Holiday listening

While I've been sunning myself over the last two weeks (hopefully to the envy of everyone) I've had the chance to catch up and listen to some of the sets and podcasts I've downloaded recently. I don't know about anyone else, but this doesn't happen very often; I find that with the huge amount of music available at your fingertips, music has become a much more disposable commodity than ever before. When I bought more vinyl and CD's, I would listen to mixes and tracks endlessly until I knew them inside out- I couldn't afford that much music, so made do with what I had. The proliferation of free (but legal) downloading has both expanded the range of what I listen to and meant i can hear more, but it's very rare that I listen to a set more than a few times before moving on. Being stranded with only a limited collection on the old Ipod, some sets I previously passed by have grown on me and become some of my favourites of the year. Here's a selection of those I've been enjoying most:

CLR Podcast

CLR is a label that I've found produces a rather too hard techno sound for me to listen to much of. I used to buy the odd release on vinyl in the early 00's, but CLR has largely passed me by since. However, the launch of the CLR podcast has released some really good techno mixes from the likes of Adam Beyer, Collabs, D Nox, Tommy Four Seven and Perc. The Collabs and Perc sets are particular favourites. I've just noticed there's a new one from Ben Klock there too... keep 'em coming!

Italian Techno

I've really come to like the techno sound coming from Italy at the moment, and they feel particularly suited to the summer, with a warm ambiance dominating. I've been enjoying the few sets I've got so much that I was going to post a feature on it when I returned, but I see mnml ssgs have beaten me to it! So without being too repetitive, I'll just post a couple of sets I've been listening to:

Electronique.it have a regular podcast which has had some decent mixes, but standout 'casts have come from Giorgio Gigli (possibly mixing the next mnml ssgs cast?) who provides a slowly building mix from Heneke ambiance to Craig/Funktionen style techno, and Natural Electronic System who recently mixed for ssgs. There's also a good Dozzy mix on there too and one from Manuel Tur.

I recently found a mix by Dino Sabotini that I enjoyed- Dino is one half of Modern Heads with Gianluca Meloni, who I found out about through their System Overload release on Radiance records and the No More EP on Prologue. Let me know what you think.

There's some great Dozzy and Nuel sets on the mnml ssgs, but also Phrench Fries have a live set by the duo over at their blog that is well worth a listen. Again, it's deep and atmospheric, the sound the Italians do best- also worth checking is the Dozzy Glade podcast you can find a link to here.

Colony

Finally, I've been listening a lot to the promo mixes from Colony, a London based night playing techno, dubstep, D&B and IDM. 006 by CB is a really smooth mix of dubstep/techno crossover material and is my particular favourite, but all the mixes are really well put together and worthy of a listen. I'm looking forward to getting to one of these parties soon, they sound like fun if these mixes are anything to go by.