Various Artists Nascd002 Mixed By James Talk - THINKING OUT LOUD 2 FLAC

Tracklist

Notes

THINKINGOUTLOUD2 Mixed By James Talk

James Talk is without question one of the brightest new lights on dance music’s horizon. Emerging in the last few year's, from James Zabelia’s Southampton based electronica gang, few new DJ’s have got off to such an impressive start. Juggling production , remixing and dj-ing right from the start, James epitomises what it takes to get noticed in the world of dance music. He has already released tunes on NIC FANCULLI'S SAVED his Own SPOKEN Imprint , URBAN TORQUE, LOT 49 & HOPE RECORDINGS , and he regularly contributes to my weekly ESSENTIAL SELECTION RADIO show on BBC RADIO 1. We have also recently remixed some tracks together inc WALLY LOPEZ for PACHA MUSIC and will no doubt be doing more so watch out!!. This new Mix CD is further evidence of a man on a mission!

Pete Tong

When I was told I had to write something for this booklet, I thought… “Shit! what do I write” I’m not a writer! So please bare with me while reading this if you find mistakes, contradictions or views you don’t agree with, It is essentially the inside of my brain on paper, so if you ever wanted to delve inside the world and creative process of the TALK. Here I am Thinking Out Loud.

I began creating this CD with a clear, precise view. To show people exactly what my club sets are about. Now this is not as easy task as it first may seem, a lot of music does not translate well to CD from a club environment. Some music is designed for club play and that alone. So when picking tracks for this I tried to select music, which you would enjoy listening to anywhere be it in a car, in the bath, or while lazing about on a beach on holiday. I spent a long time thinking about the tracklist in my head before even writing down track names on paper. I looked through a year’s worth of music. Thinking about records that rocked clubs for me, as well as great warm up records, which got the floors moving and the feet tapping. Having spent a lot of time playing warm up sets, I felt I should show this side of my djing on the CD too, and not to put together a CD full of peak time club records.

I phoned some friends, pestered and hassled them for some new tracks for the CD. Jesse Rose sent me a pile of new music to choose from and Izit - “Heavy What” is one of the highlights of the CD. Dave Robertson and I collaborated on a track and local lad Rich Sucliffe sent me the awesome acid tinged “Stoners Club”. Nic Fanciulli gave me free reign to use anything from the Saved Records and Buick Project catalogue. “Luminare” features in the form of the Onionz remix and the Buick Project Remix of Mark Knight “Insatiable” signifies a point in the CD when the pace begins to thicken and the sounds become a little crazier.

So I’ve got my pile of music, some records from friends, some my own work and others just records I’ve been playing out in 2005. Now it’s time to get this bloody thing mixed. Strangely enough the easiest part of making a mix comp, is the actual mixing bit. The difficult bit is getting the music cleared and licensed within a budget! So a list of 30 possible tracks to use became 15, making my job of what records to use a lot easier! If any of you reading this have seen me DJ, then you will know I’m not one for fancy effects or live re-editing. I prefer to let a record play it’s course and create the damage on the floor that it was designed to do. As long as the tracks are mixed together well, then im happy!

I wrote down all the track names which I wanted to use, thought about how they would fit together and the way in which I wanted the mix to flow. I don’t use intros when I play in clubs I generally just mix into the last guy’s record. Thus I didn’t think the CD should have one either, so the first record on the CD Max Fresh – “Ride Up To The Stars”, plays from the beginning of the record, no fancy intro, no fancy effects just pure house music. I decided that after 3 records the cd should build up pace fairly quickly. After the dubbed out sounds of Hernan Cerbello’s “Don’t Disturb” I was getting into 12am territory, acid lines and the funky bass of Claude Von Stroke, picking up the pace towards the epicentre of the the cd. Onionz was next on the menu (jeez that sounds tacky). His remix of Luminare blew me away the first time I heard it and it’s a shore fire sign that he is going to have a great year. I wanted, at this point, to peak the cd so that I could bring it down slowly towards the end. “Madness,” a favourite of mine all year, which I felt I had to include as it, seems to have been completely overlooked by a lot of people. It’s so good, the melodies, vocal, bass, all make me shake my ass when I play it. I felt the cd should slip slightly deeper now. The cd draws to a conclusion with the awesome sub bassline of “Bodywork” and the amazing deep house melodies of “Fields Of Green” which I felt would give the cd I nice sense of finality.

13 tracks not bad, unedited, in an ideal world of endless time and money I would have liked to have provided a 12-disc box set for the price. Unfortunately I don’t make the rules and I don’t set the prices, so it’s out of my hands. I do hope you like this cd, I spent a long time creating it i hope you spend just as long enjoying it...

Thanks
James