Sunday 16 June 2013

GAIA LIVE MIXES. BIG CHILL - PART 3

There's not so much I can tell about this particular track, besides that it was in the beginning of the beautiful hip-hop-inspired segment of the mix, full of significant tunes.

Sunday 9 June 2013

GAIA LIVE MIXES. BIG CHILL - PART 2

Following the incredible remix by 4hero, there was this strange tune: a weird breed of jazz with almost arrhythmic crawling drums and deep slow eerie atmosphere and the following exploding brass part. By that moment I was already familiar with the name J. Swinscoe from the Ninja Tune's "FunKungFusion" compilation, but I didn't connect yet between those two pieces. The connection appeared only a couple years later, when I finally heard the entire album, and this long piece in its entire 13-odd-minute-long beauty.
This music was perfect for the empty late night streets of any city that I've seen so far - Jerusalem, Minsk, Saint-Petersburg, Berlin... It was that perfect reflection of a mood of someone walking through the sleeping neighbourhood...

Sunday 2 June 2013

GAIA LIVE MIXES. BIG CHILL - PART 1

After an unplanned week-long break (just too much work going till late every time), I'm back here with the new promised post. Well, series of posts - the third and the longest of the three.

I never knew, who actually did the third mix that I recorded from the Gaia Live stream. On the cassette I wrote simply "Big Chill", but I had no idea yet of what this title actually means. This was probably the best mix of all things downtempo/leftfield/soulful electronica I ever heard, with so many classic tracks (which I found out later) mixed up in a 1.5-hour journey.

One of the first tunes in this mix was this one. I haven't heard the 4hero's "Two Pages" yet and had no idea what revolution in the Drum'n'Bass sound it actually was. It will take me another 4 years to find out, that this was actually their remix. It also took 2 more years until I actually saw "Cowboy Bebop" series. But back then, in the summer of 1999, this was a revelation to me on how live and organic Drum'n'Bass could sound - even more than Adam F or Roni Size.