Radley Marx

Glittergasm – a new happy chill mix

Very happy to share a new mix with everyone. Glittergasm is a collection of the most glittery blissful chill music and artists I’ve gathered over the years.

Download (320k, 250MB)

or

Mixcloud (web player)

Despite the title, this mix isn’t meant to be silly or cheesy. I thought the title was simply cheeky clever. The title was also somewhat inspired by a Something Positive comic that set a new standard for awesome.

This isn’t your typical chill mix. Most commercial releases are usually popular downtempo artists from the late 90s & early 00s. Meh. This mix is the before and after stuff: the glittery happy variety from pioneers like The Orb, Pete Namlook, Fluke, Jam & Spoon, Orbital, and more than a few tracks and remixes by Mixmaster Morris (aka The Irresistible Force)… those rare gems that nobody knows and always make ambient fanatics smile. The selections include old school ambient and hip hop along with modern ambient trance, dubstep, electro, and mashups.

I put these together because, well, nobody has done a mix like this in a long time and few people have the experience to mix together these generations of music. I wanted something bright and vibrant that not only made me feel good, but my co-conspirators as well. Thus I added in a few hooks for them including Chicane, PVD, Roy Two Thousand, and The Land of Green Ginger.

For me it’s “finally making that mix” that starts with MMM’s remix of Speedlearn. A mix that follows Chicane’s Overture with School of Fish by Namlook/Morris. A mix that I get to drop in Hey by Jurassic 5 (in an ambient mix??) as well as The Dream by The Orb. And so on…

New Old School DJ Mix: “Hamsters Hoovers and Toy Pianos”

Happy to announce I just finished up a new 90+ minute old school mix full of the great sounds of early techno and UK hardcore (’91 – ‘94):

Download (220MB, 320k)

or

Mixcloud (web player)

For those that need an explanation, the title comes from nick-names from the genre: hamsters for the sped up vocal samples, hoovers for the Juno stabs and builds, and toy pianos for that slightly out of tune, tinny kiddy piano sound. More »

Migrating Mixes to Mixcloud

Backstory: Soundcloud changed the nature of their service last week, switching from five uploads / month for their free account to a “mixtape” policy with a total duration. As such I’d have to pay €9/month to host six or seven mixes. I can do that for free right here on my blog. But it’s nice to discover mixes that other DJs are making so I’ll keep my Soundcloud account and start posting my own mixes elsewhere.

So I decided to give Mixcloud a spin. I’ve heard good things and they’re part of my personal network. I’ve already posted two of my mixes, Sunday Old School and the Larry Levan Funk Mix I made for Mike which has been making the rounds.

One of the surprising cool features of Mixcloud is the requirement to provide a full track-listing for each podcast or mix (Mixcloud actually pays royalties for mixes played based on some form of radio rules). These listings are cross-referenced, so you can click on the name of any artist and discover any other mix containing that artist.

For example, I had a Quadrophonia track in my mix through which I discovered another old school mix for FACT magazine containing the same track. And within the mix was two excellent tracks on R&S records by Outlander and Second Phase that I knew well as samples, but never knew the true origins. This feature alone is quite sexy.

There’s no API (yet) but there is an RSS feed and embeddable widget. We’ll be talking to them very soon about Cloudskipper =)

Here’s the disco funk mix Jesse’s mom is currently getting down to:

Tribute To Larry Levan – Funk Mix by Radley on Mixcloud

Sunday Old School – new mix on Soundcloud

It all started with Sonz Of A Loop Da Loop Era – “Higher” – a super tongue-in-cheek track with a great sample “And I was so high off the ground that I could see for miles around.” This was the B-Side to “Far Out” which had the extra bonus of really creative etching and pressing patterns. I lost my copy years ago and decided it was time to resupply which led me to Discogs.

Three months later I ended up a whole new crate full of records (oh noes!), most of which date back to the pre-internet era (’90 – ‘94). These are the “music before recorded history” tracks that came and went so fast that most never really made the transition to digital significance.

My Sunday Old School mix is just me goofing off and playing my favorites out of the new batch. I made a few of these mixes, but this one was the most blatant and fun. It starts off with some of the most beautiful tracks I’d not heard in years and then takes off at the 10 and 20 minute marks. Tempo ramps from 128 bpm up to 153 bpm, dropping down to 124 bpm to eventually settle in around 134 bpm.

Sunday Old School by radley

Most of these tracks were anthems of the moment, but these moment seldom crossed paths since each was strictly “out of style” by the time the next arrived. These were also the first generation of mash-ups with everyone blatantly ripping each others samples and beats. But that’s history…

Link to mix on Soundcloud

Crate Classics – Mix Set

A few weeks back I played a 6+ hour set featuring a lot of tracks that, while once popular, had been set aside to mature. The set was a lot of fun but alas, half of the recording was lost due to a technical glitch.

I had so much fun pulling out those records, I went back last weekend to redo the missing stuff. Naturally, I couldn’t stick to the script and ended up playing something that could only be described as classic tracks made up of refined bin diving in a collection spanning over 25 years (or so).

This new 50-track, all vinyl mix is just over four hours long and features dubby chill tracks, buzzy techno and breaks, pop trance, disco house, a few 80s synth hits, and a few surprises.

Tracklisting is in the ID3 tags (lyrics).