There are some things that you just cannot control. Among them is the amount of time it takes to relocate from country to country when dealing with multiple governments and agencies. Then there are things you can, like the purchasing of new music and the act of mixing said tunes together into some cohesive and coherent hour of banging goodness.

As such, I am now 94% settled into the new place and have been able to complete a shiny new mix.

This set was actually rather difficult to finish. Having been away from new music for such a long time, my music store adventuring resulted in a lot of excellent selections... However, it's impossible to put them all into one hour... even more impossible, is to mix "just the best ones"... So after starting 3-4 times from scratch, attempting to rework a few parts of one mix.. then completely reworking it from start to finish... and deciding it still wasn't up-to-snuff.. I kept tweaking, tweaking, and tweaking before finally rendering it out as complete-ish. I could probably keep tweaking it for several more weeks... but I don't think that's a good idea at this point.

In some ways, this is a 50:50 mix. I think progressive has finally started to leave the rut that it entered several years ago. That and many progressive djs are moving into other waters because of it. Because of this, there's a lot of related genre activity with progressive tinges. In shopping for new tunes, I found myself picking through a lot of minimal, house, and prog trance stuff that didn't necessarily fit the stereotypes of those genres. Some does of course :) But a good chunk was an evolved version. I ended up mixing the first half of this set with the idea of just slowly building.. But with so much other good music, I couldn't help but eek a bit more forward for the second half.

I tried not to think about genres too much since that tends to limit your mixing anyway, so these are just some tracks I've discovered and been enjoying as I mixed them. Some are a little more relaxed and others are a little more grooving. Hopefully, I've done the producers justice in my compilation. Mostly though, I hope that anyone who downloads it will enjoy it enough to listen a second time :)

-dj ego

Also, in case anyone is curious, the final track is a mashup between:
Robimon - Idaho (Original Mix)
BT - Loving You More (BT's Primordial Sound 12" Vocal Mix)

 

Let me preface all this with saying that my ability to listen to every single thing that comes out is rather limited, and normally filtered through Proton and other sources. I'm mainly tuned into electronic from a set of genres centered around what is generally called "techno," so my breadth is not as huge as one may wish. Never the less, may I present...

Best Album
Mike Sheridan - I Syv Sind [Playground Music Scandinavia] (discogs)

I don't end up buying all that many full length electronic albums (I bought far more classical albums this year). There are several reasons for this, with money playing a prominent role. But largely it comes from a dearth of full albums that are worth buying. Electronic musicians seem to rarely have a thought that lasts a whole album - or maybe that's the problem, it lasts the whole album, but can't support the weight of 70 minutes of time.

Without a doubt, the best overall album I heard in 2008 was Mike Sheridan's I Syv Sind. The album is rather amazing for a number of reasons, the first couple of which is that Sheridan is only 16, this is his third release ever, and it's his first album. But Sheridan is not entirely new at all this, with his first release coming at 13, and DJ gigs starting around the same time.

I Syv Sind has been compared with Trentemoller's The Last Resort, an unfair comparison to both artists. The Last Resort was my pick for best album of 2006, so I'm possibly stuck in a rut, but I think the intended feel of both album's is rather different. No doubt, both album's present a very textured ambient feel, but the sound of The Last Resort was decidedly organic in nature, with instrumentals featuring heavily throughout. Sheridan makes his landscapes with pure electronics, yet his tracks often capture a similar warmth as if they were played with acoustic instruments. But these are decidedly more moody and vast landscapes, appropriate for a sci-fi movie with giant slow-motion pans of asteroid fields. Highly recommended for those afternoons where you need to escape from your immediate surroundings and enter your own head-space.

Runner-up:
2562 - Aerial [Tectonic] (discogs)

There is some great dubstep out there, but like most genres of electronica, there is a ton of crap. This year has been high on the crap side as new and old producers alike try their hand at what many have dubbed (pun intended) the next big thing.

This is not one of those albums. Indeed, it's not even all dubstep, with one of the best tracks ever so appropriately entitled Techno Dread. This also happens to be the first album of 2562, the alias of Dave Huismans, so it must be the year for new comers to be a little exploratory. If you haven't yet tuned into dubstep, or just want a generally banging album, check this sucker out.

Best E.P.
Ebencrib - The Essence EP [Dootrecords] (discogs)

E.P.s should not to be troubled with the problem that cripples so many full-length releases: length. Yet there is rarely an E.P. that inspires me to buy all the tracks. This is partly my own weakness: often the best tracks dont reveal themselves on a first listen. Sometimes I find myself filling in tracks from E.P.s I had selectively purchased a few tracks from months ago. There is a certain wisdom to forced bundling, something we've lost with digital distribution, as it allows the artist to present everything as they feel it fits together. At the same time, my budget says buy only what you really like, and leave the rest.

In summary, this means that quite like albums, there are only a few E.P.s that I purchase in their entirety. But there are a few here and there that hit me right up front and then don't let go. Ebencrib - The Essence EP is one of those. Woven entirely out of dark, textured sound, The Essence tries to distill what I can only call Arabian-spy-funk-suave using a progressive house template. Or something. There is a middle eastern flair throughout the entire album, created with a very sparingly used samples. Simple melodies that are subtly played off each other in slowly changing patterns make this another way to get away from whatever part of the world you happen to live in for half an hour.

I also want to mention that this was the first release by Ebencrib, at least as far as I can tell. That said, there seems to be a possibility that it's just an alias for tonkproject: they're both from Romania, and their MySpace pages (and pictures) have distinct similarities. Either way, yet another winner from a fairly new artist. Do I detect a trend this year?

Runner-up:
Ramon Tapia - Addicted EP [Craft Music] (discogs)

Well, there is nothing better one can do with a trend than to break it, and our runner-up for best E.P. does just that. Tapia has established himself as a expert craftsman of minimal techno, and this E.P. may be his very best work to date. The two tracks on the b-side stand out in particular as masterpieces of minimal build construction. When the guitar rift hits on Addicted, or the piano on Mini Me, you just feel the release. No other way to describe it. I'm not sure I've heard another minimal track as devastatingly effective in this as Mini Me. If you spin, and this isn't in your record box (or cd case/external hard drive), you're missing out.

Honorable mention:
Nivek Tsoy - From Parts Unknown E.P. [Dessous Recordings] (discogs)

The ever prolific Kevin Yost in disguise produced this nice little house/minimal release that I've quite enjoyed all year. Basic little songs for the beginning of an evening before much of anyone shows up. Not because the tracks aren't good - they are - but because this music just seems to call for a empty room. The theme of this E.P, as with much music I listen to, is space, although not necessarily of the outer-space variety. Just wide open space. The fact that the instrumentation could be from the mid-90s on two of the tracks just sells this E.P. to me all the more.


Up Next

Next week I'm going to try and post my top ten tracks of 2008. The focus is going to be fairly different. While the above E.Ps and albums represent the very best in full-release electronica, there were a ton of great singles released this year that need their moment in the spotlight. Stay tuned. And of course, what would a post be without a promise of mixes coming soon? dj ego has been promising me he has one almost ready for weeks now... (public pressure, nudge, nudge...)

Hey all. We're taking a break here at sonxs until mid-December or so. I need some time to finish other projects currently on my plate (like finishing my PhD proposal) and to pursue some other opportunities that have come up.

But never fear! I have a coupe mixes in the pipeline. Sometime around the third week of December I'd like to post a best-off list, and do a set go with it. Standard year-end stuff, but always fun for the one making the list!

And hopefully dj ego will get his gear sometime this year. Never underestimate the speed at which Italians can fail to move. Or the U.S. government. And when you put the two together, you get dj ego's current situation.

I hope the holidays find you well. Expect some new sets in a couple weeks.

Cheers,
DJ Transit