07 is sleeping 08 is burning!

(burning copies of the mix, naturally.)

picking up where we left off: dancing the night away to the toasts and jams of 2007.

oh-eight's just a baby... i wanna make it stay up all night!
Title: [...] New Years Dance Mix 2007 [....oh wait...]
Format: continuous DJ mix, 74 minutes. currently available on mp3 or CD-R
Date: 28 December 2007

my first attempt at making a mix using traktor, specifically using the "native mix recording" process - an almost entirely foreign working method to me - after a week or so of trying to figure out how or whether it was even going to be possible. i made almost the whole thing (at least 80% of it) on the 27th and 28th (i stayed up all night finishing it, and ended up not sleeping for over 40 hours) progressing very slowly as the program kept crashing and i gradually learned how to make it crash somewhat left.

turned out pretty good i think. it's remarkably similar to ¡OhSix! in overall shape and flow (and in many specific moments too) - unintentionally but largely just an artifact of my working process, which basically consists of making a big list of songs and sequencing them in order of ascending BPM. this time i didn't loop around from the top of the tempo range (160~180) to the bottom (80~90) [as i did towards the end of last years mix, and exactly in the middle of SupaStarDeeJays], i just let it get faster and increasingly unhinged towards the end to the point that it's almost (deliberately) comical. (and somehow we managed to keep dancing through the whole thing.)

in some ways it's not as complex and nuanced as last year's was (i made it much more quickly and with a less precise tool that allowed less flexibility with editing), but on the whole i think it actually came out better - smoother, more consistently danceable, less fussy - though it took me a couple of listens through to accept that.

anyhoo, i hope you dig. here's whatcha get [numbers correspond to the break points on the CD version]:

[1]
it's Ross of Love bitch !!

[standard obligatory wtf pile-on intro, featuring, as it happens, the two songs of year, as well as my two favorite songs of the year. also jojo/toto's "anything," which wasn't anything in particular of the year, but fit well with the journey and the groove and kicks off an overt sample-friendly meme that continues throughout. and also "house of cards," which i didn't actually pick for its lyrics, but its infamous opening line turned out to be almost identical to that of what i think is the actual opening song of the mix;]

Y cassie: "is it you?"
didn't know where to start, but i'm glad i landed on this. it has become very possibly my favorite single of the last few months, or else my first favorite single of '08, depending on what counts. nice to hear some guitars in r&b that actually growl and snarl and rawk, as opposed to the kinda turgid ones in "party like a rock star" and r. kelly's "rock star." relistened to cassie recently (my #15 album of last year) and it is truly wonderful - getting super-psyched for connecticut fever or whatever her next album's gonna be called.

fantasia: "hood boy"
amerie: "gotta work"
the fantasia technically came out in '06 (though it's the first song i remember hearing on the radio all the time in january '07), and who knows how to reckon where amerie falls anymore (what a fucky and a wtf her recent career handling has been), but these are two fantastic songs that don't deserve to fall through the cracks (yknow, the cracks between the years that are full of songs.) both proudly harness their '60s soul sample chassis (one motown, one stax) - '60s soul sounded bigger in '07 than it has in almost thirty years, i'd wager - to 2007 horsepower rhythm engines, rev up their best diva-style vocal passion, and leave us to wallow in their glorious dust. (um, how's that for an inane metaphor?)

amy winehouse: "you know that i'm no good" it didn't sound like a single to me the first fifty times i heard it, and i still maintain that it doesn't actually have a hook, but i heard enough people talking about "that tanqueray song" this year for it to worm its way into my head too. anyway, i'd already used "tears dry" (on my folks' mix) and "rehab" (on last year's model), and like it or not you can't properly evoke the soul of '07 without a splash of ms. wetwetwet.

sharon jones: "tell me" gotta be honest, i was a little underwhelmed by sharjo's offering this year - maybe just 'cause i knew what to expect. i saw her do her schtick for the fourth and fifth times in '07, to diminishing returns; my paper on her got rejected from emp; mark and amy went and got rich off her horn section; and she turned 51. still sounds pretty good though.

the budos band: "ride or die"
same goes for those lovable second-fiddles the budos. the good-sounding part that is. (no judgment yet on whether the songs still pass muster.) i had wanted to keep the funk going with their half-siblings antibalas, their semi-cousins tinariwen, and/or a cut from the impressively pedigreed superbad ost - prob. my movie of the year, btw - but this will have to suffice.

[2]
Y katharine mcphee: "love story"
it seems like it should be too dumb to work, but it just keeps sounding better. cops the exuberance and the basic template of "crazy in love"/"1 thing," without being as complex or interesting musically, which actually makes it more purely soulful (that ain't a sample yo.) still didn't chart why?

dizzee rascal: "pussyole (oldskool)" veering off from the soul/retro-soul/simulacra-soul train, here's...yet another song based on a very familiar sample. didn't hear this (or the rest of maths + english) until very late in the game, but it takes no time to warm to; only slightly more to recognize as reasonably righteous in its own right (not just for the deathless e-z rock/lyn collins crib.) based on not enough listens (to any of the three), m+e may be my favorite dizzee album, just because it doesn't sound like it's trying to be anything other than fun.

dj khaled, ft. pretty much ehrrrbody: "we taking over"
weird song. sort of epic, but pretty silly at the same time. i guess that's what happens when akon tries to be epic. what a weird dude to be dominating music the way he has - no wonder this year was so weird. i have yet to feel any inkling of akon being interesting as a person (or t-pain, or lil wayne for that matter though admittedly i haven't been trying. i do enjoy rick ross, and t.i. sort of although the most charismatic i've heard him was back on "rubber band man") my main association with this song is hearing it blasting from car windows at my fairmount apartment this spring. also this: memo to rappers.

>ashley tisdale: "he said she said"
this seemed like such a nothing, insignificant album when it came out. i still pretty much feel that way about it, so i've been surprised by all the attention/love it (or at least certain songs) it continued to get from the teenpop thread (or at least frank) throughout the year. it seemed like a much slower year for teenpop than 06 - which is my only expanation - but maybe that was just me.

justice: "d.a.n.c.e."
britney spears: "piece of me"
of course. two quintessential crossovers of 07. whatever that means. from pop to popular, or vice versa. they play pretty nice together too. and i've wanted to do that feist interpolation forever since i thought their "five" sounded more like "feist" (actually it's "fight.") what would be the correct cheeky mash-up title for this? "dance, britney"? "piece of justice"?

low: "hatchet"
ha! suckas. does this sound okay to you, cuz i've convinced myself it works. the synthpop reharmonization makes it creepier, inadvertently more in line with the rest of the album. btw the album version is actually dancier than the optimimi remix, though it's less groovy and less optimimi.

aesop rock: "none shall pass"
last time i really cared about an ace-rock song was when i put "no jumper cables" on 03 in pop; i actually liked this one before mixing it (and the rest of the album shows potential too, so i may attempt to digest it further), but its inclusion here still substantially boosts the chances that i'll remember it in a year's time.

nelly furtado: "say it right"
i got around to owning loose in 07; perhaps in 08 i'll get around to caring about it. in the meantime this daringly minimal, deceptively simple ditty did manage to conquer my headspace more effectively than either of its more hamfisted, loudmouthed predecessors. those i noticed long before i liked; this one took forever to notice, but by that time like/dislike didn't seem to be a relevant question anymore.

[3]
gwen stefani: "the sweet escape"
there's something obnoxious about this (maybe something to do with how oversaturated it became - but it somehow sounded oversaturated even when it wasn't) but i've got a pretty generous soft spot for it all the same, mostly because it is so sweet. no matter strident and cloying gwen and akon may sound, or how preposterous the lyrics are, it's got some real, messy, overexaggerated life to it.

Y tracey thorn: "it's all true"
okay, here's finally one about which i have nothing conflicted or negative to say. unless its, as i've said before, that it's almost too perfect. it just glides. i love how the metallic kaleidascopy bits work in the context of this mix.

hilary duff: "dreamer"
i've written about this before. still cracks me up. had to let it play out long enough to get to the great deadpan second verse.

lcd soundsystem: "get innocuous"
plays "we share our mother's health" to "dreamer"'s "play with fire" (q.v. last year's mix.) fittingly enough since lcd was more or less to 07 as the knife were to 06, albeit with a bit more avuncularity, a bit less shock & awe. by the way, none of sound of silver's dance jams (which, after all, were much more than just dance jams) could touch last year's "kick out the chairs," the james murphy collab w/ whomadewho (as heard on popsical.)

Y matthew dear: "pom pom"
the clear standout from a very confusing, conflicting album that i really wanted to love, but couldn't quite hack. though it does have probably the sexiest opening moments of any 07 album. to be honest i guess i've never really understood matthew dear in album form. part of the problem here is that (like lcd) he's no longer really trying to make dance jams, though (unlike lcd), i can't really tell what he is trying to do. but a couple slipped out anyway. the nicely if typically inscrutably titled "pom pom" (it's more sound than sense) is poppier but less anthemic than, say, "dog days." and sometimes i dunno wtf is going on with his vocal sounds. still, it's hard to come by a lyrical hook as simple but arrestingly honest as this one: "i've got to figure out love!"

nôze: "love affair"
and i love how (and this wasn't really planned), immediately after dear utters that declaration for the second time, along come nôze, leading the way out of this pile-up of innocuous befuddlement with their goofy, cocksure, way-frenchy absolutely certainty about love. or at least about the necessary preparatory steps for a love affair. i also love how they pronounce the names of their body parts (i brush my teez? i clean my nôze?) and how perfectly the screwy, jaunty music suits the absurd lyrics. this tune is from a couple years ago, not actually 07, (was on an 06 singles comp and, coincidentally, hot chip's 07 dj-kicks) but i just found it and wanted to share.

will.iam: "heartbreaker"
hopefully i'll get around to writing up my list of reasons why will.i.am's songs about girls is superior to kanye west's graduation (west's absence here is quite deliberate, as was gnarls barkley last year - i thought about teasing the sample again, but it's just warmed-over daft punk anyway, and who needs that)...in the meantime just feel the groove. so smoove. so fly. so-so-so-so-sorry.

roisin murphy: "let me know"
disco is alive and well. "overpowered" may have caught more ears with its edgy acid teeter, but this one is a thing of beauty, pure and simple.

[4]
escort: "all through the night"
('fake') "authentic" disco. hey who's counting? sounds great - sounds a lot more happening that sharon jones right at the moment. my cousin plays drums on this. at the club last night the dj played a mash-up of it with a twista/pharell song. whoa, muppety video!

Y aly+aj: "like whoa"
it feels good, it feels good! teenrock confessional dance; slow-burn verses, pyrotechnic chorus. it didn't really occur to me before but this section of the mix is pretty enraptured - the michalkas sound about as hot and bothered here as the hyperverbal escort divas, after their fashion. good girls gone bad?

rihanna: "please don't stop the music"
07's fave bajan babe sounds practically relaxed by contrast. another potent sample here - takes some temerity (or utter shamelessness) to nab michael jackson's most overt, bluntest floor-filler. could have been obnoxiously overpowering, save for how it savvily only sneaks in about a minute into the track's masterful slow build, taking enough time for the full reveal that the handclap stomp and big stupid stadium synths have ample time to burrow into your brain before you realize what's happening. it sounds obvious, but it's deceptively impressive how gracefully this track deploys all the heavy artillery at its disposal. "umbrella" seemed like an unlikely smash at first; this one sounded like a no-brainer from the get-go, and it's only now starting its chart ascension (#26 this week after 7 weeks on the chart) - we'll have to keep an eye and see how prophetic the titular request becomes.

the chemical brothers: "a modern midnight conversation"
did you hear the lily allen is having ed chemical's baby. damn dawg. i listened to we are the night, the chem's 07 album (and their first i haven't owned...yet...i guess) a few times, and nothing really stuck except this one, an appropriately modern-sounding groover which seems to take some cues from so-called minimalism. not that it's especially minimal (or minimalist), but there's a healthy modicum of restraint within its typically expansive galactic funk. it actually sounds sleek, which they haven't managed in a minute or so. good looking out. more like this, and better luck next time.

gui boratto: "beautiful life"
certainly the hook of the year, house/trance/electro-disco-wise. euphoric but understated; pop-kissed but elegant. hearing it throb from the window of a passing rittenhouse square car on the way to unsilent night this year was as magically transformative as unsilent night itself - it made me feel like the whole block had suddenly entered one of those slinky, futuristic car commercial, in a good way. the problem is that the track itself, though it contains several excellent builds, is constructed somewhat poorly for actual dancefloor use, making it more useful as a headphones bliss-out than a bona-fide club anthem, or more properly perhaps, a necessary subject for remixes. unfortunately, i didn't hear any (there must have been some, right?) but i think i did a decent job of incorporating the most quintessential portion, even if i had to leave out the secondary hook ("i can feel life..."), which doesn't come in until the third round of waning and waxing. even the most pounding, propulsive part of the track comes off as a bit of a floaty respite in the context of the poptacular disco inferno that precedes it here, so it serves as something of a breather and a palate-cleanser.

von südenfed: "fledermaus can't get it"
and then we are rudely plunged down from that cosmic euphoria into what i think of as the 'hooligans' portion of the mix. who knows what mark e smith is on about here, but he certainly isn't being very polite about telling us whatever it is. meanwhile mouse on mars concoct what sounds like a fartier version of "losing my edge."

[5]
bonde do role: "solta o frango"
not quite as over-the-top as "office boy," but i guess a dab of subtlety can't hurt amidst all this loony chaos. not that there's ever anything truly subtle about the bonde. i like how the chorus mostly consists of them shouting "o-le!"

calvin harris: "the girls"
still digging on calvin, perhaps because i never got around to overplaying him, and this may be even better than "acceptable." i'm not too keen on the bit where he list of types of girls that he likes (which i tastefully left mostly obscured by bonde do role's yammering - which for all i know might be just as tasteless), but i like the rest of it; i like the phrase "oversubscribed with relationships," i like his bluntness that he'll play around "for sure, for sure!" (reminds me of jonah hill in superbad), i love that main synth hook, and i loved the way the girls at the new years eve party took to the refrain "i get all the girls" right way.

Y muscles: "sweaty"
but really now, that unwashed chauvinism gets pretty stinky pretty fast, and that's why i got muscles here (all the way from oz) to undercut it with a little of that old-fashioned peace love ecstasy unity respect. simply put, this song is awesome! and it is special! hooray for hooligans!

dan le sac vs. scroobious pip: "thou shalt always kill"
love. yeah, there are a couple of dumb lines, but even those become more endearing as you get to know it, rather than discoloring the whole thing. had to include a good long chunk of it here b/c it seems unlikely to get much of an airing anywhere else. on the other hand i also had to loop it and fade it after the "repetitive generic music" part. you're not missing too much good stuff after that anyway, it's just pop-song allusions and things that don't make any sense to us clueless americans (pheonix wtf?) incidentally, i'd like to point out how awesome the beat of this song is; it'd be a pretty sweet weirdo electro-funk workout on its own, without the slam-poetry punchlines.

armand van helden, "nyc beat"
just a basic booming beat and a killer bassline. hard to argue with that. i've even grown to like the admittedly totally vapid chant. i'll also admit that i watched the video more times than is healthy.

[6]
sophie ellis-bextor: "me and my imagination"
yay sophie. still don't really know what makes her special, of the assorted british pop diva ladies, except that she's probably the most posh i guess (i will likely delve into her albums soon for amg purposes), but this is one massively, stomping tchune. rather unsubtle electro-disco extolling the virtues of subtlety. "magic stays where myth remains."

stanton warriors ft. sway: "get 'em high"
this was a bonus track on this year's sway ep (which i probably wouldn't have noticed except that i reviewed it for amg) - not sure if it appeared on an earlier stanton warriors release or what. anyway it's neither of their best work, but it ain't too shabby.

m.i.a.: "xr2"
massive. pretty much definitely my favorite track to dance to this year. (the album version that is - better than the "turbo" version - single? remix? leak? - which turned up early in the year.) made both of my critpoll top ten ballots. freaked out to it on dancefloors more than once. still can't hear it without jiggling involuntarily. listening to it again, that's almost all due to the beat, or more specifically the beat plus that incredible dirty synth hook. i've got no problem with m.i.a.'s lyrics/vocals, it's just that they have relatively little to do with why this track is so great. i continue to struggle with the rest of kala - i do enjoy a lot of it, but for some reason it still doesn't do what i want from it as an album. dunno.

cornelius: "wataridori"
(what? i didn't hear anything, did you?)

Y simian mobile disco: "love"
another fortuitous lyrical dovetail (with "xr2"): some say "love is all you need to know." not quite sure what to make of the verses (s-p-e-ls fiasco?) except that they're very silly still pretty catchy, but the chorus is one of the year's more touching and beautiful. of course i take it at face value, what do you think? so i had to give it a bit of breathing room and let love rule for a little minute before moving on. except, i guess, for "i believe," i didn't like the singles from attack sustain decay release as much as most of the album tracks - go figure.

modest mouse: dashboard
barely listened to this after i initially heard it and thought it was pretty good. but then i remembered it, which will have paid off if anybody else remembers it too. was the album any good? i pretty much wrote them off after good news, but then i didn't even really care for the singles from that one.

fujiya and miyagi: ankle injuries
from last year (ish) and not too dancey (ish), but i have a soft spot for this one mostly because of the title. (also because of the way they repeat their own bandname incessantly.)

r. kelly ft. t.i. and t-pain: "i'm a flirt (remix)"
how the hell r. kelly manages to keep on making singles that seem like goofy novelties at first, but turn out to be compulsively, endlessly listenable, i think i'll never understand. if i had to guess, it's very possibly the song i listened to most this year; certainly its up there. i kind of regret how much i obscured its simplicity and laid-back bounce here by mashing it against assorted obscurantist british hipster-hypesters - but then, you've heard it before. also, the reharmonization is pretty nice, particularly the turnaround on the fujiya tune.

burial: archangel
still not convinced by burial in general, but this one at least has a nice skeletal two-step/d&b thing going on. very well suited to my purposes. (though my favorite thing to mash up with "i'm a flirt" is squarepusher's "my red hot car" - this gets at the same kind of groove juxtaposition, but it's not quite as much fun.) anyway, more of this sort of beat is a good idea.

[7]
Y miley cyrus: "see you again"
and now for the rock/indie/non-"dance music" detour. took this one on faith for a while, but no, it's true, this is an absolute stormer of a teenpop/rock/country/dance should-be/could-be/would-be smash. (bedbugs here on the phenomenology of its success.) so far i've still mostly warmed to miley/hannah on a per-song basis (only about three songs have managed to win me over to date, including the also-great "east northumberland high") but maybe i'll go see the concert movie or something, and figure out what all the fuss is.

candie payne: "one more chance (mark ronson mix)"
ronson, you dog. i find him vaguely repugnant for the same reasons as kanye, something about the obvious and formulaic nature of his working methods, but he is often damnably effective. been listening to candie's album a fair bit, and this one still stands out as by far the biggest pop nugget. indeed, possibly the best (and least overachieving) neo-girl group single we've had in this recent spate - beats the pipettes for both songwriting and sound (though it lacks the unfettered exuberance of "pull shapes"), and amy winehouse for credibility and non-obnoxiousness, while lucky soul haven't quite pulled out a truly smashing single (though "lips are unhappy" comes close.) it's no "he's a rebel," but considering this is 2007 it'll serve.

spoon: "you got yr cherry bomb"
yeah, this too. can you believe there are two separate segments of (neo-) soul music on this mix? and that's not even counting disco. black sixties pop is alive and well. and living in austin, tx. what the hell is this song about? "octopus for good"? oh right it's britt daniel. nevermind then.

the ark: "absolutely no decorum"
not really sure why i included this. nobody else is possibly going to recognize it or care that it's on here (except maybe dave); i didn't particularly like the album it came from; and i don't particularly love the song either, though it's not bad (the best thing about might be the title phrase.) mostly i just really like the ark, and wanted to give them another chance to shine. comes off ok.

tegan and sara: "back in your head"
this on the other hand - i didn't especially care for the song or the album (though i'll listen more), but i knew there'd be an appreciative audience (as there was, at least on new years.) and it just seemed like such an unlikely and idiosyncratic thing for there to be a hit like this (well, a semi-hit - at least among certain demographics it definitely was) - an odd conflation of folky, indie rock, teenpop, and ABM/NPR music, earning supporters from all of those camps and probably others. particularly since it's not really that remarkable of a song. but yeah, i like it okay too.

sally shapiro: "he keeps me alive"
this, on the other hand, i love. it's singular in a way that makes it feel kind of indelicate to just slot it in here, roughly juxtaposed against whatever happened to be in its BPM cohort. but by the same token it works its fragile magic regardless of the context, and is just as devastating and heartbreaking - maybe more so, with this additional injustice added to co-dependent self-injury.

[8]
lethal bizzle: "police on my back"
i think i almost like it more over sally's frosty disco synths than the fun but slightly grating clash sample. have you noticed that i've been giving at least as much space and attention to british rap (dizzee, sway) as the homegrown variety? i never even considered myself a particular fan of u.k. rap, but with bizzle added to the ranks i'm coming around to the idea that it feels a lot more witty, inventive, and just plain fun these days. this one's great - classic doofy scofflaw storytelling (had to let it play out so as not to leave you/him hanging in that shed) and his vocal tics and funny sound effects are ridiculously endearing. (though my favorite is on his other 07 single, "bizzle bizzle," where he lets out a snortled yelp of glee about being on somebody's "top 8 hitlist" on myspace.) t-t-totally dude.

shop boys: "party like a rockstar"
omg wtf. i can't quite comprehend how actually popular this was. the actual song neither rocks nor parties - it's just yr standard-issue dirty south drawl, with a couple more guitars - but the concept was too apropos not to include it just here.

dude 'n nem: "watch my feet"
björk: "declare independence"
party like a demented icelandic artstar. "declare my feet"? "watch my independence"? ("feet independence" is probably better, though it lacks the imperative intensity that is crucial to both of these tunes.) an unholy alliance of two wholly different impish rapscallions, united in their not wholly dissimilar assertions of blunt, bone-headed impudence. makes for one of my favorite, most gleefully unhinged moments on the mix (i want to spin it into a stand-alone mash-up; it practically is already, but it doesn't line up quite perfectly.) i've always been pretty much floored by "declare independence" - definitely my most lasting impression of volta, though recent return listens have reminded me there's plenty more to enjoy - and i'm glad i finally got away with sneaking it into a dance party. it also lends considerable urgency and darkness to the stupid-awesome "watch my feet," although i'm not sure how "dark" it's technically possible to be whilst eating egg-a-rolls in your hat hat and your shirt shirt.

aberfeldy: "do whatever turns you on"
pop levi: "pick me up - uppercut"
skye sweetnam: "ghosts" (with tim armstrong)
i'm considering rejiggering the whole mix from this point on, starting with the revised björk'n'nem remash. actually, when i was making it, it was about 6:00am when i got that point, and i was gonna stop and call it a night (morning), but something inspired to keep going and i cranked out this last fifteen-odd minutes in almost a single burst of sloppy rock'n'roll energy. which is why the songs play out longer than usual and the transitions are somewhat approximate. i could probably trim some of the excess and make it a little sleeker and more dancefloor-palatable. on the other hand i do like all of these songs. even if i should probably stop pretending that aberfeldy count for this year. even if pop levi is a total weirdball that i don't understand at all. even if skye sweetnam disappointed even her biggest cheerleader this year. actually, this is maybe the best and most infectious of these three - channels mid-'90s so-cal so perfectly, effortlessly. (n.b. skye's "music is my boyfriend" is easily one of my favorite singles of the year - and my favorite video as well, not that i'd ever make that list - but it was a little too intense and unhinged even for this mix, which is kind of inconceivable. er maybe it's just not dancy enough.)

[9]
avril lavigne: "girlfriend (remix ft. lil mama)"
actually nevermind, it gets back on track here. i really like how tim armstrong's guitar solo leads into this. and does anything more need to be said about the song itself? you remember right? [like how it was the first rock #1 single since 2001 (but nobody noticed because they didn't think it was rock for some reason?) but then lil mama came around and demonstrated that it's actually a hip-hop song?] right.

Y sugababes: "about you now"
doesn't sound quite as massive coming out of "girlfriend" as i'd like - verse restraint be damned - but nevermind, it's still crushing. kinda strange that this is the sugababes, but who ever knows what to expect from them anyway. so sweet.

paramore: "misery business"
holy cow. cowabunga. now we're talking. and we're off to the races. hail hail rock and roll!

the veronicas: "untouched"
how does this possibly come off as an actual slight lessening of energy? must be a volume issue. should have extended the paramore ghost verse a little further into it i think, until the v's own guitars take over. (will get it on the rejigger.) actually, this is definitely not one of the better songs on "hook me up," but whatever. (it's the most intense, for sure.)

maxïmo park: "our velocity" [dj velociropter's "per second per second" retempo]
kind of a random place to end - and there's still a few minutes grace left for fully-stuffed CD-R maximization - but it was past 8:00 by this point and i still had editing and transferring (traktor>garageband>itunes>toast, probably not the most direct system but hey it works) not to mention packing left to do. plus there wasn't anywhere obvious to go from here - the most pragmatic step would be to loop back around for some low-key, low-tempo hip-hop/r&b (devin the dude? MIMS? was vaguely planning on UGK's "int'l playas anthem") but that would seem like an unnecessary comedown, and hardly a better way to end. (maybe i'll end up tacking on "stay my baby," just so amy can finally get her due - though i'd particularly wanted to emphasize that song's unexpected, "grindin'"-esque boom-bap.) so we close with the maxïmos, with, to be fair, probably the most urgent and blistering single of the year after all (and one of my favorite djing moments too, closing the night at the M room back in august), even if it retains the distinct whiff of XTCian prissiness. that just makes it cuter, right? and just to wring every ounce of patent dancefloor ridiculosity from it, i made it blast into the tempo stratosphear. could have done so even earlier and harder; sometimes too much is just enough...