This was initially going to be a summer mix, but when it started to sound like a safari we decided to explore the terrain.

1. Deeper - Nacho Lovers (w. Jump In The Pool (Wild Geese Remix) - Friendly Fires)
2. Shark In The Water (Zombie Disco Squad Remix) - VV Brown
3. King Of Africa (Homework Edit) - Douster (w. What Happened To That Boy (Inst.) - Birdman)
4. Kid Conga (feat. MC Miltinho) (Dubbel Dutch Remix) - Daniel Haaksman
5. United Groove (Sound Pellegrino Thermal Team VIP Dub) - L-Vis 1990
6. Daylight - D.A.M.B.
7. Kiwi (Tony Senghore Remix) - Para One
8. Train to Bamako (Canblaster Remix) - Myd

The Wildlife Mix by Its Overture

The second installment of our little blend-centric mix series (see intro/download Part 1 here), this one has a slightly darker, more melancholy feel than the first and incorporates a wider range of genres. Sorry if that sounds like a tag line for some organic yuppie coffee……anyways, enjoy the mix!

Why Can’t We Be Blends (Part 2) by Its Overture

Tracklist:

1. In Love With You - Alan Braxe & Fred Falke (+) elements of Kanye West’s “Love Lockdown” & Q-Tip’s “Barely In Love”

2. Secret Message - Rasputina (+) Slang Teacher - Wide Boy Awake

3. Ring My Bell - Anita Ward (+) Got Ya Hooked (Instrumental) - Three 6 Mafia (+) Airtight (Instrumental) - Aeroplane

4. The Lion Sleeps Tonight - The Tokens (+) Windowlicker - Aphex Twin

5. What’s On Your Mind - Information Society (+) High Together - Siriusmo

As you can tell from the above flyer, Macabee and I are spinning at Fontana’s this Saturday with the inimitable Voidstar. The aim is to play all types of crazy, bass-centric fire (hence the title).

Over the past few weeks we’ve put out some mixes to help promote and prepare for the gig, starting with Macabee’s The Scrubstep Mix (which set the bar pretty high) and continuing with two(!!) nasty “Base”-related mixes from Voidstar.

So to close it out, I put together this short (as in under 8 minute) mix combining the genre I’m most familiar with (hip hop) with one that I was probably the least familiar with (drum and bass). But with the help of my aforementioned counterparts, I’ve been steadily receiving a crash course in the best of Drum and Bass and all its correlating sub-genres. Recognizing the long standing link between itself and rap, I grabbed a bunch of New York anthems, made some remixes and blends and came up with this mix……

5 Boro Bass Mix by Its Overture

1. New York State Of Mind (Its Overture’s DnB Edit) - Nas (+) Mr Majestik (drums) - Calibre & High Contrast
2. Liquid Swords - Gza (+) Tough At The Top (drums) - EZ Rollers
3. Bucktown - Smif-N-Wessun (+) Tough At The Top (drums, bass) - EZ Rollers
4. Vital Nerve (Its Overture’s DnB Edit) - Company Flow (+) Railing (drums) - Roni Size
5. Takeover instrumental - Jay-Z/Kanye West (+) Overload - Future Cut

…if you download all 4 of our mixes you’ll have a sense of about 50% of what will be going down on Saturday…..so come out to hear the rest!!!

The Scrubstep Mix by Its Overture

Base!!! Mix by Voidstar

Eat Drums Mix by Voidstar

With the hopes of keeping content flowing consistently, here’s a quick mix I recently came up with. I’ve been using the term Scrubstep to describe a fairly new crop of Dubstep-y tracks that generally favor lush and blissed-out sounds over the genre’s typical dark and grimy ones.

1. Hello (Whole Sick Remix) (It’s Overture Edit) - AC Slater
2. Black And Blue (Caspa Remix) - Miike Snow
3. Animal (Jakwob Remix) - Penguin Prison
4. Hyph Mngo - Joy Orbison
5. White Lies (Rusko’s Euphoria Mix) - Mr. Hudson
6. I Remember (Caspa Remix) - Deadmau5
7. You Used To Hold Me (Nero Remix) - Calvin Harris
8. Rabbit Heart (Slof Man & Jor-One Remix) - Florence & The Machine
9. You’re On My Mind Baby - Rusko
10. You’re Not Alone (Kill Light Remix) - Olive

Right-click and Save Link As:
The Scrubstep Mix

In between our “official” mixes which (due to our neurotic nit picking process) take forever to complete, we’ll hopefully have a more consistent flow of these quick and humble little mixes, going volume by volume and lazily titled Homegrown Mixes. This first one consists primarily of instrumental house, disco and italo songs that I’m a fan of. It’s not perfect but that’s kind of the point. And considering its fast turnaround time, I’m pretty happy with it….

1. House Of Tribe - Jazzy Jeff
2. Gabryelle - DJ Technic
3. Tonight (Short Edit) - The Juan Maclean
4. Fine Mouche (DOP Mix) - Brigitte Fontaine
5. Dysk Dzokej (Zambon Disco Edit) - Franek Kimono
6. Let’s Be Young - Quentin Harris
7. Spaghetti Circus - Still Going
8. Feeling For You (Les Rhythmes Digitales Mix) - Cassius
9. Planet Deep (Solid Groove Mix) - Only Freak
10. Glass House - Eli Escobar
11. Life Is A Jungle - Kikrokos

Right-click and Save Link As:
Homegrown Vol. 1

This mix originally started as a live set I did last spring. With a little help from my friends I recreated it on Ableton and this is the result:

1. Sleepyhead (Streetlab mix) - Passion Pit
2. Fragment Two (The First Picture) (Jesse Rose Remix) - Kenneth Bager
3. Ulysses (Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve Remix) - Franz Ferdinand
4. Dancing Therapy (12″ Mix) - International Music System
5. Someone Great (DJ Eli Dubby Remix) - LCD Soundsystem
6. My Love Sees You (Classixx Remix) - Beni
7. The World’s Greatest (The Touch Bootleg) - R. Kelly
8. When We Were Young (Breakbot Remix) - Sneaky Sound System
9. Destination Pt. II (Radio Edit) - Damn Arms
10. Animal (Treasure Fingers Remix) - Miike Snow
11. Daylight (Mano Remix) - Matt & Kim
12. Deep Down Inside - Emynd & Bo Bliz
13. Get Money Kids (Nacho Lovers Walk Remix) - Pase Rock
14. Untrust Us - Crystal Castles
15. AA 24/7 (Original Mix) - Dance Area
16. Do You Mind (Crazy Cousins Remix) - Paleface & Kyla
17. Touch Too Much (Fake Blood Remix) - Hot Chip
18. The Human Touch (Sidechains Remix) - Heads We Dance

Right-click and Save Link as:
The Smoke Alarm Mix

As painfully self-important sounding as they are, I’m going to attempt the mini-bio, but only because it plays into an explanation of this mix I’m posting. so bear with me:

I got my first pair of turntables in 1997. They were those cheap back-of-The-Source-mag belt drives (i.e not conducive to “turntablism”) so I gravitated towards the Ron G-Kid Capri-Dirty Harry style of putting blends together early on. eventually i graduated to technics, got my “doubles” game on and all that, but never quite had the coordination to be a wannabe X-Executioner (r.i.p roc raida). So I stuck with the blend-heavy format, which years later, culminated in this mix A Perfect Blend

Around the time I was finishing that up, I met Macabee, who had an even crazier collection of records than I, and a few weeks later we put together our first little collabo mix: 12 Minute Madness. We were happy about it, we chose the name Its Overture, and we’ve been rolling with it ever since.

Soon after that first mix, the term, the scene, the fun and the mess of the “mashup” came into being.  Needless to say, there was a binge, there was a purge and now many-a-wise-dj-culture commentators would agree that the mashup is dead. and as far as putting random black album acapellas over any old classic rock loop, I wholeheartedly, and with extreme pleasure, agree.

Despite that, neither Macabee nor I have strayed from our early proclivity for making blends. The acapella-over-instrumental formula alone doesnt always suffice but between that, long mixes, the wonders of ableton and the impatience of simply playing songs, the blend is a part of DJing that I cant ignore. As such, there are a handful that I find release-worthy, and this mix contains 5 of them. To combat the inevitable “mashup mix” branding, we took it upon ourselves to name the following series of mixes the defiant, albeit corny, title “Why Can’t We Be Blends”. They’re each going to run about 15 minutes a peice and we’re aiming to put together at least 3 or 4 for now but who knows. So without further disclaiming, I present to you “Why Can’t We Be Blends Part 1″.

Why Can’t We Be Blends Part 1 (Mediafire link)

1. Shoulda Let You Go (Eli Escobar Remix) - Keyshia Cole (+) Changes (Larry Levan Mix) - Imagination
2. Set It Off - Strafe (+) Part 1 - LCD Soundsystem
3. Do It To The Music - Raw Silk (+) Nasty - JR FLO (remix of Nas’ “Memory Lane”)
4. On A Day Like Today (Todd Terje Edit) - Gichy Dan (+) Declaration Instrumental - De La Soul
5. Saturday Love - Cherrelle & Alexander O’Neal (+) Wanting Love (Romeo Erotic Remix) - Starpoint

Three of our favorite affiliates, Theory Events, Voidstar, & 100dbs posted this mix of ours a while back….you can download it directly off the Theory or Voidstar sites and dbs’ is available if you sign up for his podcast…..or you can grab it below….

It’s a dense 20 minutes:

Escape (LA Riots Remix V8) – Toxic Avenger
The Cricket Scores – Boy 8-Bit
Fuk It Up – DJ Kue
I Want Your Soul (Fake Blood Remix) – Armand Van Helden
Ready For The Floor (LA Riots & Villains Remix) – Hot Chip
Pounds Of Dro – Jamtech Foundation feat Busy Signal
3 Days Awake – Lytz
TAKK – Revolte
This Is Acid/Oh (A-Trak Remix) – Maurice/Boys Noize
Fruit Salad (Round Table Knights Remix)/Woah – Gameboy/Gamegirl /GRUM
Turbo Love – Bag Raiders
Keep Dancing/Cross The Dancefloor – Goon & Koyote/Treasure Fingers

Right-Click and Save Link As:
The Facemelter Mix

We put this mix together almost two years ago, basically just to have a dance set to hand out that was somewhat universal….its got blends, classics, remixes and some personal favorites.

1. Magnificent/Eurodans – Mos Def Ft. Vinia Mojica/Todd Terje
2. Heart It Races (Trizzy’s Rusty Tin Can Mix) – Architecture in Helsinki
3. Sum Different Ish Reworked – DJ Sizzahandz
4. Da Funk (Casino Inc Remix) – Daft Punk
5. Wind It Up/Crimewave (CC vs. Health Remix) – Gwen Stefani/Crystal Castles
6. Around the World – Daft Punk
7. If You Need A Friend – DJ Eli
8. We Are Your Friends – Justice vs. Simian
9. Me & U (DJ Eli Remix) – Cassie
10. Music Sounds Better With You – Stardust
11. 10 Dollar – M.I.A.
12. B-Boy Underground – Digikid.84
13. Don’t Stop the Music – Rihanna
14. Feel the Heat – Steed Lord
15. Ring Of Fire (Night Facilities Remix) – Johnny Cash
16. The Stepper – Sammy Bananas
17. Mr. Ice Cream (Miami Horror Kids Out On the Street Mix) – Soft Tigers
18. Fancy Footwork (Guns-N-Bombs Remix) – Chromeo
19. Crank That (DJ Riz Remix) – Soulja Boy
20. Bubblegum (Hatchmatik Birdflu in June Remix) – Thunderheist
21. Calabria – Enur Ft. Natasja
22. Miscommunication (Bloody Beetroots Remix) – Timbaland
23. Pro Nails (Bag Raiders Remix) – Kid Sister
24. Stretch Can’t Get Enough (B-more Bandwagon Remix) – Depeche Mode

Click the Divshare logo to download…..

For our first post, our first full-length CD “The Haze Of The 80’s”.  This mix of our 80’s/hip hop blends has been collecting dust for almost four years, but we hope you’ll still like it.

The Haze of the 80’s