Available on: Fabric mix CDs

I hate to be the one to pose that question again, but in 2011, what’s the point of a mix CD?

Fabric – to be fair, one of the only labels whose mix CD series people still care about – have commissioned Pearson Sound and Jackmaster to mix the two most recent editions of their FabricLive series. For many reasons, this is great news. Both have been behind some of the most bountiful labels of the last five years of UK club music (in Pearson’s case, Hessle Audio; in Jackmaster’s, Numbers, Dress 2 Sweat and Wireblock), and both finished 2010 at the top of their respective worlds: Pearson as one of dance music’s most celebrated producers, and Jackmaster as one of the UK’s most in-demand DJs. The growth of the scene they loosely inhabit, combined with this Fabric commission, marks the end of them being “underground” figures in many regards. And this, in particular, is a great thing.

The problem here is – and this is a problem with the mix CD format, as opposed to a fault with either artist – it’s hard to get particularly excited about a new mix from either of them. Jackmaster, in particular, has built his reputation on a plethora of free online mixes, all uniformly excellent and easy to get hold of. Why pay for a new one, when you can download countless old mixes of similar quality, unless it’s through some sort of obligation to, or celebration of, the artist? Really, you have to be getting something different from them – it’s no coincidence that the most three celebrated Fabric CDs of recent times, by Omar-S, Shackleton and Ricardo Villalobos, all took more of an “album” approach to the format, with only their own productions allowed.

Jackmaster, in a particularly skilled move, has delivered something very different on FabricLive 57. In full knowledge that 90% of his fanbase are incredibly modern dance music fans, in the sense that they constantly crave the next big thing, and download mixes largely to check out unreleased new tracks from their favourite artists, he’s filled the mix with old classics. It works on several levels: firstly, because it’s so clearly an individual celebration of the music that’s driven him to this point (read our recent interview for more on this). Secondly, because a curveball like this gives the mix a talking point beyond “hey, another great mix from Jackmaster.” And thirdly – and this is the really clever one – because most of these tracks will actually be brand new to his fans. UK underground dance music is more retro right now than it has been for a long while, with people falling over themselves to claim they were into acid house, classic electro and booty before they heard Blawan, Addison Groove, Boddika and so forth reinterpret these styles for a modern audience. What better time to blow their mind with artists like Fix and the Splack Pack?

Pearson Sound’s approach is less remarkable, but it’s an equally sensible one. Again, there’s little emphasis on brand new tracks, and the unreleased material that is featured on the CD is mostly by himself or those close to him. FabricLive 56, rather than a celebration of the music that informed Pearson’s formative years (though there is time, later on in the mix, for Pinch, Mala and Burial), is a celebration of 2010,  the year where he really became recognised as a star in larger circles than his own. Whereas Jackmaster’s mix is heavy on long-established classics, Pearson’s calls on minor hits from a particularly productive period for himself – tracks like Mr. Majeeka’s ‘Different Lekstrix’, Joe’s ‘Claptrap’, Girl Unit’s ‘IRL’ and his own ‘Work Them’ – and tracks that had been stables of his own sets across the twelve months leading up to the CD commission (again, you can read a recent interview where Pearson talks more in depth about this).

For a mix CD to work in 2011, it has to tick several boxes: it has to be well-timed, it has to be of sufficient quality, and you have to be able to get something from it that you couldn’t get from another online mix from the artist (I can think of few things more nerve-racking for a DJ, in fact, than building up a library of great online mixes only to be commissioned a mix CD that has to top the lot, has to have every track’s inclusion approved, and then has to be mixed at least three months before it comes out). In Pearson Sound and Jackmaster approaching their mixes as a celebration of the route they took to get to this point, and Fabric’s immaculate timing of them, two of those boxes have been ticked. The quality one, frankly, always came as a given.

Tom Lea