.
.
CHYMERA

Once upon a time I was a vinyl DJ. Gradually I lost interest in the process of acquiring endless slabs of wax to add to my collection. The catalyst was when my entire vinyl collection, CD collection, 1210s and mixer were robbed from my house one fateful night back in 2002. I had been Dj'ing for 2 years by then but those were my most enthusiastic 2 years ever. I literally devoured techno, house, electro, electronica and much more besides. It was a brand new and fresh sensation for me after many years as a metal and alternative freak.

It was a killer for me to have all that robbed. The records were one thing. The decks also had a lot of sentimental value in that I had received one of them as a bonus after spending a summer in Germany during college installing TV studios around Germany. If it hadn't been for that highly generous gift then I may not have headed down the path of the DJ all those years ago. As it was, I purchased the other deck and a cheap mixer and threw myself into it. From that point on I was hooked! I loved the physical side to it, spending hours in my bedroom working on the mechanics of mixing, then once that was done finding new and ever more daring combinations of records to layer on top of one another.

After the decks were robbed I managed to buy another pair second hand along with a mixer. I then began the soul destroying and wallet burning task of buying back all my favourite records. Still to this day some of them I have never been able to find again. I dj'ed with some enthusiasm for the next 3 or 4 years and then by around 2005 I had pretty much lost interest. It was around this time that I really made big advances with my own productions and I decided to concentrate more and more on that. With good results (I think)! I left Ireland in 2006 to move to Costa Rica for a year. It was during this time that I became reacquainted with Dj'ing through the discovery of Beatport and digital download sites. Once again I started consuming and reconsuming...even buying up mp3s and wavs of tracks I already had on vinyl, and not to mention finding many tracks which had been previously robbed and I had never found again until that point. Now I am purely a digital DJ. Although this mix was done on Ableton, I play with CDs normally, however my mixer is on the fritz at the moment. I don´t have any attachment to vinyl anymore. In fact, they are all in storage in Ireland at the moment but due to be shipped over in 2 weeks. I´m going to go through them all, keep only the ones with sentimental value and then put the rest up for sale. I have all I need on my hard drive now.

Rayna asked me to do this one a very long time ago, I think almost 2 years at this point! For one reason or another I never got around to it. Actually, that´s not entirely true. There were at least 4 or 5 failed attempts over the past 2 years. Initially I wanted to do something really special like a non-electronic mix or a weird abstract one, but I just couldn´t get the attempts to sound good. So finally I just went and took it back to the basics. This is a straight up mix, going from some more listening orientated though still vaguely dance-able stuff at the start through to some solid house in its various forms. I consider myself a producer before DJ, although I do love DJ'ing. But the time it takes to stay on top of new releases and promos is just not worth it when there is valuable studio time wasting away. I play most weekends but usually I am booked to play live sets. I get booked for DJ sets maybe only once a month or less. In the week before the DJ set I sit down and listen through everything that´s been building up since the last time I checked.

Techno is always closest to my heart but I must say that there is so little of modern techno which moves me. I´m just not fully into the forms which are around today. I found that when I was playing techno tracks out, people weren´t getting it a lot of the time. The stuff I was playing was too dated, for them at least (not for me). I have become better at knowing what kind of crowds might appreciate it and when I do drop in the old stuff at the right time, they go wild! So anyways, the mix is predominantly house. And I think it´s evident from the sound that this is the kind of house that has been around for many years as well but I hope it won´t ever go out of fashion. Most of the tracks I picked up in the last 2 weeks along with a couple which I have been trying to slot into a mix for a while. I really concentrated hard on the flow with this one. I let the tracks breathe. I wasn´t interested in lots of layering or effects because most of the tracks have a very definite start, middle and end. There´s a lot of musicality and emotion to the ones I selected. I just let them tell the story. For me one of the most important things about putting together a mix is not just the tracks that you include but the ones you leave out. All the tracks need to gel together in the right way. If one is not working, you need to take it out. I think they flow into each other very well from start to finish. I hope you also feel the same way!

chymera - process part 201 (long time coming) by modyfier

01. Dead Can Dance - Ascension
02. Four Tet - Angel Echoes
03. Alex Q - Love (Reynold Remix)
04. Sascha Funke - Mango
05. Nufrequency - Fallen Hero Feat. Ben Onono (MCDE Remix)
06. Azari & III - Reckless (With Your Love)
07. Solaris - That Chick Feat. Fifi (Break Mix)
08. Glocal - After Midnight (Old Is Cool LNX Davis Mix)
09. Mano Le Tough - Eurodancer
10. DJ Sprinkles - Masturjakor (kINK And Neville Watson Remix)
11. Circulation - White (Mix B)
12. Chymera - The Rumours Of My Demise
13. Carl Craig - A Wonderful Life