Tracks:

1. Calling Earth – Yves Deruyter
2. Dont Stop – Mark NRG
3. Schoneberg (TDV mix) – Marmion
4. Tragic – BK
5. NRG (unreleased mix) – Jon Doe
6. Feel It – Eufex
7. Biofilter – OD404
8. (instru)mental – Nick Sentience & Phil Reynolds
9. Warehouse – Jon Doe
10. Khemikal Imbalance – BK & Andy Farley
11. The Warning – Ben Stevens
12. We Can Fly – Omega 3

1. Amphetamine – Trope
2. The Tradesman - Equinox
3. The Great Gatsby (OD404 mix) – Captain Tinrib
4. Elvis – Captain Tinrib & RR Fierce
5. Mackerel – Chris C & M Zone
6. Bonzai Channel One – Thunderball
7. Technofobia – Bass Reaction
8. Hardcore DJ – Dyewitness
9. Masterplan (live version)- Dyewitness
10. Smoke This MF – Scott Brown meets DJ Paul
11. Jiieehaa – Diss Reaction
12. As Cold As Ice – Stingray & Sonicdriver
13. Stairway To Brooklyn – Eclipse
14. Varispeed – Edge 11
15. All Of Us Are One People – DJ Paul & Lenny Dee

Right click here and ‘Save as’ to download This is Hard Hat Vol.1

Right click image or here and ‘save as’ to download ‘On The Edge’

Ever been to a hardhouse night, arrived at 11.30pm and been greeted by 160bpm hoover monsters, or nonsense hardstyle and thought ‘this is far too hard / fast for this time’? I have – as a DJ you get a real sinking feeling when you are due to be playing at 1am, you arrive at 12 to see an empty dancefloor, a busy bar and the DJ rinsing out their hardest tunes – you know that your first 30-45 minutes will be spent trying to repair the damage done and get the dancefloor grooving. The DJ that is on first has a very important role to play in the overall night – the warmup.

For me, the clue is in the name ‘warm’ing up. Nightclubs are not a sprint, they’re a marathon of around minimum 4 hours duration, sometimes 10 or 12 hours. Now I know that there is a hardcore of people who only want the hardest and fastest of music in the club, but if you want to take everyone with you then I believe you need to tease and cajole people away from the bar and on to the dancefloor. Most people who are arriving will have been in a bar or two in town, where the DJs will almost certainly have been playing some kind of house music – there’s not many bars that thrash out hardhouse at 9pm – and for everyone but the hardcore suddenly finding yourself assaulted by machine-gun beats and harsh synths can be fairly disorienting. It’s the job of the warmup DJ to provide a musical path that everyone can follow, which ultimately leads to the hard stuff but doesn’t scare anyone off along the way!

I used to enjoy playing warmup sets during the hardhouse heyday – it gave me a chance to play many different styles within a short space of time, throwing in some funky stuff, a bit of camp hardbag, a bit of bounce and one or two tracks that hinted at the craziness to come later, but not quite being ‘there’ – just on the edge. Hence the title of this mix, which is 60 minutes that goes from the camp to the bouncy via the chuggy and dark. There’s no big ‘payoff’ as with most of my hard mixes, but I think that even non hardhouse heads could get into it. Let me know what you think.

Right click here and ‘save as’ to download ‘On The Edge’

Tracks:

1. Raindrops – Mario Scalambrin feat. Satori
2. You Should Be Dancin’ (Karim Remix) – Bee Gees
3. Distant Stab – The Freak and Mac Zimms
4. Show Me Love (ShutYourFaceDub) – The Fruitloop
5. Have A Good Time – The Alien Thing
6. Let The Rhythm Flow (Club Mix) – Dancing Divaz
7. Rock Your Enemies (Sister Suck Remix) – Cadenza
8. Funky Monkey – Mark Kavanagh
9. Cagey Groove  - The KGB
10. House Music (In My Brain) – Mark NRG
11. Show Me Love – The Fruitloop
12. Coca & Havana – Gigi D’Agostino
13. Turn That Fucking Music Up  - The Knuckleheads
14. God The Devil (Brain Bashers Remix) – BK

Right click here and ‘save as’ to download ‘On The Edge’

Right click image or here to download ‘The End of The Beginning’

Nostalgia’s a wonderful thing.

Back when I started  learning to mix on my borrowed decks n’ mixer, the first music I bought and played (well tried to play) was something that was known then as trancecore. It has since been renamed as Freeform, but I don’t hold truck with these newfangled ways – it was trancecore when I bought it, so trancecore it will always be!

This music was an offshoot of UK hardcore, and bridged the gap between gabba and happy hardcore, leaving out the total aggression of the former and toning down the total cheese of the latter but keeping the high BPM count – this isn’t chill-out music. I think I only really bought this style for a few months, but as with all first loves, it has a big place in my DJing heart.

As I moved on to other styles before I got any good at mixing I never got round to recording a set with these tracks, so it seemed like a good idea to do it now – the inspiration for this has come from various places, one of them from my friend Pearsall, who regularly posts different styles of mixes over on his blog (I don’t know where he gets the time from though!)

I have more or less included every (decent) trancecore track I own in this mix, so it’ll probably be the only one I ever make – I really had fun putting it together, hope you enjoy listening to it.

Trancecore will never die (in my heart anyway)

Right click here to download ‘The End of The Beginning’

Tracks:

1. E=XY2 – Helix + DJ Fury
2. Deep In Thought – Kenny Sharp
3. Anticlockwise – DJ Energy
4. Testament – Helix
5. Cuba – Cortex
6. Tekno Creche – Ramos & UFO
7. Deep Incision – Helix
8. Inexternal – Helix
9. Hyperhydrosis – D Zyne + DJ Fury
10. Tripswitch – Tic Tac
11. Future Dimensions II – DJ Energy
12. Awakenings – DSU
13. Devastator – Eclipse
14. Stairway To Brooklyn – Eclipse
15. Warped Reality – DJ Energy
16. Distant Minds – DJ Energy
17. Nothing More – Marc Smith

Right click here to download ‘The End of The Beginning’

1. Mauro Picotto—Lizard (Megavoices mix)
2. Pranksterz—Jah Lion
3. Rubec & Dan Basely—Closer
4. The Chunk Brothers—It’s Time
5. The Fast & The Furious—Thosak
6. The Chunk Brothers—Bring On The Mayhem
7. Nick Sentience & Tim Healy—Feel Surreal
8. DJ Misjah & DJ Tim—Access (OD404 Mix)—
9. Astra—I Need It (BK and dBm Into Orbit mix)
10. Eufex & Jay B—Hypnotica
11. Jay B—Rock It
12. Eufex—Feel It
13. Defective Audio—Champion Style
14. Equinox—Immure
15. Kernzy & Klemenza—Eardrums Pop
16. Little Jon & Tim Priestly—Rock The Beat
17. Chris C & The Doctor—Naked
18. James Nardi & Julian Dwyer—Mad Dogs (Ben Stevens remix)
19. Matt Rains—The Claw
20. RR Fierce & DMF—Rock Da Spot
21. Andy K & Lee Mills—In My House
22. Phil Cogan—Alley Cat
23. Jon Doe—Here Comes That Sound

Right Click image or here and ‘Save As’ to download Rallying Call

‘Aye, it might be a bit similar for a wee bit, but it’s seamless and if you were in a club you would get well lost in it before the sprint to the finish’.

Right Click here and ‘Save As’ to download Rallying Call

Right Click image or here and choose ‘Save As’ to download AtmosFerric

This 75 minute mix reflects a further (r)evolution in my  techno style – I’m not too sure how to describe it really, other than it has elements of my earlier demos Room to Breathe, Shifting Perspective and the overall intensity ‘arc’ of Weeping Angels. There’s a lot of big kicks and shelves of bass with long flowing mixes so that the transitions are very easy on the ear. I think of this as ‘heads down’ techno, and its the kind of music that gets my feet stomping and my fists pumping but still has a lot of space between the sounds - this is a lot different from the music I played a few years ago but I haven’t totally lost my hardcore!

I hope you enjoy it – right click here and choose ‘Save As’ to download AtmosFerric

Tracks

1. Freakshow (Format B Remix) – Channel X
2. Michigan Lake – Jonas Kopp
3. Sardinian Clan – Alessio Mereu
4. Mancing Dachine – Scalameriya
5. Etecite (Heib’s Truth Facing Fight For Love Remix) – Sackrai
6. Playing with Fire – Alessio Mereu
7. Innocuous Clouds – Technasia
8. Pelvic Thrust – Channel X
9. Dark Church – Gaiser
10. The Worker – Azari & III
11. Jail Signal – Marco Bailey
12. Razkaz – Marcel Fengler
13. Mind – Xhin
14. Azzekkatek – Flavio Diaz
15. Hydrant – Virgil Enzinger
16. Tethys – A.Paul
17. Thwack – Marcel Fengler
18. Mono Tactics – Axel Sohns

right click here and choose ‘Save As’ to download AtmosFerric

Right click image or here and choose ‘Save As’ to download

I love a lot of things about the 80s. I love the fact that all my teen years were spent in that decade – I had a back perm, a Raleigh Super Burner, Sta-Prest trousers, poser belts and the Atari 2600 (Pacman ON YOUR TELLY!). In 1983 Aberdeen won the European Cup-Winners Cup in  Gothenburg (Here we go!). The Beastie Boys had their first UK tour in 1987 which had the tabloids in a frenzy and 17 year old boys like me wearing VW badges and drinking budweiser. It’s no wonder that I look back on the music that was made in those years with a great deal of warm nostalgia – I guess that’s why I now have this alter-ego of Span Decks!

When I first started thinking about djing 80s music, I decided quite early on that anything I did for recordings I should be able to reproduce live, in a club, without too much pre-planning, the same as I do with techno, electro and hardhouse. This I thought of as the Span Decks manifesto, so when it came to my first demo, it had to be named the same. This mix can be thought of as a manifesto of sorts in itself – it’s unthemed (other than by decade) so takes in a bit of funk, rock, electronica and pop. It was mixed in one take using Serato Scratch live with no autosynching and no post-recording edits. There are some loops in there to help make the transitions easier on the ear though – no point having a digital djing setup without using it’s features!

I hope you enjoy this little trip down my memory lane.

Right click here and choose ‘Save As’ to download ‘Manifesto’

Right click image or here and ‘save as’ to download

Here’s another mix from the recent past – this one was recorded in December 2008, when I was really just starting to find my feet with a slower, more considered style of techno. I had begun to tire of the very ‘samey’ sounds and energy in the ‘nu’ techno scene, and had been, over the previous year, discovering that I enjoyed listening to techno that had less going on, more space between the sounds and tracks given time within the mix to progress and get inside your head.

I guess you could call it minimal, certainly for the first half, but I reckon it’s just techno!

Right click here and ‘save as’ to download ‘Room to Breathe’

Tracks:

1. Coheed – Nathan Fake
2. Buenos Aires – Igor S Milton
3. Shibuya (Rocha Lewinger remix) – Anderson Noise
4. Pandemonium – A.D.M
5. Hyperbolic – efflle and Jitzu
6. Static (Christopher Manik remix) – Topher Jones
7. Burlington – Bradler Dualton
8. Eclipse (Locodice remix) – Oner Ozer
9. Lost Memory – Oxia
10. Runaway – Ron Flatter
11. Dirty Game – Sinisa Tamamovic
12. Keep It Going (Microdinamic remix) – Igor S feat Lady Brian
13. Pan Pan – Koen Groeneveld
14. Shady Rider – Sinisa Tamamovic

Right click here and ‘save as’ to download ‘Room to Breathe’

Right click image or here and choose ‘save as’ to download

While sorting out my record collection I was reminded of the time when vinyl was worth something, and in some cases worth quite a lot. I decided to make a mix of tracks that either cost me a lot more than average to buy, were regularly traded for high prices or were considered rare before the advent of legal and illegal digital downloads. As it turns out most of them were hard as nails!

The result is M.D.M. (Million Dollar Mix) – 73 minutes, 320Kbps MP3 file

I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I did making it – the (hazy) memories came flooding back!

Right click here and choose ‘save as’ to download ‘MDM’

Tracks:

1. D – D2A – D
2. The Project – Meltdown (OD404 Mix) – Chug n Bump
3. Paul King – Odyssey Pt2 – Full On
4. Keiser Sose – Somnium – White
5. RR Fierce – Panik – Fierce Technik
6. Code 21 – Wanna Play House (OD404 Remix) – DP
7. E-Trax – Let’s Rock (Karim Mix) – White
8. Lab 4 – Reformation 2 (OD404 Mix) – Alien Trax
9. Karim – Taliban – White
10. Paul Glazby – Kick It – Vicious Circle
11. Karim – Mass Hysteria – Alien Trax
12. RR Fierce & DMF – Rock Da Spot – Recharge
13. Paul Glazby – Hostile (Nick Sentience Remix) – Vicious Circle
14. Tony De Vit – I Don’t Care ( Karim Mix) – White
15. Karim – Target Locked – White
16. Lab 4 – Reformation – Elementary

Right click here and choose ‘save as’ to download ‘MDM’