dj omni – “rainyDaySpin”

I’m not one for the so-called black friday sale madness. But when my family and I made it out on Saturday to the Apple store in the mall I immediately gravitated to a box on the bottom of the shelf advertising the Vestax Spin. It was fun to watch people stop what they were doing and watch and want to play as we convinced the staff to pull the spin controller out of the back room (where some of the employees admitted to playing with it on their breaks) and hooked it up in the store. With only a walk around the mall, I was sold.

The Spin’s decks are highly sensitive and easily customizable. It is chocked full of nice features and is really fun to play with. The best bit is the included Mac software called DJAY, which connects to your iTunes library (including your music videos!) and allows you to record your mixes and save playlists.

This is my first attempt at a recorded mix using spin (mistakes and all). I’m sure it won’t be the last. I’ll try to post one a month atleast.

o:{if enough people ask for it, i’ll chop this mix up into tracks and make it available for download. If you want the tracklisting to the mix right-click and save the above image.}

Further down the Adele remix road, Mick Boogie has done an ’88-themed mixtape of a handful of tracks.  So if you ever wondered what your favorite Adele song sounded like with a Slick Rick loop under it, well, now you can listen to see how long it takes you to decide that it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Muxtape is where it’s at, at least this month. Painless playlists and nice simple design. Anyway, here’s some April music:

mattm.muxtape.com

1. Just because it’s an ill way to start a mixtape, er, muxtape. Did they redo this theme song for the remake? Is the remake already cancelled?

2. I dig this, but this is seriously the kind of music only French people can pull off. One of the dudes from Daft Punk producing. Latter half of the disc has lots of female moaning.

3. I put off listening to the Adele record for quite a while, only to listen to almost nothing but last month. Great mix of influences; the vocal stylings are almost Jeff Buckley-esque in certain passages on the first few tracks.

4. I actually paid for this record! The blue-eyed soul meets yacht rock thing is spectacular. The Netherlands and Denmark have it going on the last few years.

5. Nice little stomper from a well-done record. Would’ve liked to hear the shelved Dangermouse/Ike Turner sessions this partnership started from, though.

6. Stop fronting, fellas. There’s nothing wrong in calling it a go-go record.

7. New New York neo-disco. I can finally semi-appreciate Antony, but still like the instrumentals the best.

8. Dangermouse production again, I believe. Love the kinda Happy Mondays doing U2 vibe.

9. For the Ladies and the Gentlemen. Finished soon, hopefully.

10. In the Sade discog, Lover’s Rock (the album) doesn’t really stick out to me, but I kind of rediscovered it a month or two back (when you’re coming home from work at 5 in the morning, it’s almost Sade or nothing on the music tip). This track is especially lovely.

11. Nice, unexpected moment off the new one.

12. One of my all-time favorites; ever since some diamond commercial from the pre-Fugee days. 2:38 mark gets me every time. Magic.

My love affair as of late has been with the mighty J-Rocc. Beat Junkie president and maestro DJ. He can do no wrong and he is one of the best reasons to subscribe to the Stones Throw podcast. But it really began with a free CD promo mix for the Jaylib album that collected the past classics of both Jay Dee and Madlib as well as introduced the new collaborative material. And the mix was seamlessly beautiful! That one CD got so much run in my car that it became just a pile of scratches. I would gladly pay money for it now and am happy to find that Jaylib vs. J-Rocc mix on his mySpace.

But if that wasn’t enough, I woke up this morning to find an okayplayer link to the new Blue Note “Droppin’ Science” compilation {which I will buy just for the ?uestlove liner notes. I’ll be happy when this dude just writes a book} and lo and behold there is this excellent J-Rocc mix of the songs and samples. Priceless.