Not a lot of people know this, but I learned to mix with Carl Cox.
FACT!
It was the summer of 1995 and I’d just gotten my first ever set of decks – two flappy, plastic-fantastic Kam beltdrive turntables and a matching GM25 “Made2Fade” 2 channel mixer.
It was an unlikely combination, in retrospect.
Carl Cox; international superstar DJ and best-selling producer, also known as the three deck wizard.
Me; an awkward stalk of acne, not even a one deck wizard yet, just a convulsive flurry of fingers trying to get the beats to match, while my goofy 90s curtains hairstyle flapped about at 136 bpm.
But with Carl’s assistance, my DJing improved and I finally hit my stride.
Fact Check
At this precise moment in time Carl Cox had reached a turning point in his career. The now-stale stench of “hardcore” still clung to him and he was eager to cleanse himself.
Rave was dead, trance still wasn’t and the scorching summer of jungle was in full swing. What had once been a unified scene had begun to fracture. It was an exciting time, with entire genres materialising every month.
For Carl Cox, it was time to pick a lane.
After years of being seen as a “rave DJ” he knew the time had come to reinvent himself, one of many such reboots throughout his illustrious career.
Released on React Records, the 90s compilation kings, Carl Cox’s F.A.C.T. (Future Alliance of Communication and Technology) was a manifesto in musical form, created as a clear line of demarcation between the whistles and glowsticks of the past, and the gleaming utopian future of techno city.
F.A.C.T was created to prove a point and send a message: a hard record isn’t necessarily ‘hardcore’, a minimal underground track needn’t be boring and music doesn’t have to be commercial and uplifting – Carl Cox, 1995
I’m transcribing these words directly from the back of my original triple vinyl copy of F.A.C.T., still one of my most treasured possessions. There was mix CD version of the album too (which had far more tracks on it) but I’ve only ever listened to it a couple of times.
And it was always a disorientating experience.
Because you see, this was the album I learned to mix with.
Sure, I had a few other records but my vinyl addition didn’t start to truly blossom until after I got my first decks. So I didn’t really have much stuff to mix with and fuck all money left to buy more.
Until Carl Cox came to my rescue with a triple helping of top tunes to mash, mangle and mutilate over and over and over and over as my mates collapsed in hysterics at my pitiful mixing.
Every time I fucked up I’d do a backspin – ill-advised on my shitty Kam’s because that often caused the tone-arm to jump – I’d try pretend like I meant to do that, cue up the second tune again and try once more.
So this is why I tell people I learned to mix with Carl Cox.
He wasn’t actually there with me, but he was there in spirit, providing the inspiration and the tunes.
Every single one of which has a special place in my heart. Moreover, I know every intro, every outro, every break, every buildup, every subtle high-hat pattern, every variation of groove density, every snare, clap, crackle and pop off this holy vinyl trinity as if it was etched onto my very soul.
So, with the release of Carl Cox’s Electronic Generations this month I decided it’s fitting that I inaugurate this series, called bumpy backspins in honour of my “signature” teenage mixing sound, with the album that started it all…
2,000 Earthlings Become One With The Cosmos
F.A.C.T. is, first and foremost, a who’s-who of techno, plus some sugary trance to help the minimal medicine go down.
Of the two, it’s fair to say that the former has held up well, while most of the latter has aged about as well as the album’s cover graphics.
Though there are exceptions.
The Orange Theme, by Cygnus X, is one juicy example. It’s a blissful reimaging of the Wendy Carlos theme from Stanley Kubrik’s A Clockwork Orange meshed with standard trance-style arpeggiated triplets. 28 years later and I still think this one’s the dog’s yarbols.
Then there’s Cactus, from Union Jack, perhaps one of the best tracks to emerge from Simon Berry’s Platipus Records, the label which, for me, released some of the best trance music ever made.
Cactus is everything trance should be; building slowly, gaining momentum, melodic, but not cheesy, spacy and psychedelic but unpredictable and inventive, all underpinned with raw tribal energy.
It builds, it stops and takes the time to breath before unfolding its secrets once more, gradually building up to a powerful crescendo, that perfect moment of pure melodic bliss when it all clicks together to deliver an unforgettable emotional payoff.
And that’s why it works, because it’s EARNED that payoff, no clichés, no gimmicks, just pure trance, as it’s meant to be.
On an even more tribal tip we have Trancesetters’ Secrets Of Meditation (Shi-Take Anti Fromage Club Mix), another masterclass in slow and steady trance perfection with a bubbling bassline and infectious vocal chanting.
On the techno side, but still very much in psychedelic territory, Elektra by The Source Experience, sounds like a vibrant acid trip deep inside an overloading power station.
It’s a high-speed but slow building track that gradually swaddles you in swirling vortices of electromagnetic radiation, pulsing, rippling, crackling all round you and always that tight 909 at the centre of it all, driving it forward amidst epic snare rushes, deep bass rumbles and violent sparks of percussion.
It’s trippy, it’s dubby and it still has the power make hairs stand up like zaps of raw static and send dancefloors into a sweat-drenched frenzy.
Jeff Mills’ Late Night (Mills Mix) was another staple of my earliest beatmatching efforts, it’s a gritty minimal dancefloor damager that carries the Detroit standard with pride.
And from Munich, but channeling the raw, jackin’ sounds of Chicago, DJ Hell’s Like That is the sound of a spongy clubber’s brains being smashed in with a crowbar at three in the morning exactly “li-li-li-lililili-like this!”
Many years later the track got the deep-fried, purple tin techno treatment by Slam. The Glaswegian duo’s 2017 version certainly packs more wallop in the bottom end but lacked the creeping belligerence of DJ Hell’s original.
Of all the fine techno on this album, however, far and away the standout for me is Amphetamine by Drax, aka Thomas Heckmann.
No thesaurus on earth can save me now, other than to say that this tune is one of my top ten techno tracks and I’m confident I’m in good company with this pick.
Amphetamine starts off quite eerie and unsettling. First with those creepy pads before that off-kilter kick comes in.
The alien monster is stalking its latest victim and poised to strike. And once the main hook comes in, it’s too late, you’re trapped in its talons and that melody will live inside your mind forever more.
One of the things I’ve learned as a die-hard technohead is that it’s perfectly acceptable for a coworker to spend the entire day going, “nah nah nah, nah nah nah nana” having heard Kylie Minogue on the radio earlier.
But when I had Jeff Mills’ The Bells stuck in my head and went around absentmindedly humming it that one time they all looked at me like I was an escaped mental patient.
Amphetamine is just like that, it’s quite possibly the most timeless and infectious earworm techno has ever produced, but what makes it all the more compelling is the rich sonic tapestry that weaves around it.
As a burgeoning bedroom DJ full of high hopes and Clearasil gel, the triple kick at the end of each bar used to drive me crazy, since I still struggled with a basic 4/4 grid.
At the halfway point of Amphetamine, the melody is peeled back temporarily revealing a dense ecosystem of strange metallic entities.
Sensing an opening I brought the faders up on Marbles, an atmospheric plunge into acidic psychosis from Plastikman’s Musik, one of the few other records I owned at that time.
Both tracks are in time, the beats don’t just match, they embrace one another and dance as one, Hawtin’s 303 growing more powerful with each slight nudge of the fader, Amphetamine reacting with noisy clangs of arousal before the main melody comes back in at the absolute perfect moment, my heart floods with helium, my fingers tingle with adrenaline, I can’t believe it. I’m mixing it up like a pro!
Nobody else was around to hear it, unfortunately, but that scarcely mattered, all that practicing was finally paying off and the feeling was incredible.
That was the day I graduated from one deck to two deck wizard.
Now all that stood between me and the front cover of Mixmag was a chronic lack of records and a face full of greasy spots.