Nightflight Music

Matagouri gives us a run down on the state of play on some local mixtapes….

Ok so I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve long since given up on trawling the music blogs and the hype-machine for new music. My preferred way to come across new tunes or discovering old gems is listening to mixtapes. In fact, other people’s mixes are almost all I listen to these days… I usually download two or three a day, listen through them in work, and the best one gets a proper listen on my walk home. The internets are awash with quality mixtapes, radio shows and podcasts and anyone with a laptop and an hour to spare can put one together, upload it, and share. So I thought I’d do a round up of some of the quality mixes that you might be missing out on.

Like the rest of you, I remember with fondness the days when you’d buy your favorite DJ’s mix CD and play it to death, and even up to a few years ago, getting a free mix CD from your favorite clubnight was a big deal (Backlash and 110th street made some great ones). But now with file stuffing and uploading sites, mixes can be got with a few clicks and shoved up yer ipod in just a minute. I love it when people take the time to add art and a tracklist in the “lyrics” info on itunes so it comes up on my iphone (I think Jon Averill and Tim Sweeney are the only people who do this, – mix tapers take note!).

For this post, I thought I’d concentrate on stuff coming from ireland. First off, check out Grandwizard Joey Evlis’s latest offering Saving Every Day mix- for my money, Joey is the most versatile and exciting DJ in Dublin. His mixes are always brilliantly put together, well thought out, yet still all over the place musically. This one clocks in at a hefty two hours and goes from dub deep into some drum and bass, with all sorts of other mad shit in between.

If another nice long mix with some chinstrokingly deadly techno is what you’re after, head on over to the Lowerstate Blog and have a listen to Donal Dineen’s recent set from their club – it clocks in at over 3 hours long and although Donal isn’t really one for beatmixing, as we all know, he’s got the best records. Can’t wait to see him at Airbound!

The mix currently getting the most repeat play on my walks home is Louis Scully’s Wouldn’t Wanna Freak On Down mix.
Head over to the excellent Dublin Bus Disco blog– bookmark it, and keep an eye out for Louis down at NightFlight sometime soon.

If you want more gay-ass disco, then you must check out the live recording of Daniel Wang getting a lesson in mixing from Conor L which is up on the Bodytonic site.

On the hippedy hop front, check out the awesome new choicecuts site and download Rizm’s Best foot forward vol.1 – in amongst tonnes of other goodies (the ?uestlove “sample lesson” mix is also killer.

Over on Ronan Fitzgerald’s House is a Feeling blog there’s a special guest mix from none other than Roman Flugel which features some lovely deep house.

Another blog with irish contributors, great writing, and amazing music is the always entertaining infinitestatemachine.com – I’ve really been enjoying Gmos’s “DanceDanceDanceDiscoHouse mix lately – any mix that gets Tata Vega and Sade in amongst Omar-s and Moodyman is always ok with meSo that’s my roundup of irish-related mixes – I’ll be back next week with more from around the world but in the meantime if you’ve any other mixes you’d recommend – please add them in the comments section. Or even better – get inspired and make your own mixtape!

Catch you on down the line…