TRUANTS

VOLUME 14: DJ NEOTERIC

Different continents, different timezones, a parallel universe, nothing can even get close standing in the way of DJ Neoteric‘s dedication. The Vancouver-based music junkie paused his sleep and crawled out of bed at five in the morning to talk to us about Truancy 14, a record-breaking 80 minutes blend up of almost 40 tracks. There’s no way you haven’t met and encountered Neoteric during internet travels yet: He’s done a Mystery Mix and has just made a compilation called Turned On: Volume 1 for our brothers over at Discobelle, he is involved with vinyl project dubsided, runs the White Light Mix Series (of which he did one himself last January), and on top of that you can stream his own creations from his MySpace. That’s one hell of a Curriculum Vitae! Being the music addict that he is, he finds it very important to turn people on to good music. In his eyes mystery mixes are ideal, as they really force you to get into the music, the labels, being on top of tracks and where they come from. Although the track list is no mystery in this case, it will definitely have you participating in many ways – it bounces from new to old through different genres with a constant summery feeling, and definitely brings something new to the table for everyone. Read more and stream here.

VOLUME 13: SAM TIBA

Paris-based producer and DJ SAM TIBA knows how he has to do with his decks, described by his management as melting B-More and Jamaican riddims and easily shifting between a 70 BPM differences in his live shows. His main target is to get the spectators to shake their booty, and all will be tip-top. His holding in the Club Cheval’s Valentine Mix showed us that Sam Tiba has a good knowledge of corny and saccharine tracks. With TRUANCY VOLUME 13: SAM TIBA he’s just stating the obvious. The man is all about good music and smooth mixing – or rather, as he says himself, he’s about whatever. Whatever, someone providing us exclusives on this level and ending their mix with the full length of Lil Wayne’s Me And My Drank, thus having Weezy cover 1/7 of the mix, deserves everlasting love.. Read more and stream here.

VOLUME 12: DJ GENERIK

For Truancy numero twelve we invited Melbourne’s finest: Tyson O’Brien. Tyson is better known as DJ Generik; next to his monthly club night on the Southern Hemisphere you might know him from his hilarious video interview with Busy P and other work he’s done for One Love. He also has a little radio show at JJJ, previously made some splendid remixes for Drop The Lime, Yothu Yindi and Sharam Jey and has an equally splendid amount of frequent flyer miles to his name. None of us have had the honor to see him play live yet but what his mixtapes make us believe it’s that his sets are all about having fun and good music. The mix is an hour of festivity filled with little treats and has a little bit of everything in it: from funk soul to some Trouble&Bass (also including his own remix of Set Me Free at the end of the mix) and even EURODANCE! This mix really fits with good weather and good moods, and if you’re not in a good one it will definitely cheer you up. Read more and stream here.

VOLUME 11: NGUZUNGUZU

It’s a safe assumption to make that NGUZUNGUZU have a huge future ahead of them with all their upcoming releases, productions and remixes. So it’s with a lot of pleasure and excitement that we’d like to introduce you to our eleventh mixtape: TRUANCY volume 11 by NGUZUNGUZU! The mix is filled with all kinds of tracks that the two of them are excited about now. Asma & Daniel tried to keep a laid-back vibe with a lower BPM to try something different and give tracks that they don’t usually play a chance to shine. The ideal setting that one should blast this mixtape to? “Right when you wake up, when you’re walking to the train or when you’re riding in your car to the beach.” Read more and stream here.

VOLUME 10: MILKRUN

Milkrun consider track selection a very important element about live sets and mixtapes and tell us that their mixtapes are a concentrate of what they do in DJ-sets. When it comes to this exclusive mix they did for TRUANTS specifically, Milkrun’s main goal and thought behind the mix is to show their vision of a good trip in a club. This doesn’t necessarily refer to drugs as they’re not really into that themselves, but just playing out these tracks real loud should be a real evasion on its own. These tracks can seem smooth on a first listen, but if you crank up that volume button, you’ll realize that they’ll help you reach a whole other dimension. So little TRUANTS kids, our must-have tip for this mix is ignoring your neighbourly love for an evening or two and crank this mix up real loud! Read more and stream here.

VOLUME 9: KENTON SLASH DEMON

Some of you may have already heard of these two guys from When Saints Go Machine, the critically acclaimed Danish indie band who have seen huge success worldwide, especially with the release of their debut album Ten Makes A Face, but not many of you might have heard of Silas and Jonas’s more club orientated percussive sound which they produce under the name KENTON SLASH DEMON. I’d be incredibly shocked if you haven’t stumbled across or heard of them considering the amount of support they garnered in 2009 with the likes of Brodinski featuring their track Khattabi on his Bugged Out Mix CD and artists such as Luciano, Laurent Garnier, Brandon Sek, Camel & Mowgli all turning up for the party and dropping their tracks, and rightly so, as their Khattabi EP released late last year on Tartelet Records is a fine bomb of refreshing tech house goodness. With a new EP titled Sun out soon some time in May and the previews sounding rather tasty it looks like the Kenton Slash Demon boys are well on their way as becoming one of the most forward thinking acts on the now booming tech-house scene. Read more and stream here.

VOLUME 8: LAST JAPAN

When we first told you of Last Japan at the end of November we promised to get back to you soon, and here we are, (finally!) sticking to our word. Meet Last Japan: Our rockstarr from London has had tons of things going on musically, and on top of that he’s still been finding time to run some marathons to keep himself active all over the place. As far as music is concerned, Last Japan has had a few releases on Southern Fried Records and the All Around the World label (cofunded by Atlantic, Sony and Universal). He’s also made a sweet mix for Rinse FM and, as all you fellow Skins-a-holics must know by now, his remix for Crystal Fighters’ Xtatic Truth was featured on E4′s Skins recently. He has promised a lot of musical activity in the upcoming year and his recent ongoing releases and features all seem like a kosher lift-off to get it going! Being only twenty he is still spending his weekdays at the Academy for Contemporary Music, but he is currently working on his dissertation so it won’t be long for several remixes to see the daylight. He has shared with a few collaborations for his debut album that he’s working on right now, but the details remain veiled. Read more and stream here.

VOLUME 7: GUILLAUME BERG

Meet Guillaume Berg. He’s the Paris based promoter and resident DJ of the Jerkin’n'Out parties at Paris Social Club. You might already know Guillaume from his involvement with Fluokids and his film production work for Konbini (he just so happened to be the producer of my favorite Heartsrevolution video). Guillaume has been DJing for around 3 years and sometimes DJs with Pharrell Arot under the alias LMMYW. He’s also been currently hard a work producing new tracks for the last four months. For now he’ll keep Parisians dancing with his multicoloured DJ sets, which are mainly based on improvisation. Monsieur Berg recently supplied the TRUANTS crew with a brand new mixtape entitled TRUANCY VOLUME 7: GUILLAUME BERG (What Ya Know About…). He approached this mix as the soundtrack to a drive on the highway in a car, and he basically describes it as a big road trip from California to Amsterdam accompanied by a clan of dinosaurs with guns. Gangsta house is the key! Read more and stream here.

VOLUME 6: RAPH

Raphael Grau, who is better known under the abbreviation of his name, Raph, is a DJ based in Brussels. He’s a part of the Forma.T crew, being one of their resident DJs, and recently came back from a three months internship in Paris where he worked at the much adored Institubes/Sound Pellegrino office. As we all know the latter is recently killing it with a lot of solid releases but so is the Forma.T organisation who recently threw a party for their four years anniversary. Raph played alongside Surkin, L-Vis 1990 and DJ Funk (who is still alive) amongst others. It’s safe to say that Raph already has had a great year, and we’re pretty sure it won’t take him too long until he attacks the electronic music scene in the rear and enchants us all with his knowledge of music and artistry of mixing. To give you a small preview on what Raph is all about, we serve you TRUANCY VOLUME 6: RAPH, a mix made by the man himself. Read more and stream here.

VOLUME 5: ART NOUVEAU

When Andreas Starosse and Julien Salman met at a Renaissance Man gig in Paris, it was a match made in heaven. They decided to create music together which resulted in their project called Art Nouveau. Although they had only been producing together for a a very short period of time they didn’t restrain from sending their track out to Yolanda Be Cool who digged it straightaway and a surprise awaited in their inboxes: The Australians were happy to release it on their label Sweat It Out! and so it happened. The two have combined their powers in a sweet fifty minute mix, combining twelve songs varying from Heinrichs & Hirtenfellner’s easy going track Down to a more danceable track by Sandy Huner. It’s a perfectly built up minimal pearl that is bound to keep you interested. A lovely listen! Read more and stream here.

VOLUME 4: QOSO

Qoso has been on the move since we spoke to him. After some excellent remixes for Radioclit and Milke, sweating mixtapes (Happy Slappin, Secousse and Bayoobayoo) and a handful of tracks playlisted by Brodinski, Jess & Crabbe and Zombie Disco Squad even before they were officially out, Qoso recently released his very first EP on Fool House called Expo. Expo includes three diamonds of productions, remixed by the likes of Gary Beck and Clement Meyer. Qoso, Fool Houses clean cut yet wild child, shares the obsession of his generation for exoticism and rave music, taking this daringly and teaches young people the way to take dancing seriously. Being an ex-turntablist, Qoso knows how to renew the taste for samples in techno music, as a composition tool and not as a simple gimmick. Read more and stream here.

VOLUME 3: MELÉ

Hailing from Merseyside, Melé, also known as Krissy Peers is arguably on the forefront of extremely young and talented producers bursting their way onto the scene at the moment. His quick rise to fame boils down to how varied his production style and DJ-sets are encompassing a whole host of genres ranging from dubstep, garage, UK funky, and house, flawlessly mixing between them without at any time sounding overdone, something that isn’t easy accomplished. 2009 saw him have a big year with a debut EP released on Sound of Sumo and tracks such as Mugged and Flexi supported and charted by the likes of Brodinski, Sinden and Hervé to name a few. He continues to shine through in 2010 with two new EP’s out soon on Mixpak Records and Sinden’s new label Grizzly. Read more and stream here.

VOLUME 2: NT89

Italian-born producer Nima Tahmasebi has earned himself quite a few titles such as the studio assistant of the Bloody Beetroots and Lazy Ants, but is best known for his work as NT89. For those of you who have mysteriously missed out on this gem- over the past few years NT89 has had his share of own releases and a fair amount of remixes put out on prestigious labels such as Pias/Sony Music, Turbo Recordings, Boxon and Southern Fried and has been favourited by all of your top DJs. Nima recently revealed in his BBC Radio 1 session that his current musical cup of tea should be flavoured up with a lot of hype and pounding. So far, 2010 is treating this Rome-based talent well as his Pumpin EP, in collaboration with DISTRAKT, was released three weeks back and has been running out of vinyl stocks and deservedly skyrocketing charts over at Juno Records. Read more and stream here.

VOLUME 1: RIOTKID

Our first volume has been compiled by the freshest French kid himself– RiotKid. Manaré Coly, whose young age is worthy of inducing extreme jealousy in most of us, has been dominating dancefloors all over Europe lately. His work takes influences from all around the world and succesfully incorporates these different cultures into a razor-sharp sound. One second you’ll be treated to pouncing organic tech-house, whipped into some sort of B-More breakdown, then the teetotal is combined with slices of something your great granddad might have gotten down to. He has combined his powers in this solid exclusive that will take you from Renaissance Man to Slagsmålsklubben back to Mowgli, with some sweet influences from every continent and you will find some surprising twists halfway, too. Read more and stream here.