The Blue Liquid Mix (for Rose Quartz)

I did a mix for the Rose Quartz blog (click here), with a hi-tech / future feel and featuring several artists you might not have heard of but who are worth a listen. I actually put my back into this mix - it's got wavs and crossfades and EQ and everything and even a tiny bit of beat-mixing in it. Here's my blurb and tracklisting, Soundcloud with download below it:

The Blue Liquid Mix explores a recent hi-tech / future feel, but one that goes beyond vaporwave and dystopian pop art. The tracks here are bizarre, beguiling and sometimes disturbing, and yet they’re also remarkably subtle, detailed, and beautiful in genuinely alien ways that might hardly seem to make sense at first.

It’s so named because many of the artists on the mix have some connection to the idea of water, be it in their name (‘I AM WATER’, ‘Lōtic’ – whose name means ‘inhabiting or situated in rapidly moving fresh water’), the title of tracks they’ve done on the mix (‘Aquilateral’) or elsewhere, or their record label’s ocean imagery (Indigo Bunting, on Coral Records). More broadly, it’s part of this corner of web culture’s recent interest in elemental matter and its formal properties, in the science of flow, fluidity and freshness – the stuff of life, but not the old, gnarled Nature of yesterday. This blue liquid courses through the elegant engineering of tomorrow’s ecosystems, where organics merge seamlessly with strange new machines: a water-based but future biology.

The mix is divided into three parts – two outer parts mostly in a dance or dance-like mode and an inner section, focused on downtempo beats, that steadily increases in speed and crystalline complexity. Two sound collages by Diamond Black Hearted Boy bridge the inner section changes. Shout out to the labels Fluorescent Records, Sewage Tapes, Aural Sects, UNO NYC, Coral Records, Zoology Records, Mishka NYC, AMDiscs, Nightcore Records and #Feelings. To Tiny Mix Tapes, to the Tumblrs of Coolmemoryz and Ghoststream, and of course to Rose Quartz.

00:00 - I AM WATER: ‘DREAMB0Y’ (from DREAMB0Y - http://auralsects.bandcamp.com/album/dreamb0y)
4:11 - Lōtic: 'Rendez-vous' (from More than Friends EP - http://feelingseverywhere.bandcamp.com/album/more-than-friends-ep)
7:17 - Nguzunguzu: 'Drop Cage' (from Warm Pulse EP)
10:09 - Karmelloz: 'Kirstin's Song' (from ArchaiC - http://sewagetapes.bandcamp.com/album/archaic)
12:21 - Arca: 'Meditation' (from Stretch 2)
14:40 - Diamond Black Hearted Boy: 'Playstation Monk™' (from SoundCloud - http://soundcloud.com/diamondblackheartedboy)

16:00 - BLK SMK: 'Goodnight Everyone' (from Nuggets to Dunk EP - http://flurex.org/album/nuggets-2-dunk-ep)
18:10 - 私はやせすぎだったら: 'Palace' (from 私はやせすぎだったら - http://sewagetapes.bandcamp.com/album/--2)
20:05 - a i r s p o r t s: 'Dont Need U' (from a i r s p o r t s - http://sewagetapes.bandcamp.com/album/a-i-r-s-p-o-r-t-s , http://www.amdiscs.com/releases/airsports-amdd107/ ©2012 AMDISCS & a i r s p o r t s)
22:21 - O L D M O M S: 'SWAMP LIFE' (from MELT JAMS EP - http://oldmoms.bandcamp.com/)
24:43 - Glass Eyes: 'Makes New Life' (from Approval - http://zoologyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/approval)
26:52 - The-Drum: '/BZE' (from Sense Net EP - http://mishkanyc.bandcamp.com/album/sense-net-ep)
30:19 - Diamond Black Hearted Boy: 'e², (Formulation of the Female Species)' (from SoundCloud - http://soundcloud.com/diamondblackheartedboy)

31:14 - Shisa and Choongum: 'Hearts (GH Remix)' (from Hearts - http://shisa.bandcamp.com/album/hearts , http://www.amdiscs.com/releases/shisa-choongum-hearts-2012-amdd109/ ©2012 AMDISCS & Shisa & Choongum)
35:43 - Indigo Bunting: 'Fhlostan Paradise' (from #Seapunk Volume 1 - http://coralrecords.bandcamp.com/album/seapunk-volume-1-limited-edition-cd-r-splash001)
38:50 - HONEYCOMA: 'Disconnect' (from HONEYCOMA - http://nightcorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/honeycoma)
42:13 - Khan Kurra: 'Aquilateral' (from World View EP - http://flurex.org/album/world-view-ep)
45:49 - Pepsi7up: 'Over the Rainbow 1' (from Soundcloud - http://soundcloud.com/pepsi7up)