amount changed in that time. The mix is the result of a record collection built retrospectively, and a romanticised image of the night constructed through other peoples recollections of that time – there are very few photographs of the night online and comparatively few recordings. It’s essentially a mix based on my own imaginary ideal drum and bass night.”
Download: Ben UFO – Never went to Blue Note
Tracklist:
1. DJ Die – Live and Direct (Full Cycle)
2. Innervisions – Digital Readout (Reinforced)
3. Studio Pressure – The Physical (Photek)
4. Hidden Agenda – Dispatches #1 (Metalheadz)
5. Plasmic Life – Death Trip (Brain Recordings)
6. Ed Rush and Nico – Technology [Boymerang remix] (No U Turn)
7. Doc Scott – Drumz ’95 (Metalheadz)
8. Lemon D – Manhatten Melody (Conqueror)
9. Danny Breaks – Conscience (Droppin’ Science)
10. Hokusai – Black Rose (Source Direct)
11. Dom & Roland – Mechanics (31 Records)
12. Kym Mazelle – Missing You [Dillinja remix] (White)
13. Digital & Spirit – Mission Accomplished (Razors Edge)
14. Desired State – Here and Now (RAM)
15. DJ Hype & Ganja Max – Pum Pum Mus Smoke Ganja (Ganja)
16. Jonny L – Tychonic Cycle (XL)
17. Optical – Moving 808s (Prototype)
18. Klute – Leo 9 (Certificate 18)
