AbstractRadio session - december 2017

Good people of the abstract world!

It’s been coming for quite a while and, after digging deep, pushing the boat out and burning the candle at both ends, our AbRad elves have finally delivered this little beauty.

All [relatively] up to date shizzle, with plenty of showstoppers in the mix.

Feel free to turn it up - we guarantee your neighbours will thank you for bringing such beautiful music into their lives. Eventually.

Brought to you with love,

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The Abrad Team

No cross-faders were harmed in the making of this production.

select mixes by genre:

House

Deep

Funky

Disco

Tracklist

Start	Artist	Track Title	Label
000:00	freiboitar	it was a beat	indiana tones
003:14	filth & smell	what kind of woman	mood funk
007:45	uneaq	glide to the left	jump
011:15	right to life	love blind	street of soul
016:01	animist	wanna dance	moulton
021:58	rescue	my flow	fogbank
025:20	nicola fasano	back 2 the house music	pornostar
028:26	crackazat	what you’re feeling	z
034:23	mr fries	get together	wolf
038:00	funkatron	get down	cut rec
042:08	rhemi	live life free	rhemi
046:16	freiboitar	I need your love	no brainer
050:56	sterling void	sweat	quantize
055:04	ant larock	the question	dopewax
060:22	shems edine	cassie	fogbank
062:10	gregor salto v litmus	para voce	blanco
066:34	shapeshifers	when love breaks down	glitterbox
071:44	loose change	straight from the heart	z
076:54	nachtbraker	hamdi	heist
081:18	angelo ferreri	jackin anthem	nervous
086:12	jovonn	body n deep	body n deep
088:00	dj spen	stranger	quantize
092:17	dele sosimi afrobeat orchestra	too much information	innervisions
098:14	serge funk	cherry bomb	groove culture
104:28	tobias	fiya bun	sense
106:36	space echo	soul power	luv shack
111:14	freiboitar	what this money worth	clair de lune
116:16	teddy douglas	god created woman	save your soul
118:36	inaya day and ultra nate	over me	ny-o-dae
124:37	moose & squirrel	get with it	lw
130:57	discorocks	happy	king street
135:36	joey chicago	downtown clubbin	whitebeard
137:58	samo	straight on	cruise
144:20	the disco house lovers	let love enter	believe in disco
148:28	funkatomic	something divine	groove culture
152:20	mark funk	sunlight	monoside
157:07	greg winfield	I found love	t’s box

-- Total running time – 169.18 --

download from house-mixes.com

A DJ writes:

The principle challenges of this mix related to matters of programming, and their consequences - the task being one of having a whole stack of really wonderful music, and how to put it together into a cohesive whole [within a studio] which best represents a dancefloor environment.

Considerations to be made were:

How to start.
How to finish.
How to provide plenty of variety, with lots of ups and downs, to give the listener a “ride”.
To ensure that vocals are intermixed with instrumentals as much as possible – some punters need regular vocals to keep them going on the dancefloor.
To deliver an emotional punch or two.

At the start of laying this down, about seven tracks were already cemented into a particular order, leaving another 30 odd to play with.

Suffice to say, the running order was frequently modified, with the whole thing pretty much done and dusted on at least two separate occasions before being entirely ripped apart once again to produce this final version.

To demonstrate, here’s the running order for an earlier take:

freiboitar - It was a beat
animist - wanna dance
nachtbraker - hamdi
nicola fasano - back 2 the house music
uneaq - glide to the left
gregor salto - para voce - litmus
right to life - love blind
tobias - fiya bun
sterling void - sweat
funkatron - get down
freiboitar - what this money worth
rescue - my flow
teddy douglas - god created woman
inaya day and ultra naté - over me
freiboitar - I need your love
ant larock - the question
loose change - straight from the heart
rhemi - live life free
filth & smell - what kind of woman
serge funk - cherry bomb
crackazat - what youre feeling
mr fries - get together
space echo - soul power
dj spen - stranger
dele sosimi afrobeat orchestra - too much information
jovonn - body n deep
shapeshifers - when love breaks down
angelo ferreri - jackin anthem
shems edine - cassie
moose & squirrel - get with it
discorocks - happy
joey chicago - downtown clubbin
SAMO - straight on!
the disco house lovers - let love enter
funkatomic - something divine
mark funk - sunlight
greg winfield - I found love

In the final version, the first and last eight tracks remain the same, but the running order differs everywhere else.

So what went wrong with these previous attempts?
Technically very little, but the overall flow just wasn’t up to scratch – some tracks needed to come in earlier in the set, others - eg the wonderful “Over Me” – held back a bit.
So, back to the drawing board!

A common djing task is to find and use tracks which compliment each other “in the mix” – it helps keep your dancefloor moving.
However, in perfecting a set you sometimes need to manipulate the running order for the greater good of the mix, sacrificing these “perfect” track combinations and, consequently, having to find ways of mixing tunes which seemingly don’t work together quite so well.

There are many ways of dealing with this – a whole barrage of dj “tricks” eg let the outgoing track reach the beats at the end before starting your mix, though there can be a compromise here as often there’s a loss in the intensity in the music when you do this – unless of course you have a good way of dropping the next track in!

Ideally though, you should avoid using too many of these tricks. They eventually become clichéd, and you want your mix to be listened to as much as possible: discerning music lovers don’t return to jaded clichés.

So, the solution invariably is to try out as many combinations of tracks as possible, identifying sections, breaks and elements which work together acceptably, or that you can manipulate in such a way as to make them fit together in a satisfactory manner.

And there lies the problem.
Most of these tracks work fairly well together, and even with half a dozen tunes tied down, there remains a further thirty-odd pieces of music which somehow need to be mixed “as best can be”.

And with an undetermined order, that’s 29! combinations, which is [roughly] a total of 8.841762 x 10³⁰ variations to decide upon.

Not suggesting that all of these were tried, but you can see how such a thing can soon turn into a labour of love.

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