Posted by: Derek

Oh boy, here we go…I’m off the deep end on this one…

I was originally gonna post a modern set for this week, but I saw Cor’s last podcast description referencing ol skool, rave culture, and classics, and I just had to bust this one out.

This is hard house. No really, not that US hardhouse from NYC, the full on ravey UK kind.
Yes, it has hoovers.
Yes, it has scifi vocals.
Yes, it’s at like 150bpm.

If this doesn’t make you think of dark, dank spaces filled with the sweat of crowds of ravers and the electricity of their chemical buzz, and hoopers and glowstickers going nuts, and that one guy who always has to take his fracking shirt off — then nothing will!

I don’t know what year it was when DJ Morgan whipped this stuff up, but try finding a venue that plays like THIS nowadays! Ha!
Y’all are either gonna love it or hate it - it’s hard to be on the fence on this one.
I think it’s brilliant…

So, bringin you back to the days of the Dungeon undergrounds on Bush and Van Ness….here we go!

DJ Morgan - Sentinel (right-click to download to disk!)

Posted by: Matt

I can’t for the life of me remember exactly how I came across this mix. It’s by a local DJ who I have never actually seen or met, and Google has no record of this file that I am able to locate. My computer tells me it was downloaded in July of 2005, so that is the best date I can offer as far as carbon dating goes.

I do however recall the impact it had on my taste in electronic music. At the time I was moving away from glitchy, plonky IDM (of which there are traces at the beginning here) and towards…..something. My next focal point was waiting to be defined, and then I found Bass Lab pt. 1. I loved the gritty, front-and-center basslines and the unabashed use of speed garage tempo and beats, and for a brief time, Tube Jerk, Audion, and others dominated my crate. Most of the tracks here owe a lot to UK garage but they are lacking the pitched up divas and general cheesiness that style loved so much. I’ve never quite pinned down the origin of that sound. Was there a subset of Garage producers who were pushing the envelope? Had another region picked up on the sound and made it their own? Maybe someone out there can answer that for me….

In any case, I believe this was supposed to be part one of a pair of mixes; At 44:20, the odds are pretty good that this was one side of a cassette tape. You can hear it switch gears right at the end (to introduce some perfectly timed funkiness) and then it just gets hacked off mercilessly. I tend to feel that it adds to the charm though, and leaves you wanting more.

What’s Miss La Fey (if that IS her real name??) up to these days? Well, Dubstep, according to her myspace page. I suppose that makes sense, given her gravitation towards heavy bass sounds. So if you are in the Bay and see her on a flyer, feel free to drop in and request something from Bass Lab. Maybe you’ll get lucky.

Maebyn La Fey - Bass Lab pt. 1

Posted by: Matt

Modeselektor (or occasionally MDSLKTR) are Berlin-based duo Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary. Since their forming in 1996 they have charted steady growth in technique and worldwide popularity, not to mention a breathtaking slew of original releases and remixes. While a consistent style can be hard to pin down - they cannot easily be classified as Breaks or Tech-House or whatever - you know a Modeselektor track when you hear it. Since my early days dabbling with 1200s they have long been one of my favorite production teams, and I am psyched to have the chance to write about them here!

And now, we go back…

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Posted by: Jay

I love driving fast.  Cor loves driving fast.  Hella our friends love driving fast.  To pay homage to this need for speed, Cor and I got together five years ago to make this set, Octane, meant to be the soundtrack for that next stretch of road.

The concept was simple: combine as many songs as we could that made us want to drive with excessive speed.  The result however was far more than either of us had anticipated.  With all of its voice samples, varied styles, great mixes and kickass tracks, this set took on a life of its own and still delights to this day!   It moves from breaks to house, progressive to cybertrance, tribal to old-school rave, all while keeping that persistent, driving beat that urges you to go ever faster.

Whether it be your yearly pilgrimage to Black Rock desert, or just your daily commute, may Octane speed you to your next destination.  And just so you know: “On green I’m going for it.”

“Octane” – DJ Cor & DJ Jay – (one long track, right click and “Save as…”)

As we released this as a CD back in the day we have all the tracks cut up, zipped up and available to be downloaded in full 320 kbps glory!  Enjoy, just be careful: this set WILL get you into trouble.

“Octane” – DJ Cor & DJ Jay – (.zip file with tracks cut up, right click and “Save as…”)

Tracklist, movies sampled and more after the jump.

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Posted by: Cor

Ah, here’s a Cor and Jay tape for the ages. We recorded this as a give-away for a “rave” we threw in the pizza junction at UC Santa Cruz in 2000. If memory serves, we recorded about 40 copies of this tape from one master copy on our dual-deck tape recorder… a process that took us weeks. These days all I have to do to propagate it anew is record the tape one last time and throw it on the internets. Yes, I love technology.

This tape marks the point where Jay and I started to break apart stylistically (although we’ve started merging back together in recent years thanks to the rise of electro house.) I had started phasing out the trance in favor of house music, changing my name from the trancy “Paradigm” to plain ol’ DJ Cor (all the house DJs just used their first names… DJ Dan, Tony, Garth, etc.) It was a relief to both Jay and I to finally diverge a bit. We no longer struggled to define our DJ “sounds” from one another, we didn’t need to argue over which one of us would get to feature mutually beloved songs on our mixes, and best of all, we could record tapes like this one, with a variety of styles. There’s something here for everyone.* I kick things off on side A with some hard & funky house, while Jay rocks side B with some classic hands-in-the-air anthem trance. It’s a flashback mix, no doubt, and certainly sounds dated at this point, but we still love it. What do you think? Do any of these tracks bring you back to your raving days?

*Provided everyone enjoys either house or trance music circa 2000.

Bump Side A - DJ Cor (Right click to download)

Bump Side B - Paradox (Right click to download)