DJ Soma - mixes & reviews

Autumn Arena 2011 (as it should have sounded)

davidmcquillan — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 11:19:23 +0000

God I’ve been busy lately.

Over the Easter period I was heavily involved in the organisation of two festivals. Was pretty happy with how both of those panned out, but not so much with my DJing. In both cases I completely mashed a set that was well within my capabilities due to my amateur equipment. Frustrating! I’ve decided to step out of DJing until such a time as I have a workable setup.

I’ve also decided to re-record both of these sets & post them here, to soothe my battered ego.

Here’s the first set- played at Autumn Arena 2011

Autumn Arena 2011 (as it should have sounded)

The extended version (192 kbps – 143Mb).

The short (hi-res) version (320 kbps -167Mb).

Tracklist

I hope to get the second (mangled at Samhain) up pretty soon, but am stoopidly busy with my work at the moment.

Photek’s new sound

davidmcquillan — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 18:27:36 +0000

In 1997 Photek burst onto the drum n bass scene with his intelligent, futuristic jazz-influenced album Modus Operandi. While he’s released several albums since then, none have had the impact of his first couple. He’s got a new release planned for 2011, which judging by a teaser released through xlr8r.com could be set to have a similar impact on the dubstep genre.

Check it out

Melting the Twisted Ice

davidmcquillan — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:14:09 +0000

Melting the twisted ice

Fragments of a mix by DJ Soma

I have been planning to get this out for a while. I played a set in the ambient zone at Dunedin’s mid-winter Solstice party. Planned to record it that night & upload it shortly afterwards, but there was some pre-set chaos & in the fray I forgot to turn record on. I’ve had a couple of goes at re-recording the mix since then, but have had little time to get it sorted out. Anyway I’m about to abandon my efforts, but just before I do, here are the fragments that I’ve pulled together so far. Enjoy…

Prelude (part 1) – download (17.4 Mb)
Track	Title	Artist	Album
1	Dismalia	The Ricketty Galumphy Bad-time Band	Unreleased
2	Demented blues	The Ricketty Galumphy Bad-time Band	Unreleased
3	Introduction II	Mentz	Piani
4	Trip to Nomoreland	Kovacs	Eastern block
Viscera (part 2) – download - 69.9 Mb
1	Nickel Bags	Digable Planets	Reachin‘ (A new refutation of time and space) [a smidgeon]
2	Jazz Baby	Lo-Fi Scientists	Lo-Fi Scientists
3	Time Machine	Soulkrates	Because best things are free (Edition Hiphop)
4	Intro (with Pepe, Hasi Intl.™ & Rosalba)	Tracky Birthday	Animal Audition
5	16^thJune 1996	XZICD	O)))))O(((((O
6	Gauche	Maps and Diagrams	The giant woods
7	Wa Wa Wa	MiaMia	Eclectic youth vol. 17
8	Mare Eternum	Universe Alley 59	N/A
9	Tiny Little Pieces	Hypnagog	Dreaming in pieces
10	Un Santa Claus a las 6	Crisopa	Medicamentosa

I normally try to link to all of the albums used in my mixes, but at this stage don’t have the time sorry. If you really like any of the tracks, you can probably still find most of them with a few searches. Good luck on the hunt. Reply to this post if you really can’t find anything & I’ll see if I can track it down.

Planet Boelex – Second Thoughts

davidmcquillan — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 03:25:29 +0000

Wow – loving this new release from the Monotonik netlabel.

Beautiful drifting warm layered ambience.

Check it out.

Elemental

davidmcquillan — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 20:01:34 +0000

This year’s Autumn Arena was a very special wee party. This mix went down on Saturday night as people stomped around a huge fire, rain fell, and embers flew through the air. Nice.

Here’s an mp3 recording of the mix (145Mb @ 320 kb).

Track	Title	Artist	Album
1	Empty city	Greenbeam & Leon	Empty city ep (Unfound 33)
2	Cornflakes in my ears	Evolent	Rise & fall ep
3	Morker (Jeff Bennet remix)	Ture Sventon	Tropisk ep
4	Fun time Frankie	Le Jockey	Android lubricated tech funk
5	Potentiopeter	Erdbeerschnitzel	Tracknames I can’t pronounce
6	Miesekatze (Tone Def remix)	Daniel Schneider	Android lubricated tech funk
7	Leanne	Tone Def	Android lubricated tech funk
8	Gigi	Minimono	Classic accidents vol. 1
9	Tribute to spontan	Tillman	Classic accidents vol. 1
10	A day in the life	Tom Ellis	Classic accidents vol. 1
11	Freak’n’deep	Minimorph	Real place ep (Unfound 33)
12	Boken wetware	Keinzweiter	Globus Cassus
13	Police faked me	Ed.arcade	Heike 2000
14	Acid Monstruation	Dropout	Hallucinogenia
15	Bday county (Cesare vs Disorder remix)	Rudolf	Below the crime scene
16	Smack	Walker Barnard	The discoball miner (Unfound 47)

Keinzweiter (day 3)

davidmcquillan — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:05:36 +0000

Where to start?

Keinzweiter (Tobias Lorsbach) has been releasing albums since 2001. He’s very well known for his intelligent, funky, glitchy micro-house and minimal techno, also releasing tunes as Elco Park (with Maximilian Wendling), Superlauncher, Antiga Prime, The Desktop Discoballs, The Postman (not to be confused with another artist with a similar name), & T Byron.

He’s also the man behind Spontan records, one of my favorite netlabels.

Recommended albums (get some glitch in ya!)

Condensa (Archipel records, 2006)
Globus Cassus (Spontan records, 2009)
Classic Accidents vol 1 (Spontan records compilation, 2007)

Professor Kliq (day 2 of free-music week)

davidmcquillan — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:29:51 +0000

It’s now day 2 of free music week, and my artist of the day is Professor Kliq.

Professor Kliq came to my attention through the Catching the Waves music blog, one of my favorite sources of quality creative commons music, and I was immediately hooked. Professor Kliq has got the formula for Chemical Brothers-style big-beat nailed. Huge rolling electro-bass tracks to get the party-core jacking.

The other thing which Kliq does well is groovy downbeat.

Check out Professorkliq.com for all of his releases. Of particular note are

Guns Blazin’ (2008) – especially Bust this Bust That & Elephantiasis,
The Scientific Method vol 2 (2009) – Check out this & Sema

Dublicator

davidmcquillan — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:23:53 +0000

It’s the first day of free music week! Each day, music bloggers around the world will identify an artist who they particularly rate, and the friendly folks at musikpiraten e.v. will aggragate the information together. It’s an attempt to make the best of creative commons music accessible, which is a pretty worthy aim I think, so I’m going to attempt to participate.

My artist for the day is Dublicator.

Dublicator is the name that Tamás Olejnik uses for his dub & dub-techno releases. He first came to my attention with the excellent Deep Roots EP, released through the Deep in Dub netlabel.

Deep Roots EP release page

My personal favourite on this is definitely Echoes of Babylon - have a listen.

I next came across Chord Centre, another DID release, which has got to be my all-time favorite dub-techno album. Just great smooth, deep quality dub techno. I don’t have a particular favourite, it’s all pretty good.

Chord Centre release page

In undertaking this proto-review, I’ve realised that this is really just scratching the surface of this fantastic artist. He has a number of releases running right back to 2006, and has continued onwards to 2010 (details here). I’ll certainly have to continue my investigations into his past a bit once my work calms down a little.

On another note, I see with great sadness that with his latest release Tamas has gone to the darkside, and is now releasing his music out of the creative commons realm. I for one am hoping he returns to his deep roots.

Netlabel gems – house

davidmcquillan — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:23:51 +0000

It’s been tough choosing between some funkin lovely tracks, but here they are – my top ten house tracks as at 1 March, 2010.

	Trackname	Artist	Album
1	A day in the life	Tom Ellis	Classic accidents vol. 1
2	Let it off!	Superloader	Fusion EP
3	Donauwellen & Co french house	Geoffrey Johnson	Pulsar single
4	Freak n’ deep	Minimorph	Real place EP
5	Tribute to spontan	Tilman	Classic accidents vol. 1
6	Little britain (preview)	Geoffrey Johnson	Pulsar single
7	Faith	AXMusique	AXMusique
8	2 bailes con martini sisters	Alex Medina	Punos punof
9	Potentiopeter	Erdbeerschnitzel	Tracknames I can’t pronounce EP
10	Police faked me	Ed.arcade	Heike_2000

Netlabel gems – Ambience

davidmcquillan — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:14:21 +0000

It’s been some time since my last post, sorry about that. It was a touch choice, but after some deliberation …. my top ten netlabel ambient tracks as of 21 February, 2010.

	Track name	Artist	Album
1.	Un Santa Claus a las 6	Crisopa	Medicamentosa
2.	Night jingle	Lazzich feat. Leavemotte	Fragments
3.	Lodge	Nest	Nest
4.	Winds within dunes	E.ritual	N/A
5.	Charlotte	Nest	Nest
6.	Artemis Dream 1	Coax	Artifacts & Discovery
7.	The Crest	XZICD	O)))))O(((((O
8.	Rain Machine	Reii	Drafts
9.	Marinated Rizlas	Aluf	Classic accidents vol. 1
10.	Unfreezed	Modul	Directions