Nativespeaker: 36˚C (possible thunderstorm)

I made this mix in January 2006, on an incredibly hot summer’s evening (like the recent one photographed above). At the time, I had just returned from travelling and was extremely disillusioned with the music scene in Melbourne. I just found it all so utterly alienating - I just didn't want to play the Tiefschwarz remix of whatever or some Hollertronix mashup, and at that time, that seemed like 'the deal'. So this mix came together through frustration – I just wanted to hear what I wanted to hear, and to hell with it if no-one likes it. I say this in the context of DJ acquaintances of mine telling me what I’d have to play in order to get gigs around town, and that there was no real way for me to find an audience for this style. Perhaps this is when I realised that if I am a DJ, then it is not in the mold of the ‘mobile DJ’ who’s there to bring the party and play whatever the crowd wants to hear. I guess I’m too much of a snob. As a consequence, this set is the DJ equivalent of ‘selfish in bed’, but that also means that it’s the focussed expression of its own desires, my own dreams. It is what it wants to be, and as such it’s very close to my heart.

I haven’t been DJing much since then (not in front of people at any rate), so posting this mix is also a way of announcing that 36˚C will be the first in a series of mixes that I’ll post over the next few months, whenever a good one comes together. I’d like all of them to have something durable about them, so I won’t be posting them that often and I definitely won’t be doing anything particularly zeitgeisty. Blogging allows me to share with you people records and sequences that would almost never ‘work’ in any context where they’d have to sing for their supper, but this can be a good thing, ‘cos to me this also points to something in groove-based music beyond the vulgar, functionalist calculus of ‘what works’, just as it's about questioning what a mix is 'for'. This is something that seems resurgent, and we SSGS have definitely been trying to present something of this with other mixers like Eli’s Carebear mix and so forth. Anyway, ‘nuff said. Have a listen, and please let me know what you think.

Nativespeaker: 36˚C (possible thunderstorm)

01. AM/PM – No Matter Whether [Dreck]
02. AM/PM – The Ends [11] [Dreck]
03. Lawrence – Teaser [Kompakt]
04. Carsten Jost – Krokus [Superpitcher mix] [Dial]
05. James DinA4 - ??? [Esel 03]
06. Luomo – The Right Wing [Force Tracks]
07. Oxtongue – Delight [Voigt & Voigt mix] [Kompakt Pop]
08. Mark Henning – With the Folks [Freude am Tanzen]
09. Guido Schneider – Long Distance Runner [Pokerflat]
10. Dublee – Eleven [Mule Musiq]
11. Noon(at – 780km nach osten [Salo]