It’s been an extraordinary year for FACT mixes, even if we do say so ourselves.
The most heavily downloaded of the last twelve months was Autechre’s FACT mix 122, followed closely by Four Tet’s FACT mix 182, but of course these two heavy-hitters are just the tip of a huge and all-singing, all-dancing iceberg. There were FACT mixes breaking new artists, among them Space Dimension Controller, Deadboy and Midland, and brilliant curveballs from more established artists – Kode9’s old-school jungle session, for instance, or Ariel Pink’s creaky treasure chest of sun-bleached pop; DJ Rashad, DJ Spinn and DJ Roc demonstrated why juke is arguably the most exciting and virulent strain of club music in recent memory, while the likes of Veronica Vasicka, Oneohtrix Point Never, Bass Clef, Demdike Stare and El Guincho dug deep into their collections to showcase less dancefloor-oriented but no less compelling selections.
There was a whole host of Detroit house and techno icons weighing in with contributions (Robert Hood, Marcellus Pittman, Mike Huckaby, Rick Wilhite) and an equally strong showing from the Berlin new school (Fiedel, Marcel Dettmann, Shed), all given more than a run for their money by numerous young gunslingers from the UK house and dubstep underground (take a bow XXXY, Altered Natives, LV, Addison Groove, LHF, Lone, Bullion and the rest). No shortage either of outright legends: A Guy Called Gerald, Greg Wilson, The Black Dog and the aforementioned Autechre all took to their decks in the name of FACT this year.
Last week on Facebook and Twitter we asked you, FACT readers, which your favourites of the year were: Four Tet, Kode9, Fantastic Mr Fox and Mogwai were the four names that kept cropping up, but you, like us, felt that Deadboy’s was your favourite. We also asked you who you’d like to see FACT mixes from in 2011; thanks for all your suggestions, and rest assured that many of those artists you nominated are beavering away at their future entries even as we speak.
We’ve now chosen our own favourite FACT mixes of the year, the ones that’s never left the stereo, the ones that just kept on giving. Over the next two pages you can see which exactly made the grade, and listen to all of ’em via the wondrous technology that is Mixcloud.
