Fabric/Fabriclive mix cd series S/D

Haha I have actually fantasised about being a prestigious DJ at a prestigious club or festival and dropping "No Good (Start The Dance)".

― Tim F, Tuesday, December 20, 2016 7:14 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

video of it (from exit not dekmantel - apparently this is a regular thing for her these days!). it goes OFF obv

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6WG77z7NzQ

Honestly this mix is fine but not especially exciting and takes an age to get going (a bit like the Scuba one from earlier this year), like it doesn't feel qualitatively any better or worse than the run of reasonably straight-ahead European techno mixes they've put out over the last couple of years. It's a lot better than the DJ Kicks one but I don't feel immediately compelled to go and see her live or anything.

the concept of a cd mix has felt archaic for years now - when i see a dj i like is lined up to do a fabric cd i just shrug because i can and have heard any amount of mixes/sets by them whenever i choose

At the same time, the frankly insane volume of free mixes out there means that some form of curatorial hand feels necessary, even as mix CDs (or digital versions of them) become commercially less and less viable. I'm sure there are amazing mixes being put out by random Estonian dudes on Soundcloud but there are so fucking many mediocre ones out there the whole experience feels like a trawl. Also I'm old fashioned and like decent sound quality and being able to actually see track titles.

Whether the Fabric series is the best for that I seriously doubt at this stage. I think there's something about the architecture and vibe of the building itself that encourages heads-down and quite moody selections from DJs who generally aren't. There's also that maddening thing where DJs who always go hard in actual clubs spend half the CD patiently building upwards to the extent that it sounds completely unrepresentative and indistinguishable from everyone else.

usually, it's not a special occasion. but from talking to them a lot of them do feel it's a special occasion, or at least they put pressure on themselves to...represent themselves fully, i guess?

There was a quote from a Flava D interview where she talked about the rush of going into HMV of all places just to see her CD on the shelves which I thought was quite revealing (and hers is probably the best of the last couple of years). At its best a commercial mix should actually feel like an album rather than a straightforward representation of a club set - Mayer's brilliant at this - and hers does as well. A lot of DJs are actively bad at this. By contrast, Gerd Janson's is fine but there's basically no difference between that and hundreds of similar podcasts, like what's your reason for putting this out for sale?

there are quite a lot i think that are passably good representations of what that person does while not being the best example you can find of what that person does

Even if you filter out podcasts and festival recordings I don't think there's a single DJ who's put their best commercial mix out for Fabric. Immer is better than Mayer's, The Workout is better than Carl Craig's, the Sci-Fi-Hi-Fi mixes by Luciano and Ewan Pearson are both better than their Fabric mixes etc. I seem to remember Ben Klock and Marcel Dettmann's Fabric mixes being better than their Berghain ones but without there being much in it. (Dettmann's DJ Kicks is fantastic and bucks a generally underwhelming recent trend in that series).

The Fabriclive series has a lot more personality in general but a lot of those personalities are fucking horrible. The recent run of garage and grime mixes has been fantastic though.

there's an argument some of the contributors have gone well off the boil by the time they got to do one

Maybe they just aren't that good in the first place when removed from a club context (or even in one), or their ear for selections is very tied to a small and quite limited set of records. But I certainly remember the format feeling much more vital in the early-mid 00s.

There's also the cramming-30-tracks-into-70-minutes thing, which is fine if they're playing big-room techno or if they're someone like DJ EZ who always does rapid transitions, but kind of annoying if they're a house DJ feeling the pressure to over-represent themselves. I do love the Jackmaster one though even if the mixing itself is completely shonky. Sometimes it adds to the intensity and at other times it completely kills the vibe.

i recall luke slater's was excellent early early example of the berghain / sandwell axis thing bubbling up

<3 Luke Slater but I remember this being a really good techno mix broken up with these baffling side turns into the big dancefloor bankers of the day, like DFA or Switch or whoever sticking out like a sore thumb. Just this general sense of lacking courage in his convictions or something, or having too much of it. I suppose some mix CDs that feel obvious at the time later feel like an excellent document of a scene but this isn't really one of them.

Maybe they just aren't that good in the first place when removed from a club context (or even in one), or their ear for selections is very tied to a small and quite limited set of records

This may be true but here it sounds more like you are describing someone who was never on the boil

DJs can get lazy, or rest on laurels and stop digging! or just change their style in ways that dont work! or have different phases....just the same as producers.

At the same time, the frankly insane volume of free mixes out there means that some form of curatorial hand feels necessary

Curatorial hand yes, but its the same for records or for anything, its something you build up over time subconsciously, everyone builds up their own curatorial hand, which is built up from a variety of sources, nothing is ever random (except for when it is).

Objekt's 'Kern' is better than any Fabric mix from this year except maybe the Flava D one. And that feels like both a coherent statement and something that wouldn't have worked as a podcast. It also doesn't waste a second of the CD without feeling rushed.

I don't think there's a single DJ who's put their best commercial mix out for Fabric

if there's a better james murphy &/or pat mahoney mix out there I'd love to hear it

Probably several other artists are in the same boat (Bugz in the Attic and Bent to start with) but I assume Matt meant "(of those DJs who have released several commercial DJ mixes)".

there is no need for a curatorial hand.

xp I'm not disputing the truth of it, just often hanker for more in that vein

just gave the claude vonstroke mix a spin.

not sure i have ever actually listened to it before.

really enjoyed it.

not that crazy about this guy's own productions but this looks interesting to say the least

http://www.fabriclondon.com/store/catalog/product/view/id/1134/s/fabric-92/category/8/

I knew zero about him at all before listening to this, but the Call Super mix is the first one in ages, in the core Fabric series at least, where I feel like I want to go back to it again and again and engage with it in the way I would an album. The fact that it peaks so early (and what a peak!) gives him a lot of time to drift through other moods and the second half is completely mesmerising.

Also I didn't really look at the tracklisting beforehand so the Wonderful Life moment was pretty much hands-in-the-air in my front room.

I can't recommend all of Call Super's own work (under his name as well as Ondo Fudd) highly enough

and yeah the Fabric mix is wonderful

"16. Bitstream - Incubator"

Great record!

yes, the fabric mix is excellent, reminds me of agoria's similarly free-wheeling entry

i'm also excited for the special request one which is next out (fabriclive 91)

http://www.factmag.com/2017/02/09/special-request-fabriclive-91-announced/

request for comment: any artists on houndstooth, their in-house label, I should be checking?

they had a sale on houndstooth stuff, and I was looking through and realizing I wasn't too familiar with the majority and started off on a listening binge to see what's up

well lex and a lot of people i know endorse call super (who i am not crazy about but will be giving another shot)

i quite liked the special request 2CD and i've also really enjoyed the marquis hawkes releases

not so into post-dubstep these days but if you are you will probably like the akkord album

finally i have heard a lot of good things about aisha devi but not investigated myself

actually got into akkord via a remix ep a while back

was surprised aisha devi is on houndstooth -- I saw her live last year and it was a++ and after realizing I'd been into her past work under an alias it made sense

Love the Call Super mix (really like his album from a few years ago too but this is very different).

Had not heard the house version of Photek's "T'Raenon" before, it's very pretty. Kind of nerdishly amused by how the track sequencing implies that Photek leads with a breakbeat when in fact it's Bushwacka's (it's almost like a small joke about how much we have forgotten about 90s dance music).

the call super is wonderful, wow

Brad make sure you listen to his (relatively) new track “Fluenka Spoke”.

great track

just announced Fabriclive 100 (the last one in its "current form" according to the PR blurb) : Kode9/Burial.

tracklisting = TBA

I'm intrigued!

whoa

i'm assuming craig richards for fabric 100

would not surprise me if they don't release a tracklisting and just put it out.
and yeah, its a pretty bloody great way to end the physical series.

Burial/Kode9 and Craig Richards would be the most underwhelming closing salvo imaginable but it makes sense.

Suspect they'll continue putting mixes out after this but those CDs must be like dumping money into a landfill at this stage.

Given they only just got round to Sasha I wonder if they've got someone really big lined up for Fabric 100 though.

I wonder how many people subscribe? Brother-n-law subscribed for an age, to the extent that it felt like "a big thing" when he stopped. Like he'd *changed* or something.

I subscribed for a brief period but it was over a decade ago! The advent of downloadable mixes and especially the regular podcast ones really put a dent in the market

we should poll them by their album art groups

or do a listen in consecutive order challenge

that's a challenge i'm not going to take btw, even allowing for breaks that just too much bad drum and bass

fabric vs fabriclive

is there that much of a difference really ?
I only have 19 of them, some fabric, some fabriclive, and never even really given the 'live' part much thought.

generally there's a genre split, although there are definite exceptions

fabric is more techno/house and fabriclive tends to have the drum and bass derived stuff combined with a grab bag of random people mixing

fair enough, ta for the insight.

the division is exactly the same as Fabriclive on Fridays vs Fabric on Saturdays at the club

as an old man who has never been to the place, I guess that's why I have never understood the distinction.

question : is fabriclive 14 by DJ Spinbad the only hip hop edition of the series ?

depends how you define it

oh ok.

*not sure what you mean to be honest*

does logan sama count?

does deadly avenger count?

does aim count?