Lately I’ve been hit by a massive case of indecision with my deep house sound- which direction do I go in? Soulful, jazzy, progressive? Combine the three? I get frustrated when it doesn’t feel right, and I end up tossing out mixes and avoiding my turntables for months. This feels more progressive to me.

Keep Her Dancing

Download Instructions: Right-click the link above and select ‘Save Link As…’ or ‘Download linked file’ depending on if you are using a Mac or PC.

Tracklist:

1. Freddie James, Bran Van 3000: “La Dolce Vita” (Fred Everything Main Mix)

2. Jaidene Veda, Osaze: “Sunday” (Jimpster Remix)

3. Maya Jane Coles: “What They Say”

4. Larse: “So Long”

5. DJ T.: “City Life” (Maceo Plex Remix)

6. Laura Jones: “Love In Me”

7. Atapy: “You Should Know”

8. Empire Of The Sun: “Walkin On A Dream” (Ben Watt Remix)

9. Nuyorica: “I’m Deep I’m Soul”

10. Deep Mind “True”

11. Azari & Ill: “Manic” (Maceo Plex Remix)

12. Den Ishu: “New Luv”

Enjoy!

Sometimes I try to base an entire mix around a single song and just see where it takes me. This time that song is at the end.

Just For Tonight

Download Instructions: Right-click the link above and select ‘Save Link As…’ or ‘Download linked file’ depending on if you are using a Mac or PC.

Tracklist:

1. Maceo Plex: “Your Style”

2. Shonky: “Le Velour”

3. Discreet Unit: “Shake Your Body Down”

4. Steve Ferrand: “Natural High” (Francois Dubois Remix)

5. DJ Mishakov: “The Stars”

6. B. Original, Ivan Enot, ArmanJazz: “Message From Saint P.” (Thierry Tomas Rsp Remix)

7. Groove Armada: “History” (Tom Budden’s ALiVE Remix)

8. Fred Everything, Dave Aju, Peter Christianson: “Feel”

9. Groove Cocktail: “Deep Touch” (Karol XVII & MB Valence Loco Mix)

10. Andre Detoxx: “Flight 313″ (Popkids Vibes Deeper Dub Remix)

11. Jaidene Veda, Tom Conrad: “The One” (Villa Gombao Inc Remix)

12. Yann Solo: “Suze”

13. Mademoiselle Caro, Franck Garcia: “Soldiers” (Ben Watt Remix)

I occasionally like to put together mixes of the stuff I listen to when I’m not working on a new electronica set, just like back in the day when I got some of my earliest DJing experience by making mixtapes for me and my friends. This is a sampling of the music I’ve been rocking recently…

Summer 2011 Mixtape

Download Instructions: Right-click the link above and select ‘Save Target As…’ or ‘Download linked file’ depending on if you are using a Mac or PC.

Tracklist:

1.Arcade Fire: “Ready To Start”

2.Foster The People: “Houdini”

3.The Naked and Famous: “Young Blood”

4.Passion Pit: “Little Secrets”

5.Delorean: “Real Love”

6.Washed Out: “New Theory”

7. The Radio Dept.: “Heaven’s On Fire”

8.The Pains of Being Pure At Heart: “Belong”

9. Wolf Parade: “Yulia”

10.Tokyo Police Club: “Wait Up (Boots Of Danger)”

11. Peter Bjorn and John: “Second Chance”

12. Destroyer: “Chinatown”

13. Radiohead: “Lotus Flower”

14. Groove Armada: “Paper Romance”

15. CSS: “Move” (Cut Copy Full Length Remix)

16. Empire of the Sun: “Half Mast”

17. Broken Social Scene: “All To All”

This mix is a combination of two of the things I love most in the world: DJing, and video games. I decided to drift into eletro house for the first time for this mix, so I wanted to lace it with all those 8-bit instruments I grew up with playing Nintendo back in the day. Hence the title.

Right-click the link and select ‘Save As’ to begin downloading.

Nocturnal Electronic Soundsystem

I’m very happy with the result- it’s not only rockin’ from start to finish, but it changes and moves as it goes, never dwelling in one place for too long before moving up, and up, and up.

Enjoy!

I recently edited this short, the second so far in a series about Adam and Beth. Part one after the break…

Once I moved to LA, DJing took a backseat to pursuing a career in editing. Since then the traditional record stores have all but faded away as more and more DJs switch from vinyl to digital since it’s cheaper and more easily accessible than driving across town to a shop just to pay $10 for a tune or two. For better or worse, DJing has become more accessible than ever thanks to sites like Beatport.

(Right-click any of the following links, then select ‘Save As’ to save them to your hard drive. All of my mixes are intentionally CD-length for burning purposes.)

2009:“The Dark Road”

At this point I hadn’t made a new mix in 5 years. 5 YEARS! So I decided to do something about it. Having finally embraced the digital revolution, I was anxious to put my new toy, Serato Scratch, to the test. The result is indeed dark as the title is meant to suggest, and since it was my first in 5 years I did my best to make sure it was as polished as possible to stand up to the same level of quality as my previous mixes. Mostly though, it just felt seriously good to finally get out of my DJ-less funk after such a long time.

2009: “DubnobasswithUnderworldman”

Over the years I’ve collected a stable of remixes of songs from artists that I love, and I’ve always wanted to create an entire mix comprised of tracks from a single artist. With this mix, I finally realized my vision. As Underworld are one of, if not my single favorite artist, it was only fitting that my first experiment with this concept be devoted to them. The result is a bit shaky at times, and needs refinement, but whether or not that will end up happening is looking pretty unlikely by now.

2010: “80s Night”

This was a fun one. The idea came about after I wanted to create an 80s mix for my sister and mom, and the result is a fun sampling of my taste in 80s music. Instead of turntables, this is the first mix I’d ever done completely using Logic to lay out the tracks instead of spinning them on a turntable.

2010: “The Trentemoller Mix”

My second single artist full length mix, Trentemoller, is an unexpected choice, but one that I felt would work well in a DJ mix format. His songs are very distinctively his, and I was wanting to hear a steady stream of them mixed together to pop in the CD player of my car. The result is tighter than the Underworld mix, and although I have issues with it, I’m happy with it overall.

2010: “The Deadmau5 M1x”

The third artist I chose to devote a full-length mix to was a much easier choice for me. Deadmau5′s music is so prevalent in the electronic music space that it’s impossible to list the most important electronic artists today without including his name within the top 3. That said this mix was tougher than I expected it to be, mostly due to the sheer volume of work this guy puts out on his own and as a remixer of other artists’ tracks. I’m quite happy with the end result, and it’s one of my favorite mixes I’ve done.

2010: “Winter 2010 Mix (AKA Radio Special Attack)”

Shifting gears for a second, I wanted to basically create a mix in the style of the 80s Night/mixtape fashion. Logic again became the tool used to lay out the tracks rather than spinning them live on turntables. I’m very happy with how it came out; it’s something I put on every so often, and is a great reflection of the not-necessarily-electronic music I enjoy listening to.

DJing is and will always be a passion of mine. I don’t ever stick to one style of music for too long, but I’m always compiling mixes (mostly for myself) because I never outgrew the old days when the art of the mix tape was something I took a lot of pride in.

Since I make so many, I’ve never really had a convenient way of distributing them to people short of the odd Facebook post or handing someone a CD. Now I do.

(Right-click any of the following links, then select ‘Save As’ to save them to your hard drive. All of my mixes are intentionally CD-length for burning purposes.)

In 2001, I transferred as an undergrad from Purdue University to CU Boulder. During the transition, my sound took a much ‘housier’ turn, as I left the trance/techno sound I used to play in Indiana to the more house-friendly state of Colorado.

2002: “Deep & Sexy”

Just like the name suggests, this mix of deep house is soulful and sexy, and remains as one of my favorites after all these years. It reflects a lot of the types of music I played during the years I spent living in Boulder, CO DJing around town and on the radio. On any given Wednesday you could have caught me playing these same tracks at the local bar called The Sink where I held a weekly residency, or on the local college radio station 1190AM. Yes, AM.

2003: “Ride”

Like Deep & Sexy, this mix was comprised of a lot of the same records I would play at The Sink, and took on a funkier, more tribal/tech-house sound.

2003: “Summer Nights”

A mixture of fun, anthemic progressive house tunes, this was a change of pace for me as it began as a mix-off of sorts between my ex-roommate Brad and I (who is also a DJ). We each created a mix for one another that we’d trade after we were finished. I took a lot of inspiration from my trip the previous month to Miami to see Underworld at the Ultra Music Festival, during the famous Winter Music Conference.

More to come!

It’s not easy keeping a list of the best games of the year when nobody-and I mean NOBODY-can claim that they’ve played everything that came out that year. I don’t know if Infinity Blade for the iPad is amazing (even though I bought it and just haven’t taken the time to play it yet because I’m too ADD to play a game on the iPad) or if God of War III was better than God of War II or I (because I personally don’t give a shit about the God of War games, especially now that every new action game is a carbon copy ripoff of them), but I do know which games I enjoy, and why I enjoy them.

5. Gran Turismo 5

GT5 is like a fine wine, an old friend, a… fitted… shirt… It’s hard to argue that Sony didn’t spend the last 6 years since Gran Turismo 4 just re-skinning and up-rezing it’s flagship racing game, but it’s equally difficult to argue that it isn’t finely-tuned, gorgeous to look at, and instantly classic to play. In fact, it is the exact same game, but that’s okay because the formula still works great and if anything has somehow aged better than the Metroid series.

I tend to think of it like Final Fantasy; each event is like an adventure, and the guy in first place is the final boss. As I soup up my ride and cruise into the lead I’m doing thousands of points of damage to him and his little minions. GT5 truely deserves its moniker as a CARPG, since owning more cars and accomplishing racing events becomes something of an obsession once you start falling under the old Gran Turismo career progression spell. Positive reinforcement is the all the rage in games these days, and Gran Turismo 5 will tease you with it’s cars and race types, never letting you grow tired of its charms.

When Gran Turismo 4 came out 6 years ago, I went out and bought a nice, expensive Logitech racing wheel with force feedback which I used maybe 10 times before it got chucked into the closet. At one point I took into into GameStop to see how much I could get for it, since I was pretty much bored with GT4 and would appreciate the extra space in my closet. They offered me-and I’m not even kidding-$0.25 for it. For something I paid $100.00 for. So I said “FUCK THAT!” and stashed it in my closet. Fast-forward to November 24th and the steering wheel I bought 6 years ago is finally being put to use. Good fucking use. It’s a completely different game using the steering wheel because each and every turn, bump, collision, and surface is lost in translation to your standard PS3 controller. Taking a 1,000+HP Bugatti Veyron at 250MPH down a straightaway will leave you physically shaken. Can’t say Uncharted 2 ever did that.

After taking so long to arrive though, it’s amazing how many problems it shipped with from the clunky menu system (sadly, another GT staple), weak-looking standard cars, and sparse online options, however it’s still one of my favorites of the year for countless reasons more. If I didn’t still own the steering wheel, I probably would’ve nominated something else. It doesn’t really mater though because I do still own it, and I’m just so glad I didn’t take GameStop’s measly $0.25 for what is one of the best entertainment experiences you can have in the comfort of your home bar none.

Three years ago I would’ve laughed at you if you’d ever accused me of being a “casual gamer”, before flipping back to my game of Fire Emblem or whatever I was playing back then and cursing at you under my breath. Yet here I am; 30 years old, sitting on my couch playing games on my iPhone while my PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii all sit quietly and unused, with as much concentration and obsessive compulsive urge to max out my scores and suck out every last drop from a game I paid $0.99 for. And you know what? It’s fantastic.

4. Angry Birds

While both physics-based games and 2D turret-style-trajectory games are hardly anything new to an avid gamer such as myself- it’s astonishing to find how much fun can be had when you simply combine the two, add in some hilarious sound effects, some endearing music, and charge me less than I would pay for a cup of coffee. For that much though, you get what I found to be one of the most entertaining games this year.

With its mix of charm and replayability, Angry Birds is for me what Trials HD was last year: digital crack cocaine. It’s addictive by design, which makes playing it for short periods of time all but nearly impossible. Any game that can keep me up for an hour longer than I plan on staying up just to finish one more level, deserves credit for being as flexible and nuanced in such an unassuming package.

It also does a number of things incredibly well in order to keep people like me up for hours, most notably by using a highly sophisticated physics engine that never seems to behave the exact same way twice. It’s a lot like watching an interactive cartoon as well, with it’s cute characters and witty level designs- some look like castles while others resemble semi trucks, bridges, and swimming pools. The mix of different types of birds ensures that while the level designers can try to suggest certain solutions, unexpected ones can just as easily amuse and delight with their own surprises.

If Angry Birds is a sign of the direction that casual games are headed in, then it’s going to be a highly addictive and clever one indeed.

At some point music games became the new sports games. Let me explain: with each passing sports season, the makers of sports games are allowed to annually release a new re-skinned, barely-improved reiteration of the previous year’s game, throw it onto store shelves and then watch the proceeds flow in. Ever since Activision – owners of the Guitar Hero franchise – ditched the game’s original creators Harmonix, they began cranking out new games in the series at such an astonishingly annoying rate, so as to all but completely dry up its game’s entire audience. Which is to say nothing of what Harmonix has continued to do ever since.

3. Rock Band 3

While you could be forgiven for overlooking the vast number of improvements made over its predecessors both small and large, it’s tough to argue that Rock Band 3 doesn’t take the music game genre to it’s logical conclusion: to teach players how to play a real instrument.

Knowing full well that the average music game consumer already owns 54 microphones, 82 plastic guitars, 49 fake drum sets, and 18 DJ Hero turntables, EA and Harmonix have finally unleashed the next bastion of closet stuffers- keyboards. Eventually mankind will use all these devices as currency once our banks collapse, and all we have left to do is sit around pretending to be Tom Petty with our friends. All kidding aside, the new keyboard peripheral doesn’t just improve the tried-and-true Rock Band formula, it reinvigorates it. Not just because the setlist has so many amazing keyboard-centric classics, but because for once you can finally just kick back and tickle the ivories (for those of us who don’t always fantasize about playing lead guitar for Metallica). Playing “Bohemian Rhapsody” without it would be like… playing Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.

BA-ZING!

With each passing game Harmonix, makers of the Rock Band games, distinguish themselves as the true innovators in the music game genre. No matter how many imitators continue to enter the fray, the company continues to conjure its magic while coding their latest opus. Very few companies manage to consistently one-up themselves and their competitors simultaneously, short of those like Pixar, Blizzard or Nintendo. And yet, Harmonix seems to have somehow tapped into the musician inside all of us, proving that we can all at least carry a tune.