Under The Influence

This one is pretty close to my heart. It happens to be full of tracks that I love - that's not surprising really... given that I was involved in making it. It's basically the perfect mix for me; country, electro, pop, house, dnb, metal, everything really. A friend and I spent almost a year twiddling with knobs and dials in our respective countries sculpting a mix that we could really enjoy. There's something in there for everyone and something in there to offend most everyone (63 tracks 38 minutes).

I was reminded of it the other day after I meet someone who had been enjoying it of late. It was nice to listen to it again. It's great having a taylor made mix. Head over to the axis of cool to check it out - go on, find that moment in there that you really hate...

This reminds me of a lot of different stuff - probably because it's all over the place in terms of style. Don't get me wrong, it's stronger for it - a cohesive work. I imagine that without paying attention it probably sounds like a bit of a jumble of noises - closer inspection reveals some really intricate bits of construction.

Almost feels like Rachels (Systems Layers in particular) done on a budget. It has more variation than that though, bits of post-rock Mogwai-ish elements in there too (see All Our Base Are Belong To Them).

Just listened to Getting The Job Done. I really don't know what to think of this anymore.... though I do know that I like it.

I first discovered Tom Middleton when he did a mini set (like 15 minutes long or something) at the tail end of another mix set on a German dj website (4 or 5 years back). I remember being somewhat amazed. He was doing a rock set and I recall commenting on how great the variation of tunes was.

I then had the pleasure of witnessing him dj at the Big Chill festival a few years back. At the time he was working on Cosmosonica so he treated us to a fine mix consisting of cover after cover. His style live is brilliant, very casual, getting on the mic every now and again to tell a little tail or something. He ended up playing for much longer than he was meant to. Bonus.

This particular set consists of two discs. A chilled set and a party set, each perfect in its own way. Look out for Spanky Wilson's most excellent cover of Sunshine Of Your Love on the party disc (actually there are covers to be enjoyed throughout).

I look up to Tom Middleton - he's my hero.

If there's one thing I can say about The Triptych it's that it's too short - even though it weighs in at almost 4 hours. Now that's just unreasonable. When was the last time you sat down to 4 hours of music and were gutted when it finished?

Diverse doesn't even begin to cover it. Why the hell can't every mix set sound like this? Hang on, I know why - it's the same reason that playing this in my workplace elicits mixed responses. Actually, mixed responses is probably the wrong term. People's responses are exactly the same every time, and feel free to try this experiment yourself - at some point they will ask "what the hell are you listening to?". Later on they're going to say - "I really like that. What are you listening to now?". Though they won't quite understand the significance of your response - "exactly the same thing that you didn't like before".

The mixing is very nearly perfect. The tune selection is another matter. 100% hits the mark. Every. Single. Time. There's not a single song on here that I don't now love and given that a good many of them I hadn't ever heard before that's no mean feat. It almost seems silly trying to describe the nature of the tunes given that it's so eclectic but the choices are wild. I never thought I'd see day where "The Durutti Column" appeared in a mix set, and that's not even scratching the surface (check out the tracklisting on amazon). DnB, classical, banjo covers, old-skool hip-hop, rock, euro pop - man, take your pick, it's all there. It's music by music lovers for music lovers.

One day, when I know enough about music, this is exactly sort of mix I want to make. And that's the highest compliment I can give.