On Monday, we hipped you to the first part of our 40 Essential Detroit Techno and House Tracks feature. Well, today we’ve got Part 2 ready for you, and it’s just as packed full of goodness. Classics from Inner City, Plus 8, Underground Resistance, and more mix with more recent joints from Kyle Hall, Andres, and Omar S. Download all the tunes in these two separate charts, and see you next week at Movement.
With the Movement Festival right around the corner—a homecoming for Detroit electronic music if there ever was one—now seems as good a time as any to have a peek through the annals of Motown’s techno and house legacy. Of course, it’s impossible to assemble a definitive list of the top 40 Detroit tracks of all time, so we took a different tack: here’s what we consider essential, all nicely packaged together as downloadable charts or individual tracks.
If you read our feature this morning about dance-music legend Carl Cox, you can probably imagine that the producer, DJ, and remixer has a discography a mile long. With that in mind, we’d like to turn you on to five essential cuts from that long list of accomplishments.
The renowned Cologne techno label Kompakt celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. While Kompakt itself wasn’t established until 1998, its roots were planted in ’93 with the opening of the record store Delirium, which eventually grew into Kompakt as we know it now. Whether it was techno, ambient, house, or electronic pop, founders Wolfgang Voigt, Reinhard Voigt, Jörg Burger, Jürgen Paape, and later Michael Mayer, chose to release it all under the Kompakt name, and thus began their dominance in each of those genres.
One of the most regarded DJs in drum & bass hails from Sao Paulo, Brazil, which may be a remote location compared to the genre’s capital, but you’d be hard-pressed to find any fan of D&B who is unaware of DJ Marky’s legendary status. Born Marco Antonio Silva, he inaugurated his own Innerground label with “Rotation” in 2003, but his 2012 releases like “Mystic Sunset” and “Love Affair” still score high with us—and of course D&B fans—so speaking with Marky and tapping into his years of knowledge is an absolute honor. Here he gives us a look at his essential tracks.
We’re pretty darned excited to announce that as of today, Beatport proudly houses the back catalog of LTJ Bukem’s classic D&B/jungle label Goodlooking Records. But with a collection of tracks as sprawling as it is prestigious, where does one start? Well, we’ve taken some of the guesswork out by tapping a few of dance music’s most established names to weigh in on their favorites. Reid Speed, Optiv, Roska, House of Black Lanterns (aka Dylan Richards, Zilla), and more have spent a lifetime DJing these tracks, so read on to hear what they’ve got to say about the label and its esteemed CEO, Mr. LTJ Bukem (aka Danny Williamson).
Folks, there’s been a lot of chatter about this Friday’s Mayan predictions. Whatever those prophecies may hold, we know one thing—we might as well go out with a party, right? So, in that spirit, we asked a bunch of DJs to tell us what they’d play for their last song on earth. Here’s what they came up with.
You could say that the path for Sebastian Furrer and Alexander Björklund was set once they discovered the sound and scale of main room house. You could also say that it’s in their musical DNA, as their second wave success follows their countrymen Swedish House Mafia and Avicii.
The duo’s project, CAZZETTE, formed officially just one year ago, but their associations are ripped straight from the marquee – their first official release was a remix of Avicii’s “Sweet Dreams”, followed by hyped reworks of SHM and Adele. Since then, when they haven’t been on the road sporting giant cassette tape masks with LED tickers (in tribute to their heroes Daft Punk), they’ve been busy in the studio: their debut DJ mix Strictly CAZZETTE was released this week by Strictly Rhythm, and their studio album Eject pt. I is in the pipeline for November.
Both Avicii and Daft Punk figure in Cazette’s Cratedigger Essentials, which also features Skrillex, Kaskade and Axwell & Dirty South teaming up for a remix.
To coincide with with his eagerly awaited Beatport Live webcast today from our Berlin office, the techno legend and absolute gent that is Technasia has tipped us to some of the great tracks that he always keeps at the ready for today’s installment of Cratedigger Essentials. Of course, we’re stoked that he’s slotted us in to his globetrotting DJ schedule, so make sure to tune in later today at 6 PM CET/10 AM MDT to catch all the magic as it happens. Check out his record crate gems after the jump.
It’s been a while since the UK producer Fantastic Mr. Fox had a proper release, and the string of EPs that marked his early output in 2009 and 2010 (especially the stellar Evelyn EP) left us wanting more of his bluesy chords and slippery bass music productions. Fortunately, the young beatsmith has re-emerged with a brand-new record, the San’en EP, which finds Fantastic Mr. Fox (aided by vocal contributor and Black Acre label-mate Alby Daniels) crafting even denser productions along the lines of a more tribal James Blake or a slightly rougher-around-the-edges SBTRKT.
Clearly, Fantastic Mr. Fox is someone who is always ahead of the curve, which is why we thought he’d be just the right guy to fill us in on what unexpected treats lie deep in his arsenal for the latest edition of Cratedigger Essentials.
