Mix: Pleisure

A Pleisure Suit. Yeah, I'm gonna pronounce it that way for a couple days. Rolls off the tongue.

Evening, all. I’ve got a new mix, brought to you by a deep, deep desire to relax and enjoy a weekend. Of course, I’ve probably got an hour or two of work I have to shoehorn in between now and then. Luckily this mix works for that, too.

Pretty much a solid downtempo mix, not too many surprises. I’ve got the new Gorillaz in there, and only one cover. Beyond that, you’re listening to what’s been keeping my focus company. And for album art, semi-formal attire. A leisurely suit, if you would.

Download: Pleisure (portmanteau’d by mahmoud)

(mp3, VBR ~193kbps, 90MB, 1:05:18 running time, avg. 93 bpm)

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Tracklisting:

1. Del Close & John Brent – (sample)
   
2. Velours Perfect - Indian Cowboys
3. Animals on Wheels – Loath
4. Little Dragon – A New
5. Maserati – Cities (Assembly Mix)
   
6. Saru - Subterra
7. Felix Laband - Step Two
8. Calm – Light Years
9. Gorillaz – Plastic Beach
   Total coincidence: Last mix had a Gorillaz track at #9, as well.
10. Ticon - On the Rocks
11. Caribou - Pelican Narrows
12. Kruder & Dorfmeister - High Noon
    I can’t help but feel that no downtempo mix is complete without some K&D.
    
13. Cut Chemist - The Garden
14. The Lushlife Project – Soul Reservation
15. DJ Krush (feat. Toshinori Kondo) – Mu-Chu
16. Alpha - My Things
17. Minimatic - Take On Me (feat. Juliette P.)
    Pretty cute way to outtro, I felt.

Mix: Ersatz Club

This mix pulls you in with some club appeal and beats, before revealing its true nature; it’s not really club music, because I don’t know if this type of music really appeals to your paying, club-going type. And that’s a shame. I’d probably go out a lot more often if there were clubs playing something more like this.

Download: Ersatz Club Mix (mocked up by mahmoud)

(mp3, VBR ~240kbps, 103MB, 58:30 running time)

Here it is, my first laptop-created mix. I started getting into Ableton a while back, but that dwindled, like most things, because of school. Anyway, this thing took forever to put together, but I’m pretty happy with the result. I’ll be revisiting the tables if I can’t get a better hold on the workflow. But damn if some of the mixes didn’t come out polished as hell.

Still, listening to the mix I sort of get the feeling that I’m showcasing music and not building a mood. I’ve got to put some more work into that. Practicepracticepractice.

Notes inlined in the tracklisting. This mix goes out to Alan for his birthday. I’m not sure why I picked this picture for the cover art. I’ve got to start putting more thought into that, too.

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Tracklisting:

1. Loose Shus – Taurus (Keenhouse Remix)
   32 measure mix, smooth as eff.
2. Guy Gerber and Shlomi Aber - After Love
3. Towa Tei – Risk Some Soul (feat. Luomo)
4. In Flagranti – Business Acumen (Arveene & Misk’s Business Acid Remix)
5. Flight of the Conchords – I Like to Rock the Party
   An excellent transition considering it was like a 30 second clip I ripped.
6. Gramophonedzie – Why Don’t You?
7. Afronaught – Transcend Me
8. Chicago – I’m a Man
   I felt compelled to put this in. The transition in felt nice, but it was hard as hell to get out of.
9. The Gorillaz – Dare (Chab Radio Edit)
10. Madita – Better Brother (Dbn Remix)
11. Muscles – Sweaty (Shazam Remix)
    Sadly this remix is the only good Muscles song, if you ask me, due to the female vocals. Muscles is all-male vocals and the unremixed song just kind of makes me feel uncomfortable.
12. Mylo – Drop the Pressure
    Damn I love this song
13. UNKLE - Reign (feat. Ian Brown)
    I got some requests for more recognizable music (I know right?! ;P). DARE, this one, and LCD Soundsystem all better count toward that.
14. LCD Soundsystem – Tribulations
15. Kings Go Forth – One Day
    This song is way faster than it sounds. I kind of mangled Tribulations to get up to 141 bpm.

Mix: Future Divan Groove

My couch, for lounging purposes.

A short mix for you today, heavy on the acid/future jazz. And songs in French.

Download: Future Divan Groove (foretold by mahmoud)

(mp3, VBR ~221kbps, 71MB, 44:56 running time)

For this mix, I set out to create something a bit more uptempo, but still chilled. I only ended up using 2 of the tracks I had planned to use. I also threw in a little surprise at the end, found in a rummage sale back in Nebraska.

As a whole, the mix is probably a bit too upbeat and bouncy for my sitting and working purposes, but it would be perfect in a chatty room. Especially if you want to sound classy (wink).

Umm, technical notes. Track 1 (Bibio) was not mixing with Track 4 (Manu Chao), mostly due to the upbeat, jazzy brass clashing of 4 a bit with the deeper bassline of 1. I tried to compensate by bridging with Track 2 (Flying Lotus) and Track 3 (Herbalizer). So the transition went (bass)->(simpler bass)->(bass+brass)->(brass+vocals). It turned out ok, I guess. The mix kind of started heavier and slowed down. I’m not sure why I put The Smiths in. I suppose I just wanted to hear some Morrissey. Track 9 (Plastyc Buddha) has some technical issue, maybe. See the tracklisting notes.

I think I’m going to start keeping my mixes shorter than 74 minutes. You know, in case someone needs a demo CD. Stay tuned, I have plans acookin’.

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Tracklisting:

1. Bibio – Fire Ant
2. Flying Lotus – Beginners Falafel
3. The Herbalizer – Worldwide Connected
4. Manu Chao – Le Rendez-vous
5. General Elektriks – Tu M’intrigues
6. dZihan and Kamien – Stiff Jazz
7. A Forest Mighty Black – Everything
8. Bonobo – If You Stayed Over (reprise)
9. Plastyc Buddha – Clear Day
   I have no idea what is going on at 4:40 in this song. 3 versions I’ve downloaded, all have 4 measures of random house. I completely spaced this and had to go back and chop it out.
   
10. Astrud Gilberto – Who Needs Forever
11. Quantic – The 5th Exotic
12. Funky Porcini – Venus

Mix: Loose Leaf (long cut)

I will steep you and drink you.

I got up extra early (think: 4am), drank a pot of tea (think: kettle of earl gray), and managed to stay up this morning (I’ve been up for 11.5 hours and it’s 2:30) to finally deliver on my promises of mixes. Without further ado:

Download: Loose Leaf (long cut by mahmoud)

(mp3, VBR ~220kbps, 128MB, 1:24:31 running time)

For this mix I basically grabbed a handful of music with which I’d been meaning to mix and threw it on my decks. It starts out with some downtempo, but quickly gets into some funky and house-y stuff, even mixing in some indy with one of my faves, Pipas. Pipas, quick note, since you’ll probably read this blog post (nope): your songs are all great, but they don’t have enough repetition and as a result are short and hard to mix.

It wasn’t all haphazard, though. A while ago I read about harmonic mixing, using the key of the song to make a smoother transition without using special effects or techniques. If you listen to the mix, you’ll actually hear that I didn’t a significant amount of filter or fx, letting the music speak for itself. Also, I’ve been playing with making the big tempo changes during the transitions instead of on beats during the track. This shows in a couple cases, but it doesn’t sound out of place.

Also, I was distressed that I used 2 Towa Tei songs, neither of which was the one that I had intended to use. You guys will just have to wait for that track. What do you guys think about me using the same artist multiple times in a single mix? It’s tough to listen to whole albums and then only be able to use one song, not just from the album, but from the whole discography. Oh the challenges of being a DJ. I actually had an idea of taking really good albums then rearranging and mixing the songs the way I’d like to hear them. Hit me with some feedback on that, too (in addition to the question about using the artist multiple times). Oh, and I recorded using an optical cable followed by normalization, so let me know if you notice any improvement there.

Well, this was fun. I hope to do it again real soon. Image credit linked. (I’ll get my photos up soon.)

Stream

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Tracklisting:

1. Tosca – Suzuki
2. The Blackbyrds – Future Children, Future Hopes
   (I should have trimmed the brassish stuff at the start, I mainly included this for its awesome old school synth/keyboarding goodness)
3. Kid Loco – Relaxin’ With Cherry
4. Sounds From the Ground – Marshemello
5. Passion Pit – Sleepyhead
6. Goldfrapp – Koko
7. Kings of Convenience – Little Kids (Ladytron mix)
8. Towa Tei – Obrigado
9. Stretch – Why Did You Do It?
10. The Bird and the Bee – What’s in the Middle?
11. Pipas – Barbapapa
12. New  Young Pony Club – Ice Cream
13. Gui Boratto – No Turning Back
14. DHS – House of God 2000 (DHS remix)
    (Being DJ buds, Matt and I will occasionally “steal” from one another)
15. Mateo & Matos – Journey Beyond
16. Carl Craig – Frustration
17. Juno Reactor – Nitrogen (Part 1)
18. Grace Jones – Williams’ Blood (Aeroplane Remix)
19. Towa Tei – Congratulations!