Dub Rhapsody-DJ Chris Mix

Here's a recording of a DJ set I played some time ago, in which all the tracks are at least somewhat dubby.

DUB RHAPSODY

MELATONIC - Mix by DJChris

The middle portion of this mix is quite high-intensity, and it mellows out for the final quarter... MELATONIC

ISLAND HOPPING - A DJChris Mix

xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>So-titled because of the scattering of ethnic-flavoured pieces throughout,  but it's not as purely ethnochill a mix as the title might suggest, ranging from ambient to moderately full-on.

EXCURSIONS IN AMBIENCE

Here's a mix made some time ago of favourite tracks from the CD series "Excursions In Ambience". It has a distinctly ethnic flavour, but not exclusively...

GYRE & GIMBLE MIX

This is a mix I made of music suitable for all your gyreing and gimbling needs. 

"`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe."

Jabberwocky
-Lewis Carroll-

Planet Love Mix - DJChris

Here's a short (15") DJ mix from some years ago with a bit of a Gaian message amid some trancey old school tracks.

Click on the DivShare logo if you want to download...

HAKUSANRISE

DJ Chris dawn set at Rainbow2000's Hakusan party back in the late 20th century.

I have been told many times that this was one of my more inspiring sets, so I think it's a good thing to offer for Xmas listening. Lots of simultaneous playing of 2 or more tracks... I'd place it in a genre I'd call Energetic Chillout..

DJChris Classical Concert Mix

One of the most interesting DJ gigs I have had was when I was invited to perform with the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert hall in Tokyo. Three DJs were asked to perform live, mixing whatever they chose together with the orchestra. I cannot remember the names of the other two DJs at the moment, but the three classical pieces chosen were a Satie "Gymnopedie", Ravel's "Pavanne Pur Une Enfante Defunte" and, in my case, the prelude to Wagner's opera "Parsifal".  I'll post that track later.

I was asked to do a DJ mix during the intermission,  which lasted for about 50 minutes.  I chose pieces of electronica which I thought might appeal to people who appreciated classical music, namely works of interestingly complex polyphony or harmony.  I also mixed in quite a few samples and extended pieces from the classical repertoire. The resultant mix includes pieces by Gurdjieff, Alquimia, The Irresistible Force, Future Sound of London, Monteverdi, Richard Strauss, Pete Namlook and Beethoven,among others.

Among the more successful blends, in my opinion, were the Monteverdi soprano duet "Venite, venite" over a rolling piece whose name I have forgotten, and the final mix of Namlook's "Silence" with the slow movement of Beethoven's last string quartet.  The Schwarzkopf sample from Strauss' "Morgen" works pretty well too, I think.

See how you like it. I recommend a fairly high volume, as some of the pieces project a vast soundscape.....

A T.S. Eliot Parody

I've been looking for this recording for years, having first heard it as a teenager. Dylan Thomas reads Henry Reed's "Chard Whitlow", a brilliant parody of the T.S. Eliot of "Four Quartets". ..



'Chard Whitlow'

(Mr. Eliot's Sunday Evening Postscript)

As we get older we do not get any younger.
Seasons return, and to-day I am fifty-five,
And this time last year I was fifty-four
And this time next year I shall be sixty-two.
And I cannot say I should like (to speak for myself)
To see my time over again - if you can call it time:
Fidgeting uneasily under a draughty stair,
Or counting sleepless nights in the crowded tube.

There are certain precautions - though none of them very reliable -
Against the blast from bombs and the flying splinter,
But not against the blast from heaven, vento dei venti,
The wind within a wind unable to speak for wind;
And the frigid burnings of purgatory will not be touched
By any emollient.

I think you will find this put,
Better than I could ever hope to express it,
In the words of Kharma: 'It is, we believe,
Idle to hope that the simple stirrup-pump
Will extinguish hell.'

Oh, listeners,
And you especially who have turned off the wireless,
And sit in Stoke or Basingstoke listening appreciatively to
the silence,
(Which is also the silence of hell) pray, not for your skins,
but for your souls.

And pray for me also under the draughty stair.
As we get older we do not get any younger.
And pray for Kharma under the holy mountain.

-- Henry Reed

"...It's often been said that a good parody must first of all be a good poem. ``Idle to hope that the simple stirrup pump will extinguish hell". A lovely line, that. So Eliot: sounds marvellous and profound but what does it actually mean? Indeed Eliot apparently liked this poem. "Most parodies of one's own work strike one as very poor. In fact, one is apt to think one could parody oneself much better. (As a matter of fact, some critics have said that I have done so.) But there is one which deserves the success it has had, Henry Reed's Chard Whitlow'']
`Chard Whitlow' is clearly a reference to the village names in the titles of the poems Eliot was writing at that time. The title is actually the weakest part of this little gem, for English village names are fatally easy to parody; Private Eye have been doing it for years. Sir Herbert Gussett writes from Loose Chippings and from Milton Friedman. I've been guilty of a few myself: Gunghoe is obviously somewhere in the Chilterns and Flimsea in the Fens....but where is Long Natter? One day I am going to write a prolix Trollopean novel set in the Cathedral city of Heominster. (Yes, it does rhyme with `Leominster', of course).
In this connection we should also remember the small North Island town of Waiwhakakiwi, Stephen Leacock's Ontario Lake Owatawetness and Bill Bryson's New England settlement of Squashaninsect. Thank God there are still people around who love language."

http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~tf/poem14.html
http://snipurl.com/t7qc9

PARTITA BRANDY

Here's a single-track mp3 of a compilation CD I made called Partita Brandy, distilled from Glenn Gould's complete recording of Bach's Partitas. It's a selection of the most exciting rhythmic and melodic pieces, totally without baroque cliche, music that in forty years of listening I have never become tired of, and which I have found my friends with trance and ambient tastes also can enjoy. Put it in your Ipod for when your synapses need a sonic smart drug!



(For some reason the player indicates the file is 157 minutes long, but it's actually normal CD length)

DOWNLOAD THE FILE

AYAHUASCA DREAM

Of the various recordings of tribal trance sets I have played, this one most approximates what I would play if I were DJing at one of the eclipse parties. If you didn't attend one, play this nice and loud and imagine.... It begins with a call to the tribes, who gather and dance themselves into a state of full-on trance which climaxes, grooves for a while, floats through space and then returns to the tribal grounds. At least that's what I was imagining.

DJChris @ Golden Week Gathering

Here's a short streaming DJ mix taken from what I played at the EarthlingZ Golden Week Gathering. Coming just after the Indian live performance, it has many ethnic female vocal samples.