Just because you’re stuck at your desk, doesn’t mean you can’t indulge in a bit of chair dancing while you pretend to be productive.
To help provide a soundtrack, here’s some DJ mixes I recommend. Some are brand new, and others go back to the early days of dance music, so whether you’re a historian or a futurist, you should be find something to your taste (assuming that you don’t hate dance music).
Jeff Mills, live at the Lowlands.
If you’re checking out the Time Festival this Saturday, you might want to prepare for techno god Jeff Mills by downloading this live recording of him at the Lowlands festival from 2004. It’s a pounding (yet still atmospheric and introspective) journey through Detroit techno, and if you listen closely you can hear the crowd screaming their encouragement in the background.
Parisian DJ god Laurent Garnier also leads off here with some Detroit techno, but over the course of this mix takes some sharp left turns sure to surprise listeners. It was recorded during the final night of infamous London dance club the End this past January, and balances classic anthems with indescribable weirdness and dance floor oddities, even dropping some drum ‘n’ bass at one point.
Tommie Sunshine – Summer Journey ’09 (Brooklyn Fire Mixtape)
A brand new mix from NYC’s Tommie Sunshine, chronicling his current favourites. There’s a bit of an edgy early-house feel to much of this, along with nods to the rave era, filtered through that distorted electro lens that we all claim to hate but keep dancing to every weekend nevertheless. It’s pretty heavy, and should wake you up if the coffee isn’t working.
Hercules and the Love Affair – Sidetracked
Not brand new, but new enough, this is Hercules and Love Affair taking a break from the studio to put together a DJ mix. Completely different vibe from Sunshine’s NYC offering, this one is much slower and features lots of classic house and underground disco vibes. Unfortunately, it’s only a 20 minute sample of a longer mix CD that went on sale July 21st, but it may whet your appetite enough to lay down some cash for the full package, which includes an unmixed disc along with the DJ set.
Curb Crawlers / Dubbel Dutch
Curb Crawlers are a local crew who throw good parties and run a music blog that’s well worth checking out regularly for new sounds and trends in dance music.
That first link goes to a mix that Texas’ Dubbel Dutch did for the site, who I’ll admit to knowing very little about. Nevertheless, this mix is a lot of fun. The other set is by Toronto’s Alias, and is full of twitchy tripped-out house.
David Mancuso – Live on Shibuya FM
It’s not hard to make an argument that underground dance music wouldn’t exist in the same form had it not been for David Mancuso’s contributions. He started throwing rent parties in his NYC loft at the beginning of the 70s, and set the blueprint for much of what was to come in clubs and warehouses around the world for the next 40 years. Though he pioneered many early DJing techniques, he’s since turned his back on beatmatching and instead prefers to only play songs from beginning to end. Because of this, he only plays songs he actually wants to hear the entirety of (perhaps a concept worth pondering by more DJs). Sounds weird, but I was lucky enough to catch one of the only club gigs he ever played many years ago at the Queen club in Paris, and it’s a much more effective style than you’d think if you’re used to lighting quick mixes and fancy mixer work.
Frankie Knuckles WBMX
And while we’re talking about dance music pioneers, we can’t ignore the godfather of house, Frankie Knuckles (one of the many inspired by Mancuso). This mix was taped from the radio back in 1986, so forgive the hiss and distortion. Incidentally, if you’re learning about where underground dance music comes from, the deephousepage.com archive (who are hosting this mix) is a great resource for finding old recordings of seminal DJs.
And while we’re travelling to 1980s Chicago, this is an awesome site that compiles a number of extremely rare recordings of Ron Hardy (RIP), along with track listings for those of you trying to build up your collection of obscure classics. Hardy had a huge influence, but due to his untimely demise he’s not terribly well known in contemporary circles. Terrible sound quality for the most part, but do people complain about that when they hear those old recordings of blues legend Robert Johnson?[rssbreak]
