commendation for outstanding service to human race: resident advisor

the top dj list is a complete ouroboros, much like a lot of dj lists. there’s no easy solution, but when high profile events feel they have to have top-ranked djs, and then the attendees are the same who vote in polls for top dj, just creates a death spiral. uncreative promoters who have large events and have money but no curation skills aren’t helping

equally i think it's good he became massively popular solely on the basis of djing with barely any production along the way - for a long time he was one of the best selectors and 100 times better than the producer-centric crap that passes for dance music or dj sets on this board.

Not really sure who you mean by that last sentence but while he was an amazing DJ I'm not sure he'd have been able to build his rep in the same way if he wasn't so closely associated with Innervisions. Like he was a fantastic remixer (the Mark E mix in particular I still love), but it feels like he was able to come up at least partly off the back of Ame and Henrik Schwarz's production works, before completely eclipsing them as a DJ.

Dunno what he's playing now but if I had to guess he's moved towards a more Tale of Us-type festival friendly thing?

Can we have a Search & Destroy on the podcasts from this year? I think I listened to every single one up until about April or May and then tailed off. A lot of fairly nondescript grey warehouse techno in there.

still not the same, to me, as the usual route of becoming famous for a few productions and then becoming a hugely popular dj for being okay at it. he was doing it for a long time before the huge popularity too. he dj'ed his way to the top more than many of the rest of these lists.

as i say, don't care for him now but he's done enough good stuff to merit respect.

Yeah fair enough, I just looked at their 2016 list and it's full of those sorts of names, unsurprised they canned the poll tbh. I guess production means a shortcut onto the festival circuit for a lot of these guys and that's how they end up there. The overlap between that poll and the group of DJs who seem to be on every other European festival bill is massive as well.

Can we have a Search & Destroy on the podcasts from this year?

I've not really connected with any of the podcasts in a long while, even the ones from DJ's I like (Saoirse, Del Garda). Whenever it does pop up that there's a new podcast it always seems to be someone called Blarg or Morlock playing DVS1 records. This is what happens when you let people have black and white photos for their profile

thank u saer for giving me some possible dj aliases if I ever get a gig

thank u saer for giving me some possible dj aliases if I ever get a gig

― mh, Saturday, 25 November 2017 15:55

Have a scan at the Brighton teamsheet today if you need any more

Dunk, Gross, Proepper, Knockaert and Bong

I don't get into many of the podcasts either, the only ones I remember from this year are Egyptrixx and M.E.S.H. (both great). I really like their features and interviews though.

Some of the Exchange podcasts are worthwhile too.

I listened to a bit of the one with Janina, but it as people talking and I started to feel tense so I turned it off again

I don't think this is an issue of RA's demographics so much as the demographics of readers of music sites in general. almost all readers' polls end up like this

there's definitely something self-selecting about the people who love to rank things as opposed to people who just like to share impressions and talk about stuff they like

No headphone today but I see Etienne has done number 602. I liked his record on Undersound last year so hopefully this has some cheeky miscreants downing pints in deckchairs or failing that some records with moody dockers with dangerous dogs is also acceptable as long as they have a heart of gold and hats askew

https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=610

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DZcZwgsWsAAXb6b.jpg:large

Tomorrows is very good - especially the second half, hats off!

yes mate

https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=619

wasn't sure what thread to put this in but the new mix from TRAXX is essential

https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=627&comments=1

would you say it's an... essential mix?

yes i would

I'd second that

ok I'm 10 min in and it's just been lots of chopped up samples that feel kinda clunky, is it like this for 2 whole hours?

you kids and your goddamn seamless mixes

nvm it got good

the opening track !
one of the most extreme on-u sound productions.
I have actually blown speakers with that track.

https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=632

loving this from Raphael Top-Secret: nothing particularly innovative and for a "digger" I was familiar with more of the songs/artists than I would have expected, but it's a really nice vibe

Yup enjoying this. Want to like a lot of the RA poddies but most too clubby for an old bastard like me.

New John Gomez one feels akin to Raphael Top Secret in many ways - a "digger" putting something sunkissed together - but its got a much more obscure vibe and feels very global in its reach

LIL

MOFO

BUSINESS

^^^ this isn't a style I normally listen to but sweet jesus that mix is amazing

OBJEKT https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=650

Can you tell us about the idea behind the mix?

In my sets over the past year or two I've grown increasingly comfortable going into extended wormholes where I'll spend 30-40 minutes layering all kinds of broken, trippy, floaty, confounding, sometimes polyrhythmic tracks on top of one another—tracks that still have a danceable pulse but where the rhythms shift focus, and you sometimes you can't even tell where the "1" is at all.

If I follow this thread to its most self-indulgent extremity I end up in my "no-kick rollers" folder, which contains what it says on the tin—propulsive club tracks with no kick drum—and I've had a lot of fun recently, when faced with an adventurous enough crowd, delving into this folder and trying to keep people dancing for as long as possible without playing any tracks with kick drums.

It's not a new concept—techno producers have been making arpeggio tracks for decades and Barker made a particularly stunning EP earlier this year specifically consisting of tracks like this. But I've been collecting material in this vein for a few years now and have always wanted to make a full-length mix of it—and have only recently felt I might actually have enough tracks to make it work. Stringing tracks like this together in a musically coherent way is quite challenging, since without the kick drums you're often entirely reliant on melodic elements to keep the momentum going, which poses difficulties not just in maintaining a steady energy level but also making sure you can avoid horrendous key clashes and so on. It also really helps if you can mix tracks in on 3+ turntables to allow you to fill in the gaps left by the lack of kicks. So it took quite a lot of planning and quite a few takes to get it right.

The result is, IMO, probably not something you'd wanna stick on over dinner—it's a more challenging listen and less obviously "party" than other mixes I've done, and it gets quite sparse at some points and intense at others. But it's definitely unlike any mix I've done before and I'm really happy with it as a piece of music and a proof of concept.

Love that mix

Oh wow, I've kind of stopped checking for these but Objekt is phenomenal.

It's a cracker, looking forward to the new album too

been listening to that one today, some fine ear candy!

https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/3386

so, they're killing the comment section. can't blame them, because to effectively have comments on a site you need: a.) a defined policy on what's allowed/disallowed and b.) consistent enforcement, meaning someone has to keep an eye on things and act in a way that's subject to review

(b) is really difficult, especially if you're lacking the resources for community management (or it's not your primary goal, since you're publishing reviews/editorial). but I cynically think that (a) comes into play because while they're 100% in the right to advance views from diverse voices and argue for inclusion, a lot of discussion that was well-meaning got nuked because no one has time to sort through all that nonsense

99% of comments on any website are trash and I think part of the reason Pitchfork has continued to assert dominance in the online music review world is that it has never allowed comments. The RA comments were always particularly dispiriting, "keep identity politics out of dance music it has no place", "actually Ten Walls should be allowed to express an opinion", "who cares if Nina Kraviz can't DJ she is hot"

yup

there were some good ones here and there, but the moderation was so scattershot that a couple stray misogynist comments meant the comments were turned off for the thread in the last few months

imo they need to whack the fb comments on their posts too lol

my instinctive reaction to that link was "hoo boy can't wait to see the comments on this one!"

then i scrolled down and there was no comments

:-(

sad lol

I don't really use the RA site other than for the occasional podcast, but I don't remember ever noticing comments before!

seems to me a convo about what this means abt their readership might be in order

or theyll find their wellbeing threatened by the techno anthony fantano or whatever

Ive read and enjoyed the comments on RA for the reviews of almost every album I've loved in the past few years, will miss them

Fact did the same on their YouTube channel a while back - for a similar reason. They’d just attract dozens and dozens of misogynistic comments about them covering too many women.

Dan what is it you enjoyed about the commments? I can't ever really remember seeing anything particuarly interesting happening outside of the misogyny, a lot of it in my experience was just "yeah nice one" "top tune this" "love the b-side" "too low a score" generic fan praise

comments sections in general are thoroughly obsolete, back in the '90s everybody got all excited about the possibilities of the *world wide web* and building *community* and it was fairly easy to implement and it took people a couple decades to realize that creating a community was a lot of work that required an entirely different skillset from creating content, and that if you don't do that work any "community" you create is likely just going to be a, 2016 throwback incoming, dumpster fire.

olof dreijer podcast mix an unexpected treat, complete change of character

Just listened to that, really fun.

Hahahahaha I was NOT prepared for the Ariana remix turning up midway through the Olof mix.

i don't know, i find the site quite boring now without comments

dtiff mix p good