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POPNONAME
i made this mix in tarerio, on lake patzcuaro in mexico. in the mayan calender i`m a dog – ascendent dog – with the symbol coyote (ihuatzio) – any questions? yes, i have – it`s a new life for me...
2 HERZEN
track by klee / germany
remixed by me (popnoname you make you remix)
released by universal
you let you forward or rewind
you break for hope or happiness
you choose between all and nothing
you make you right, you make you bright
you let you decide
you make you decide
two hearts are beating underneath
eins bleibt hart - eins zerbricht
no doubt...
THE WALK
track by andreas heiszenberger / germany
remix by me (PNN from munich to paris RMX)
released by polytone...also on vinyl!
12 mark hat die übernachtung gekostet - das essen mit dabei (werner herzog)
TOUCH
track by me
remix by tennishero / sveden
surrounded by weather remixes 1
released by italic
i am to be
my beauty is the truth
or not?
2012
track by me
surrounded by weather // italic
remix by echonomist / greece
unreleased
but wait...
LEAN ON
track by the echonomist feat. popnoname feat. auto tune
released by vim/klik
radio lunatic / greece
when you trust someone
you trust someone
when you love some
you love someone
but when you suffer be aware
that you do it
for the others
to lean on
fight your way - through
through to through to a place
to stay for a while
to comeback
to start a new
to places
you will belong to
ASYA
track by smadj / france
remixed by me
released by doublemoon / turkey
in germany we say weltmusik - ye!
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DEE JAY PEE PLAY
This was one of the most brutal winters of my entire existence. The earth was gasping for precipitation, the American wallet was crying for green men, and my consciousness was covered in soot, sand, cobwebs, and indifference. This mix, like everything has the past six months, was no easy task. I eventually lost count how many times I went into the basement studio only to walk back upstairs with a bloody abortion feeling.
INCOMING TEXT: JACOB, THE MUSIC IS TOO LOUD, IT'S TOO LATE, PLEASE KILL IT.
All the normal boundaries and rules I force upon myself when making a mix flew out the window about day 5 of trying to record. Eventually all the focus was about getting the boulder up the hill and nothing else. I no longer pontificated on whether a track "had a shelf life" or whether a fellow geek would frown upon the popularity of a song. All I could focus on was achieving perfection, a flawless live session, a surgically performed transition that would cut away the blemishes of my current state of being. Records jumped into the bag, others scurried away quickly, their heads covered to protect them from the falling sky. Finally a consensus was reached, everyone got along, a blueprint was drafted and it was time to get back to building.
CAUTION: ALL WORKERS ARE REQUIRED TO WEAR SAFETY GOGGLES AND HELMETS AT ALL TIME.
Sometimes all it takes is a good lay and everything makes sense. Months of meaningless one night stands and "internet research" were not helping me bang this out. Maybe if I could just focus on an object in the distance this nausea would cease and I would have 71:04 mins / 700 mb of regularity.
DO NOT TAKE MORE THEN 4 GELCAPS IN A PERIOD OF 24 HOURS.
What was I trying to get out of this? According to google anylitics my mixes are some of the least downloaded on the Honey Podcast. Woe is me, there goes another transition! If I lay echo over that, is that cheating? Who is on the olympic judging commitee of DJ mixes anyway? That triple lux was a bit Trip Hop for my taste: 5.5
GCHAT_MODIFYER: HEY JACOB JUST LOOKING TO SEE IF YOU ARE STILL GOING TO SUBMIT A PIECE TO MODIFYER? sent at 3:26 pm
This is getting messy, are you even reading this? Is that sun shining through my window or did I just piss my bed again? It is, it is, SUNSHINE! A day at the beach is what I need, some good old vitamin E and a bike ride, then 2 CDJ 800s, a Technique 1200MK2, and a XONE. I am in the zone. Summer is here, finally. Two cups of coffee will keep me just scattered enough to concentrate. Oh god I love this track, "How do I let go, how do I let go, how do I let go."
01. Rememory Screen by Timonium
02. My Volcano by Valet
03. Work by Junior Boys
04. Song For Marie And Elise (Aeroplane Remix) by Lullabies In The Dark
05. Differente by Gotan Project
06. Lookosphere (Whignomy Brothers Rollmops Rework) by Kreon y Lemos
07. La Fotographia by Alex Neri and Luca Bacchetti
08. Blissout (Soft Thing Remix) by Lemonade
09. Bernard by Swimming Pool
10. Stokes Croft 5AM by Bass Clef
11. Prima Materia (abort mix) by Alex Smoke
12. Tanto Tempo (Remixed by Peter Kruder) by Bebel Gilberto
13. Ever After (Afterlife Remix) by Seek
14. M Train to Brooklyn by Loco Dice
15. How Do I Let Go? by Dennis Ferrer feat. K. T. Brooks
16. Wild Spaghetti by Lanoiraude
17. Boogie No More (Reverso 68 Remix) by Dorfmeister vs. Madrid de los Austrias
18. Tripple Chrome Dipped by Michna
19. Refuge by Oi Va Voi
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DNTEL
01. It’s about 2pm on Monday. The first thing to do is to decide what project I’m going to work on. I’m trying to focus on a new Dntel related project. The last album, Dumb Luck, had a quirky, poppy feel and I’ve been missing the more atmospheric, melancholic stuff from previous albums, so I want to aim in that direction. That’s about as far as I get with pre-musicmaking thinking - actually a lot of times I don’t even start a song with a project in mind.
02. I plug an Elektron drum machine into an old semi-broken Tascam mixer and then out of the mixer into a Sherman filterbank. Both of these machines I’m sending the signal through are unpredictable (the Tascam because it’s broken and the filterbank because it’s got so many knobs and I don’t really know how to use it correctly). I go through a few drum patterns until I find one that sounds good, adjust the tempo until it feels right and then start turning knobs on the filterbank and mixer. Once I get some idea of how the knobs are affecting the sound, I hit record on the computer and let the beat play for about 10 minutes, turning knobs and altering the drum pattern and seeing what happens. Listening back there are definitely some things I did that don’t work, but for now I’ll leave this jam unedited and start trying things on top of it. It’s good not to get too stuck on details too early in the process.
03. Now I turn on the MicroKorg synthesizer, find a sound, and play random melodies on top of the beat until I stumble on something I like. Then I record myself playing the melody and trying slight variations for about 8 minutes.
04. Even though I was calling what I did in step 2 the beat, it was really more of a noisy, blippy loop. At this point I want to start getting a more substantial beat going. I usually start with a kick drum so that’s what I do here, using a Vermona drum machine. Each drum sound on the machine has its own strip of parameter knobs so I set up an easy techno four-on-the-floor kick pattern and record it for around 8 minutes, twisting knobs, especially riding the attack and decay knobs (attack changes the initial impact of the kick, while the decay affects how long the sound lasts).
05. With the same drum machine I work on a snare sound and pattern and record it the same way, riding similar knobs to change each hit. I try to not just do a snare hit on the 2nd and 4th beat, which would be the most common solution, but I’m not totally happy with the pattern I choose.
06. I have two different little egg-shaped shakers, I record a minute or two of each, then listen back and pick the one I like best, then find a tiny moment where I actually stayed on beat and cut and paste that through the whole song. Then I add some reverb to it. I don’t know it yet, but this will be the only live instrument on the track.
07. Right now I only have one melodic element (from step 3) so I decide to add a little harmony part using the MiniMoog Voyager. I find a sound that’s super bright and piercing and record myself playing it manually. I would have used MIDI and programmed a more elaborate part but for some reason I can’t get the Moog to respond to my computer today. Once I record my clumsy manual performance, I edit it down to the bits that worked and then add some long delay to it. I mostly use a Line 6 delay pedal for delay effects and I record it onto a separate track from the dry signal so I have more control over it later.
08. As the song builds I feel like it needs to have something reinforce the snare, I find a weird clap sound on the JoMox drum machine and record myself playing it manually along with the existing snare. As I’m recording I start hitting other drum sound buttons besides the clap and it evolves into a sloppy percussion jam track. I add some reverb afterwards but resist editing it for now, I leave it sloppy.
09. I’m really sick of hearing the blippy loop (from step 2) so I start looking for places in the song where it’s not needed and fade it out of a few parts. I also cut out some parts of it that I don’t like as much and replace them with better sections from the initial recording.
10. I work on the ending, fading out the snares and shakers and cutting the original blippy loop so it comes to an end at the right time.
11. Then I go back and work on transitions and little rhythmic details, moving drums around, fading stuff in and out…this part usually uses up a lot of time, I can spend 10 minutes moving one snare sound back and forth or adjusting the speed of a fade-in.
12. I add a closed hi-hat pattern for when the track's at its peak.
13. That snare pattern I was iffy about gets to me. I end up only keeping it in for a small part of the song and then move the snare to the 2 & 4.
14. I keep starting the track over and listening until I hear something that needs adjusting. After a while of this I’m sick of hearing it so I burn a cd and leave the house. It’s about 5:30pm.
15. I listen to it in the car a few times. Usually I’m mostly looking for mixing issues when I listen in the car, like if the kick drums are too loud or the hi-hats are harsh, but with this one I notice more issues with the structure. It feels awkward and way too long (around 8 ½ minutes). I also realize I haven’t added a bassline. Also the main melody repeats way too many times.
16. I spend a few hours away from the song, then around 10:30pm I turn the computer back on. I plan on doing some drastic editing so I save a new version of the track. That way if my big changes totally ruin it I can go back to the old version and try again.
17. I cut out a lot of the beginning of the song. I had realized in the car that I was already growing tired of the melody by the time the beat kicked in. It’s easy to get too precious about every little sound you make and want to keep everything in. I find it especially tempting in intros and outros to get too wanky.
18. I add a bassline finally. Lately I’ve been using the Nord Modular for most of my bass sounds. My first recording of the bass doesn’t feel right, the sound is too squelchy, it doesn’t feel like it fits the song. So I adjust the sound a little and re-record.
19. I spend some more time adding drum fills and little beat variations. I also cave and decide to refine the sloppy percussion jam (from step 8). I don’t make it perfectly quantized but I adjust the more off-beat parts and cut out certain weird hits.
20. I cut out some more sections. In total I get rid of about 3 minutes of the original track.
21. I add some delay to the original synth sound. Having a sound trail off slowly instead of just cutting off is an easy solution to an awkward transition sometimes. In a couple transitional places I also add an overlapped copy of the delayed synth that’s been pitched up a 7th and have it fade in to create a swell that’s a little disorienting.
22. It’s about 12:30am and I feel like I’m getting impatient so I burn the new mix to cd and quit for the night.
23. The next morning I bring it in the car again and feel like it’s really close to done. I pick up a friend and force her to listen to it and make suggestions. Not only is this helpful because you get input from someone who hasn’t listened to it a hundred times already, but also I tend to listen extra critically when there’s an audience. Kind of like if you really like a movie and then you show it to a friend and all of a sudden you notice all sorts of flaws and are embarrassed you built it up so much. At least that’s how it works for me. She suggests having a part where the bassline cuts out and comes back in. Also I notice this one swooshing sound is too loud.
24. It’s 2:30pm on Tuesday. I turn down the swooshing sound and use my friend’s suggestion to adjust the transition into the outro, fading out a bunch of the sounds and then having them reintroduced. It makes it feel more like a new section.
25. I think I’m done, at least for this Modyfier entry. Eventually if I use this for an album it will be adjusted to fit into the context of the album and maybe there will be vocals added and the track will be mastered professionally so it sounds better. But for now I just use a software plug-in to do my own bad mastering job, mostly just so it’ll sound a little louder. I finish at around 3:30pm. The file was saved as “Process” so that’ll be the song title for now, but just a working title. There are probably enough electronic tracks called Process already.
Here’s a list of all the audio tracks that make up the song:
01. Blippy Sherman loop
02. Main synth
03. Main synth delay
04. Main synth transitional pitch change
05. Kick drum
06. Snare
07. Shaker
08. Bass
09. Moog harmony
10. Moog delay
11. Sloppy percussion
12. Closed hi-hat
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EXERCISE ONE
Fire is a 100% analogue track. I used only an old moog prodigy that I borrowed from my friend, Falko, and put a huge reverb on it. The sound became so massive through that and I was immediately addicted to its atmosphere. It has, for me, this kind of voodoo feeling. I could see dancers and a huge flames and it gave me also the feeling of the power of fire.
I tried to fall in it and bring some beats and little voices + fxs in (but only a bit so that this huge sound stands always out of it). Then I started to spin myself and I reached a point of total trance....We played this sound often as an intro for our gigs and the magic worked also in the clubs....Enjoy!
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BRITISH MALES
140BPM vs. 70BPM
Firstly, we decided to make this mix much faster than usual. The reason for this was to exploit the relationship between 4/4 house and techno and 2/4 dubstep. Throughout, the mix rides the divide between 140BPM and 70BPM. There's something magical about doubling up tempo to hype a mix, or dropping down to half the speed to let things really grind. The tempo halves (DJ Blaqstarr > Skream), doubles up (Skream > Various Productions) whilst on the Rustie record the BPM seems to wander chaotically. Bass Clef's brilliant Cannot Be Straightened draws a line back to dubstep's millennial UKG origins with a double speed shift up to 2-step halfway though. Bruk out!
Secondly, playing at 140bpm meant we could use loads of tracks we've wanted to include in a mix for ever. We've loved the Gold Chains and Com.A records for years but they're so fast we never thought we could crowbar them into a tracklisting. (Whatever happened to Gold Chains? He was great).
Improvisation vs. Planning
There's two ways we record mixes. Often, a bag of contemporary records might have a similar mood and feel so it's very easy to return from record-shopping and instantly knock out a 60-minute mix.
The other way - and what we did here - is when a record or a few records are so exciting, they become the centre-point of a mix. We've got three or four of these hypothetical mixes in our heads at any one time and we're always looking for tunes to flesh them out: plotting the relationships between records, joining the dots one by one. It can take a long time until you find the right record to fill in the gaps. Sometimes it's not until someone makes it.
Bad tools make for good decisions
The mix was recorded mostly live with two 1200s, but there's a fair few loops chopped together bluntly in Adobe Audition. We really think there's value in using really basic chops and edits, even though in today's Ableton-ready world it's about as Luddite as doing it with a tape and razor. It's good to be slightly constrained technically - it means you don't stray too far from the aesthetic of the original tracks and you have to think a bit more. Hopefully, our mixing is sympathetic and unobtrusive. We don't like letting the mixing get in the way of the mix (unless it's deliberate). We've just started experimenting with Ableton and hope we can remain disciplined.
The Number One Song in Heaven
Our most loved records are interesting or innovative and will feature something very beautiful or something extreme. Also, the very best records often introduce unexpected elements. The tunes we love the most are the ones that stop you dead in your tracks, doing something you'd never imagined would happen. The ones that expand what you think music is and does. We also really value colour and dynamics. We got into electronic music through raving, so we'll take a massive riff over a discreet change in texture every time. We're also very partial to a well-deployed bassline.
The backbone of this mix is a half dozen dubstep records of the more odd and awkward variety. In between there's the wonky, creepy synths of Zomby and Rustie, Hot Chip's Day-Glo colours, Com.A's caustic electro, Salem's weirdly blissed-out crunk and, after couple of very intense records, some levity from Jimmy Edgar (big up the Will Smith revival!). We love, love, love these records and hope in that putting them together, they become more than the sum of their parts. We also hope you enjoy it.
Based in London, British Males are James Cowdery and Chris Power.
00:00 Lennie De Ice - We Are IE (Caspa + Rusko mix) // Y4K
04:32 Zomby - Strange Fruit // Ramp
07:43 Buraka Som Sistema - Kalemba (Hot Chip mix) // Greco Roman
12:42 Radioclit - Secousse // Mental Groove
17:50 DJ Blaqstarr - Shake It To The Ground (Switch featuring Santogold mix) // Mad Decent
20:06 Skream - Tapped // Tempa
23:17 Various Production - Monster // Various Production
25:06 Rustie - Zig-Zag // Wireblock
28:26 I Hate It When People Make Tracks Like This - Jimmy Edgar // Detroit Underground
30:18 Bass Clef - Cannot Be Straightened // Blank Tapes
34:17 Gold Chains - Rock The Parti // PIAS
38:37 Com.A - Radio Squelch Crush Land // FatCat
42:08 Kode9 vs. LD - Bad // Hyperdub
45:39 Martyn - Shadowcasting // Revolve:r
50:24 Salem - Redlights // Merok
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DEXIN
I recorded this mix prior to leaving the place where I had lived for four years. It was really full of energy, experiences, meetings, images, odors and I wanted to capture those memories in sound. With so many friends and other people having passed through my home at different times, I was feeling strange about departing from it. This became a mix of sadness, nostalgia already seeping in, but also of happiness with thoughts of the future and a shedding of material things. Soul is never retained in a material form and has no limit for spreading itself. All these memories will always be with me, not enclosed in a place without access...
So I wanted this recording to represent the past four years of my life...a melting of happiness, deception, intense joys, sadness, self-interrogations, pure craziness...and in it's entirety, show a feeling of hope and positivity. I pre-selected a large group of tracks that I thought would be timeless and not referred to as period hits. Then I made the mix fluidly, in one shot, because I didn't want an intended and cold result. I wanted to feel the humanity behind it, knowing that right after it was done, I would unplug everything and pack the records for good.
01. Captain Storm - Anton Zap
02. Nitzi (In My Mind, So Fine) - Melon
03. The Secret - Lee Jones
04. Wat men hoort - omar-s 004
05. Orgsa - Sis
06. Vandon - Reboot
07. Thrill - Sascha Braemer & Philip Bader
08. Jus Your - Sex Trothler Feat. Baby Prince
09. Ice - Daso & Pawas
10. Reality Check (Vincenzo Remix) - Audio Soul Project
11. Marsupial - Dan Curtin
12. The Pump - Phonique
13. Jive Conspiracy - Wasted Chicago Youth
14. Coco Feel And Love Shonk - Shonky
15. Minimum 23 - Josh Wink
16. Sliding Away (Johnny D Vocal Mix) - 2020 Soundsystem
17. The Phantom Image - Vincenzo
18. Bummelzug (Afterhour Mix) - Daso & Pawas
19. Iridium (Superpitcher Remix) - Lullabies In The Dark
20. Baltringue - Chateau Flight
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