Astral Plane Radio 002

Professional mix CDs are a dying breed in the era of the internet, but that’s not going to stop outlets like Fabric and Rinse from plying their trade at the, in relative terms, archaic format. The recent Pinch b2b Mumdance effort on Tectonic is a masterpiece and there certainly is still a semblance of hope in the pay-for-mix system. That being said, magazines (FACT, Resident Advisor, The Fader, Mixmag), radio stations (Rinse, NTS, Berlin Community Radio), blogs (Truants, Sonic Router, Hyponik, Liminal Sounds) and personal mix series (Slackk, Slackk, Slackk, Slackk) have dominated the mix market of late and operate at no cost. The advent of easy streaming and effortless file sharing has led to a glut of mix work and has arguably positioned the medium as the go-to path for debuting, testing and flexing new material. Playing out demos live will always have a place in the culture, but it’s undeniable that a choice placement in a mix can rocket a song to ravenous popularity months before its release. And then there’s Boiler Room, the ultimate “wot u call that one?” platform and a space that walks the line between recorded mix-land and live (at least temporally). Which gets me to my final point: what makes a listener gravitate towards a particular mix or mix series?

The idyllic answer would be content and content alone of course, but that’s not necessarily true and the most successful series shine quite a bit of light onto the common selection process. DIS Mag churns out my personal favorite series, a full-bodied audio/visual experience that balances exclusivity, narrative and on-the-ball design work with results that range from tantalizing coherent (Hysterics) to scene-defining (defying?) (J-Cush) to expectation shattering (Palmistry). The design website’s focus is clear with the series and despite the overtly-trendy intonations and lack of curatorial rationality, DIS’ series is consistently effectual. Here at The Astral Plane, we have a small, tightly-wound team and as a result, our curation could also likely be described as tightly wound. Our artwork is simple, consistent and generally understated and while that can’t be said about the often-bombastic sonic content of the series, we attempt to package the series in an unadorned fashion that allows the guesting artist to shine. Astral Plane Radio is a different, less coherent project that attempts to coalesce the “sound” we cover into a biweekly series. It might achieve that, but it will most likely offer a performative aspect to the website that will hopefully give a little glimpse into our world and our perspective. Thank you!

Shawty Lo – Hundredz feat. Ron Browz & Waka Flocka (Kazey VIP Edit)

Candide – Bit (Cromie Remix)

Natasha Kmeto – Deeply (Project Pablo Remix)

DJ Sdunkero – Start Again

DJ Spoko – The Good the Bad and Spoko

Randomer – Residents

Piri Piri – Peak (Jean Nipon Word Office Remix)

Jamez Manuel – Agua (Paul Marmota Remix)

Alex Deamonds – Mellow (Original Limit Mix)

6MAKA6 – Clap Backk (Clap For Me)

Mila J – Smoke, Drink, Break-Up

Bleaker – Bang That

Alex Coulton – Bleep Sequence

Moleskin – We Been Ready

BOY/FRIEND – Adam (Joey Labeija’s Broken Heart of a Down Bottom Edit)

King L + SPF666 – Val Venis + Scorpion Cache (Neana ‘Val Venis’ Mix) (Astronomar Edit)

Sabrina – Clique Traque

Last Japan – Harca feat. Prince Rapid

Samename – Sakura

Tsvi – Doweth

MikeQ & DJ Sliink – The Bitch feat. Miss Jay

DVST – Nezu

Last Japan – Alpha Logic feat. Cliques

Kelis – Friday Fish Fry (Visionist Remix)

Victoria Kim + Imaabs – Volume Up In Pumps

Trap Door & Georgia Girls – Tomahawk

Yo Gotti – King Shit (DJ Knockout Jersey Club Remix)

Helix + DJ Dellish – Linn Engineer (Fraxinus Edit)

Zutzut – Momentos De XTC feat. Lao (CYPHR Remix)

Kakarot – Port Harcourt (Shriekin’s Orchestral Remix)

Last Japan – Eclipse feat. Emma DD

Kelela – Enemy (Kala Remix)

Miss Modular – Earplug

Young Thug & Rich Homie Quan – I Got It

Finn – Keep Calling

Makonnen – I Don’t Sell Molly No More (Celestial Trax Fully Numb Edit)