Like many of the high calibre artists, engineers and performers I've been listening to for quite some time, I was first introduced to BT when I was an assistant engineer/ProTools operator/coffee maker/sandwich fetcher at a studio in Melbourne some years ago. Working there was my first long stint in an acoustically treated room with professional equipment, a divine listening environment, and we listened to a lot of music in there whenever we weren't working or creating our own. Some time around 1999ish I started at the studio where a long-time friend of mine was working, BT had just released Movement…

I've not been the healthiest of late, as such this may end up being a rather brief and minimal entry, however the piece of music I've chosen perhaps suits such a dissemination. (This ended up not happening, a fact of which I'm glad).

Underworld's Skym is a piece of music I return to often, not always when I'm in a down cycle of bipolar, but these times are when I listen to it most often. The range of activities I can engage in, things I can watch and listen to reduces significantly at these times and almost everything I…

The title may seem strange for those not familiar with it, but this piece of music is played over the opening titles sequence of Mamoru Oshii's Innocence: Ghost in the Shell 2. The title of the piece is apparently written in antiquated Kanji and is somewhat poetic in form. From the little translation I could find, it seems to translate to 'Song of the dying puppet', in which the term dying in this instance and form takes on an aspect of bitterness or resentment. For this reason, the title may translate more closely to something like 'Ballad of a…

I have a lot of music in my collection. From the first day I started receiving an allowance from my parents, for which I'm massively grateful, I've been buying music. I think that was one of the most important factors that has kept my legitimately buying music throughout my entire life. Before there were mp3s, the only real way to get music was to buy it. Tape was always a terrible medium as far as quality and convenience goes, and CDs were already prolific once I started having access to the kind of money required to afford music. Back then…

Just did a quick comp for a friend who liked some of the chilled-out and groovy stuff I play at work sometimes.
Here's the sampler I made for her.

1. Fragmentorchestra - De muse (6:18)
2. Samantha James - Angel Love (6:24)
3. Aya - Sean (4:02)
4. Deep & Wide - Easy Rider (4:54)
5. dZihan & Kamien - Homebase (edit) (3:57)
6. Afterlife - Clear Blue Sky (4:55)
7. Lux - Northern Lights (5:35)
8. Chicane - Low Sun - Behind the Sun (6:55)
9. Aya - Looking for the Sun (3:28)
10. Flipside - Take Me Back…

Music purchased from Beatport.
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Upon looking over the track-list for this compilation, the first thing you may notice is Grand Tour plays like a Dinka album. Towards the end of 2009 I discovered the trance label Above & Beyond, most likely during a stint on Amazon. After a lot of listening, I found Dinka's remix of Jaytech's Pyramid and was instantly captivated. This was definitely going to be the centrepiece of a new compilation; the track inspired an exhilarating feeling of motion which made it a perfect driving piece and I was hungry for tunes in a…

One of my very first compilations that I mastered on CD was a Summer Days album. A few tracks from it have landed on more recent compilations I've done, however with the exception of Cruise - Summer Edition, most of the compilations I make these days will suit any season. This year though, in December, I was duly inspired enough to make a Summer compilation. Further to the seasonal theme, it is intended exclusively for driving at night. To be honest it probably flies really well during the day, but in the context of this playlist, I regard it as…

In late September 2009, I picked up a punt from the JB Hi-Fi dance-music bargain bin, a collaboration under the name of Voom Voom. It was $7 and I was banking on Peter Kruder to make something good of it but the album ended up not really being to my tastes with the single exception of the opener, Baby³. I absolutely adored it from the get-go and it alone inspired me to build a playlist around it for pure, driving pleasure.

1. Jazzanova vs Har You Percussion Group - Welcome to the Party - Break'n'Bossa vol. 1 (8:09)
2. Men…

The Summer Edition of Cruise started with a whole bunch of left-overs I'd had from the process of auditioning The New Cruise. I've recently gotten heavily into Schema Records and the whole modern bossa movement. As a result, when I was hunting through my CDs and folders, I added a stack of modern bossa tracks. For The New Cruise I gravitated towards the beatier, groovy tracks to suit the vibrant driving feel I wanted, but almost at the same time as playlisting it, I maintained a playlist of the bossa tracks which eventually evolved into Summer Edition. My initial playlist…

In August 2009, I auditioned and created The New Cruise. As with all of my compilations, they form two main purposes; primarily CDA length for running a burn to play in the car (no aux input for the S9), and secondly because I believe in albums/playlists specifically shaped to the 80 minute format.

The title comes from a playlist I made years ago on my iRiver H120 simply called 'Cruise'. If you haven't noticed already, I do a lot of self-referencing (see: Romance Nouveau/Sensual).

1. Groove Armada - Chicago - Vertigo (4:48)
2. Coup deBam - Seirenes feat. Ahmet Misirli…