Here’s this weeks Trancendance podcast. Smiley Mike starts off the night for the first hour and Caddyshack takes the second hour with several tracks and remixes by Blue Amazon. Then in our usual long-weekend fashion we extend the show with a two hour tag-team set.

Thanks to Edward, Andrew and the other people that called in. Edward requested Children by Robert Miles and I just happened to have Tilt’s version of Children and played it – third track into the set.

If you asked me as I was leaving the station on Sunday I would have said this was destined to be a great set. I even had hopes of adding it to the Featured Podcasts (in the sidebar). After a second listen however, the mixing is not as tight as I had hoped. Whatever. I had a blast in the studio this week.

This week’s mix is pretty diverse including a few classic trance anthems from Transa, Faster Kill off Paul Oakenfold’s A Lively Mind and sweet mash-up of the Bassment Jaxx. Sometimes you just gotta have fun!

Well this week’s show was a bit of a juggling act to get off the ground. CiTR has come a long way in updating the equipment in the on-air studio over the past few years – but I encountered some technical problems early in the show that resulted in a minute or two of dead air part-way into my set. The culprit? Almost broken – then completely broken RCA cables. But the show must go on – and it does. Technical issues finally get fixed by the 32 min mark.

Anyways, I haven’t given it my second listen yet but I know there’s at least a few good mixes and at least a few wobbles. If you read my last podcast post regarding phrasing – there’s at least one really well phrased mix in this set. I’ll post the time code when I get around to listening to it.

I think I’ll have trouble posting the exact playlist in order because I did go back and forth a fair bit, but I’ll post some of the tracks in this mix a little later. There’s quite a few classic trance anthems from years back that have been remixed and added into this week’s mix.

Oh, and the show got started about 20 minutes early, so it’s a bit of an extended set this week.

Here is the partial track listing from this week’s set. Not in perfect order!

Dumonde – God Music (Euphonic Gate Mix)
Dimorphoc – Haunted Strings
Paul Oakenfold – Faster Kill (Roman Hunter Mix)
Outdare! – Live Today (Parks & Wilson’s Annese Dub)
Morris v Rogers – Girl From the Green Dimension (Dub Mix)
Eve 37 – Markus Schulz – You Won’t See Me Cry (Mara Remix)
Union Jack – Yeti
Tomcraft – Lonliness (Club Mix)

Second half of the show – Not in perfect order:

Chac feat. Chilli Gold – 7 Years (Grinder Vox for the Box Remix)
Opus 808 – Don’t Turn Away (e.f.o. Remix)
Transa – Enervate
Paul van Dyk – We Are Alive (Breathless Mix)
Smudge & Smith – Near Me (Mark Shimmon Remix)
Koglin & Dewar – Pushed On (Stephen J Kroos Remix)
Transa – Supernova
Three Drives – Greece 2000 (Leama & James Davis Mix)
Max Graham – Falling Together

I even put a little thought towards which records I should bring for this weeks set – but I think the first hour got off to a bit of a shakey start. I’m not sure, because I haven’t given it my usual Monday morning second listen yet, but I’m pretty sure the second hour was mixed a little better than the first hour. Some nights the mixes really pull together and other nights I just can’t hold the mix right to the bitter end – and believe me, more often than not I push the mix as long as it can go. Not always in my best interest, but short mix DJs never really earned my respect the same way a long mix does. 

I’m working on building a solid base of records to work with right now, so you’ll probably hear some of these tracks again. I’m trying to work in a couple Platipus Records and a Couple Eve Records – which often have such distinctive sounds that it’s hard to mix them seamlessly with tracks from other record labels. 

Sure enough – I’ve only listened to part of the first hour but I’m not very thrilled about it. Right from the get-go I started with a bad mix and that just set the tone for the first hour. It’s too bad because the first mix was going quite well for 3-4 minutes. But all it takes for a great 4 minute mix to go bad is the last 15 seconds. Growing up as a kid I used to hear ‘Close only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades’ and sure enough – it’s easy to get close. 

I’m also not very happy with the phrasing of the first set. I’ll maybe post something more in-depth another time – but basically (and I’m not even sure if phrasing is the right term) after you get good at matching beats and have it figured out that you have to line up the down-beats – you extend that whole concept to ‘phrases’ of a song. It’s like lining up the first beat of a 32 or 64 note segment on both records. If you can do that then magic can happen!

Here’s an example of what proper phrasing sounds like. Download this week’s podcast and listen to the mix between 1:35:23 and 1:37:35. Once you can phrase your mixes like this it’s practice, practice, practice until you can do it every time. (Easier said than done!)

Caddyshack returns after many weeks off for this week’s extended 3 hour show on BC Day long weekend. Smiley Mike plays an all Platipus set for the first hour. Caddyshack plays the second hour and then we tag team for the final hour – playing two records each.

Smiley Mike’s Platipus playlist

POB featuring X-Avia – The Awakening (Quietman Remix) – 1997
Jamnesia – Get Busy – 2002
Libra presents Taylor – Anomaly – Calling Your Name (Original Mix) – 1995
Art of Trance – Easter Island (Cygnus X Mix) – 1999
Chromium – Chrome (Terra Ferma Remix) – 1997
Universal State of Mind – All Because of You (Mindsweeper Mix) – 1996
Libra presents Taylor – Anomaly – Calling Your Name (Forth’s Remix) – 1996
Patrick Reid – Goose – 2001
Star – Rock Rose (Chab Mix) – 2001
Union Jack – Cockroach or Yeti (Can’t Remember) – 1997
Union Jack – Two Full Moons and a Trout – 1993
Quietman – The Sleeper – 1997