Tony said something to me the other day about mixes and DJs in regards to a mix that I posted about on my site (here) that I thought was spot on.

“I feel sometimes people do mixes to purge themselves of some obsession with a musical style so they can feel OK about moving on to other things.”

His point in that case was How can anyone move on from golden era ‘94 hip-hop?, which, fair enough, but I do think he’s right that DJs sometimes use mixes as therapy. I know I have recently.

This mix came about because I realized that people weren’t really specifically talking about Pieter K in the discussion that sort of bubbled up about Offshore and Inperspective Records, and about the Choppage/Edit scene in general. Which is not surprising, he’s a bit of an outsider to it and also to a lot of the DnB scene in general. But he is, in my estimation one of, if not THE most musically talented producer in the scene. His catalog isn’t massive, he has one album to his name and about a dozen singles or so. There are large gaps in his output from time to time (I see only one release listed for ‘04 on Discogs and I don’t think it was DnB). Two things are out within the last month, a collab track with Klute on Commercial Suicide and a 12 on Subvert Central’s label (although I haven’t seen either of these in stores out here) (that’s why they’re not on the mix).

Maybe I should back up though and say what I do know about him, which isn’t a lot, but I’m sure it’s not a name that those reading this from outside the DnB scene know. He lives in LA, a bit reclusive, a drummer (I remember this from an interview I think, although if you couldn’t tell by listening to his music…), had a blog here which has recently gone dark, or rather white. I think has done some soundtrack work at some point.

Breakbeat Science has consistently put out his stuff since the label’s inception, and really most everything he’s done has been on American labels like BBS, Thermal, the defunct Vortex and Phunckateck (I think Phunckateck is defunct). His full album Everything All The Time (which came out close on the heels of Kid A/Amnesiac) was released in ‘02 (I think) and ever since then another album has be on the verge of release. If I understood the hints right, one is almost ready to go, a collaboration with a vocalist who I believe is Amy Jacobs. (I’m having a hard time verifying some info since Shots on Goal is down, so feel free to correct if someone sees mistakes). So one album is done? Being mastered? Something like that. Then there are a couple of singles that are in the hands of various labels (including Inperspective, but honestly that’s been on their site since I interviewed Chris almost a year ago, and there hasn’t been an actual new releases from them in 1.5 years.) And then there are other exciting hints about future work to come as well.

Although much of his work is at DnB tempo and has been released on labels associated with that genre, it’s important to point out that he’s done non-DnB work as well, including the awesome “Stars from Aircraft” that sounds like Underworld if it were played on a trap set and Karl Hyde were a woman. (Underworld comparisons are a big compliment in my book). K’s cryptic comment to me about the new album made it sound like there wouldn’t be much DnB on there, but I could be misreading that. The point is though, it doesn’t matter. Pretty much everything the man touches turns to gold, currently all skittery snares and synths that tug emotional strings in ways that are kind of unique. The artist that I’ve been comparing him to in my mind most recently is Aaron Spectre, at least in his more chill guise (which now seems to be Air Inspector).

So, with that background, he’s a mix I made. It’s not supposed to be all encompassing, although it is a sizable chunk of his material. Apart from Everything All The Time and some compilation/mix CD appearances, all his stuff is only on vinyl. But since most of it fits so well together (and since I own most of it), I thought it was time to draw the connections together. The result is If Only I Could Dream, below. No order to the tracks other than that the couple early ones that I had (Dromedary and Big Mon) ended up together towards the beginning because they’re harder and more reflective of that particular time in American, and especially West Coast, DnB production, ‘97-’01, growly-grumbly synths that are kind of the logical extension of what Tech Itch was doing in ‘97/’96. I also mixed this much slower than I normally do, but that’s because each one of Pieter K’s tracks holds a world of information in it and almost all change from their start to finish. These are records that are worth sitting down with a stack of and listening to from beginning to end, independent of mixing, and really I can only say that about K/Polar and Pieter K’s tracks. They need to sing out. Plus, mixing this way gives me the fun challenge, something I’ve forgotten a bit because of my current style, of total precision in the mix and keeping things running locked for a greater amount of time (there’s one screw up when Big Mon goes out, but I decided in my new Zen state about such matters it wasn’t worth taking out or redoing the mix for).

In regards to Tony’s quote above, yeah, to be sure, I’m moving out of the straight DnB scene almost fully. It’s a sad parting in away. There are still things I love about the scene, I’ll for sure continue to buy records in the genre and work them in everywhere I can. The sub-scene of Edit/Choppage and the parallel scene of Ragga Jungle of course hold tremendous interest to me still and I actually do believe there’s a good new crop of DnB producers, better than two years ago, in Noisia, Break, Phace, Silent Witness, and a lot of the folks on Klute’s Commercial Suicide and TeeBee’s Subtitles (which went from the greatest label in the game to sucking hardcore to now being really interesting again). But the fact is a lot of that stuff only sounds good when you’re playing a whole set of it, and I just don’t keep up, buying-wise, like I did. Anyway, I’m sort of in the midst of making several jungle mixes as a sort of farewell and I definitely wouldn’t call it a purge in my case… but I suppose if anyone books me at a Jungle event now it will be to play “old-skool”… how strange… eh, these things are fluid though, who knows. My love of ragga remains strong and maybe this is just me dealing with the ebb and flow of some of the things that I and Blackdown have been talking about regarding what it means to be part of a scene.

Listen and enjoy. I hope his music fires as many neurons in your brain as it does mine.

If Only I Could Dream: A Tribute to Pieter K - Mixed by Kid Kameleon

All tracks by Pieter K:
Sauterine (Breakbeat Science)
Lateral Pressure (Breakbeat Science)
Flare (Thermal)
Penduluum (Higher Education)
Dromedary (Vortex)
Big Mon (Thermal)
Loraz (Thermal)
Proof (Breakbeat Science)
Trip (Orgone)
Traffic (Phunckateck)
Mirror (Breakbeat Science)
Trefusis Point Remix (Breakbeat Science)
Under the Radar (Breakbeat Science)
It Could Have Been You (Breakbeat Science)
Watch Dis (Breakbeat Science)
Stops on a Dime (Metaformal)
Central Ave (Thermal)
Dig (Renegade)
Somma (Metaformal)
Trefusis Point (Breakbeat Science)
Under Radar Remix (Breakbeat Science)
Nomen Clature (Replicant Audio)
All Things (Breakbeat Science)