My Brain Hurts!

Last month I courageously promised to build a better radio setup for this months show. Although at some point it seemed nearly impossible to achieve what I had in mind, I managed to get everything set up correctly just about an hour before the beginning of the show. While trying to figure the how to route the cables and which laptop to use for which task, I realised that maybe the setup is not the only thing that was in need of some tuning up. So during the last month I have been testing different things while trying to figure out what would make the show better for all the listeners (and more interesting for myself also). Here’s what I ended up with:

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Propper DNB action taking place this weekend in Tampere! The 4th Litku event will be taking place on Friday the 23rd at Volume. But before that an epic battle of DJs, where you get to decide the winner! You can find more info and the poll from the warmup radio Facebook event.

You know who to vote for, right?

The common curse when making DJ sets is that when creating one, where the tracks complement each other and work well together, you are never quite able to fit all the tracks you would like to into just one set. I encountered this problem again with my latest mix. I realized that because planning and creating sets is a very time consuming task, I would not be able to promote the tracks, I had to leave out from the set, in the near future.  Thus I decided to try something a bit different.

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I originally planned to post this on Monday so that I could continue our great tradition of Monday Mixes (most of which have been posted to the blog on weekdays other than Monday). Anyway, as usual, my timing was a bit shite because I tried to figure out a nice way to introduce the set. So now after two days, I’ve finally given up with that and decided to just upload the set anyway.

The new set entitled “Hiding Place” is quite different from my recent creations. As life has been a bit hectic lately, I opted out from trying to create a full throttle party mix and filled the tracklist instead with deeper and more relaxed selection. These kinds of sounds have really inspired me lately so I wanted to do share this feeling and maybe also do my small part in promoting this great style of dnb.

I also used a fair amount of time revising my mixing technique to fit better the moods of the tracks. The blends needed to be smooth and subtle, but at the same time they should still be interesting enough in order to prevent the set from becoming a numbing blob of sounds. I put a couple of harsher transitions in to the mix also to create some additional tension.

I really hope this set will help you, as it has helped me, to shrug some of that stress off your shoulders.

Click here to download elysion – Hiding Place

I have been planning on recording a new set for quite some time now. I’ve gone through the normal preparation procedures of picking tracks and trying to find ones that fit well together. Basically what I am doing is trying to find a way to make the set sound the way I like sets to sound. A good set however is not made by the DJ for himself but for all the people he plans to introduce the set to. This got me thinking.

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Suddenly had an urge to collect some dust out from the grooves of my vinyls in the collection. As I flipped through the records, I noticed the Nu Skool Breaks section there and had to take a few of those 12″‘s out for a spin on the platter. Here are a couple of tracks that I found to caress my eardrums (and probably also those of my neighbors):

Breakfastaz – Crazy (Apologies for the low quality :/)

Feels a bit stupid pasting URLs here instead of just embedding YouTube videos, but seems like those tracks are sadly starting to be forgotten by the Great Internetz.

These and many other NSB tracks bring really nice memories back, because that was basically the stuff that got me into DJing in the first place. One nice thing about this music is also that it is really entertaining for the DJ as well, because you can do all kinds of neat crossfader, eq, etc. tricks when spinning these. Remember what blast it was to get drunk with my mate Joose aka Roister-5 aka Johnnie No-Skool on some random evening during the week to just kick back, relax and give the mixer knobs a good beating while blending these tracks.

Now, I hate to be the guy that is grieving about things of past, but I can’t help feeling a bit sad that this wonderful genre has more or less died out. Luckily loads of new genres and styles have emerged since so I can find my comfort in them. Would be nice though if someone would make a new track following the sounds of the great breaks artists such as The Breakfastaz, Ed209, Baobinga, Distortionz, etc. Anyone up for the challenge?

Been a too long time (again) since last writing something in here. But have been busy, yada yada etc. etc.

Found something so neat that could not resist on writing something to our humble blog. And as it is me (elysion) writing this, you probably can guess what I’m going to be all about – pure and solid, quality drum & bass!

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Next Friday it is once again time to dig those dancing shoes from the closet, blow the dust off them and head down to Volume, Tampere as the July edition of the legendary Beatformers club goes off. The lineup will be nothing less than smashing as Muffler will be making the place shake with his dubstep and dnb selection. Opening the night will be the young talents Gradon and Stuke and as you probably can guess from the context, later on some Concussion madness provided by yours truly – elysion.

To leave no doubt about the party being totally smashing, we are giving a small preview of what to expect of it tonight at the Concussion show, as Gradon and Janky will be joining me at the studio. Remember to tune in at 5PM GMT (7 o’clock Finnish time) to http://www.nubreak.com/hifi.m3u! (Video stream will probably be available also, but don’t remember the url and can’t be certain that I get it to work. Check out Concussion’s wall @ Facebook for more info on that.)

The second Litku party will be taking place at Volume, Tampere in less than a week. As we had such a great time with the guys last time entertaining the global audiences in the Concussion Show, I decided to invite the guys to join me again for next Mondays show! There have been quite a lot of brilliant new liquid dnb releases lately, so we will surely not run out of quality tracks to play to all you.