Politics for a new Mix(ture)

I’m insanely political right now; the war, the environment, 49 million uninsured americans, the housing market, the falling dollar, torture, Jena Six, raped Saudi women being flogged and Iran’s nukes have my head spinning with worry and frustration with our current administration. Traditionally, electronic music seems to steer clear of politics but I’d be happy to see more promoters and DJs voicing their opinions and using their platform to at least bring issues to light. A good example of this was the Involved event that I played in September which raised over 5k for Unicef. I’d love to see more events being put on with a focus on education and nonprofit fund raising rather just for people to get drugged and drunk. That being said, nothing in this mix has anything political to say, but I thought I would get started by just writing down my thoughts. This mix will air on Proton on Nov. 23 from 2-4 CST.

Stream Download

1 Dirt Cew - Manoeuvres - Motorcitysoul Remix [Kling Klang]
2 Far East Band - The Call Up Feat. Suzie (Klee) - Martin Buttrich Rework [Four Music]
3 Federico Molinari - Enerverende - Damian Schwartz Remix [Oslo]
4 Marcel Janovsky - Okay - Original Mix [Treibstoff]
5 Kamisshake - Dark Beat - Deadmau5 Vocal Mix [Azuli]
6 Johnny Fiasco - Hijacked - Audiojack Remix [Control Recordings]
7 Federico Molinari - Takk Brett - Original Mix [Oslo]
8 D.O.N.S., Dbn - The Nighttrain Feat. Kadoc - Original Mix [Kingdom Kome Cuts]
9 Dusty Kid - Mantrakoma - Original Mix [Kling Klong]
10 Layo & Bushwacka - Saudade Remix Feat. Jesse Monroe - Original Mix [Olmeto Records]
11 Bs As Deep, K-Pax - Portable Fingers - Joy Marquez Remix [Display Recordings]
12 Gui Boratto - U-Bahn - Original Mix [Audiomatique Recordings]
13 Pan-Pot - Faces Feat. Vincenzo - Original Mix [Mobilee Records]

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Adam Freeland’s Back to Mine

I picked up a copy of Adam Freeland’s Back to Mine yesterday and I have to say….I was blown away. Its a mix of mostly indie rock tracks from last year. The mix starts out with a smooth intro and then crashes into You Will Know Us by the Trail of the Dead’s - Will You Smile for Me Again. It starts to smooth out and ends in a mellow chilled out state. I like the flow and wish more djs would take unique approaches to the timing and energy flow of their mixes rather than the standard arching flow that Digweed and Sasha made so famous.

Here’s the tracklisting:
1. Trail of the Dead – Will you Smile Again for Me.
2. Autobus – Turnstile Blues
3. Interpol – Untitled
4. TV on the Radio – Staring at the Sun
5. Ambulance LTD – Yoga means Union
6. The Beta Band – It’s not too beautiful
7. Jape – Floating
8. EL-P – constellation Recall
9. Elliot Smith – Needle in the Hay
10. PJ Harvey – The Slow Drug
11. Funkadelik – Maggot Brain
12. Dyke House – Sandy Strip
13. M83 – Lower Your eyes to Die with the Sun
14. Trans Am – A Single Ray of Light on an other wise cloudy Day
15. Boards of Canada – Zoetrope

Kudos to Adam for being included in this series and I can say personally that he is one of the coolest and most grounded DJs in the business at his level.

A first look at Pioneer’s SVM-1000

Beatportal reports that Sander Kleinenberg was involved in the development of the SVM-1000. I love Pioneer’s approach to getting big name DJs to help design their products. Its smart both on a marketing and R&D angle.

The SVM-1000 has an impressive range of effects and 96 khz/24 bit studio sound quality similar to the DJM-800 and also boosts a 11″ touchscreen LCD screen.

Pioneer’s patented Multiple Video Blending Technology makes it possible to mix four channels of synchronized audio and video at once. Beatportal reports that the SVM-1000 is the first four channel AV mixer, but this is incorrect. Create Digital Motion got it right and listed the AVM02 as the first four channel Audio/Video mixer.

Having done some VJing back in the day, my favorite new feature on this board is the AV Touch Effects which allow users to touch and affect visuals directly, as they appear on the panel. The mixer has 12 patterns of Touch Effects including ripple, spot, radiation, twist and cube. The drawback is there is no support for DV or HDMI and that Vegas Video is a much better tool for live video mixing. The ideal setup that I would like to see would be two people, one VJ, one DJ, with one person doing the music and one user running Vegas Video and other sources into the SVM. With that type of setup and the assignable midi knobs of the SVM, some truly amazing performances could be made.

Overall, I don’t think this mixer is going to sell well or really bring VJing to the forefront of clubbing experience, but its nice to see the concept being explored. The kicker, the SVM-1000 will cost you $5400.

With all that in mind, I’d like to recount one of my favorite past VJ experiences. I was lucky enough to see Z-Trip, Aceyalone and Gift of Gab at the Fox Theater in Boulder, CO this summer the same weekend that Daft Punk killed it at Red Rocks. Z-Trip had a full visual setup being run on side stage and Z-Trip, being Z-Trip, played his usual non-stop mashup mixture of hip hop, rock, and even some country (Johnny Cash - Ring of Fire). Every track he dropped was accompanied by its music video and as he made his mixes, the VJ mixed in the incoming music video. Some of the videos were super old and I had to laugh, but some really went well together.

Read More on Pioneer’s SVM-1000:

Beatportal’s Glowing Review

Create Digital Motion’s Less Optimistic Review