There is always one mix comp that owns my summer and by golly gosh, this year’s winner is the fine 2xCD pictured above. SvD blows me away with his focus on placement. He’s also ballsy, dropping sections in quickly and combining tracks I use but would never put together. He plays a spectrum of styles starting off with the Dutch house sound du jour, dropping bombs one after the other and ending up in that familiar territory at the bottom of Disc 2: the trance firestorm. Simply the best of Europe! 9/10

‘Up’ is the deepest album I have heard all year so far. Whether you know System 7 or not let me tell you they add yet another layer of complexity to their whole project with this album. This is a very solid effort and a testament to over 20 years as an outfit. Some of the best tech-house, progressive and trance is right here. These two are consummate professionals who get better with age. You may remember them from the 90s but they’ve been keeping it real the whole time, album after album, just like Hardfloor. If you’ve been sleeping, check this record with guest shots from A Guy Called Gerald and you will not be disappointed. 8/10

Yes, this is another new thinking man’s tech-house long player from Plastic City. This is slightly on the Latin side of things (think TR-727 instead of TR-707) and is continuously mixed. B&K’s big singles ‘Time’ and ‘Fate’ are featured alongside a slew of unreleased cuts. This is somewhere between the first thing you play Saturday morning after you just got paid and you’re about to ball and early evening on a breezy Sunday night on the beach. As always, Plastic City proves again why they’re the number one name in tech-house. 8/10

Tonight’s playlist was:
Alucard – Elation [Solaris]
Basil O’Glue – Grey Scales [Oxygen]
Ben Russell – Fatar [Lost Language]
D-Mad – We Have It [Reset]

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