Modern & Im/material Things

Last night, I read that Paris Hilton is launching her career as a professional DJ. Needless to say, I had a “Come to Jesus” moment with myself and decided if she can DJ, I can certainly learn to do it. So last night, I made my first ever DJ mix.  Because I’m a total nerd and project oriented, I am giving myself a ‘concept’ to work with to keep my DJ efforts disciplined and educational. This first mix isn’t perfect - I’m still learning to work on my transitions and seamless beat matching, etc. I should probably stick with one genre to keep things easy but where’s the fun in that? 

The concept?

Introducing “Summer Reading Playlists,”  in which I teach myself how to DJ by making mixes for the books of my summer reading. Mix One, “Regarding the Jams of Others” is based on the journals Susan Sontag kept in her teens and twenties. The book is Reborn and it’s pretty great. Sontag was a sharp, snarky, and brilliant budding lesbo in her youth. You get insight into her thoughts on motherhood and marriage. Weirder still is that the journal is edited by her son, who is mentioned quite a bit in the journals. 

Some of the artists in the mix include: Thunderheist, Body Language, Flying Lotus Burial, Nicolas Jaar, Portishead, Rhye, Delorean, Holy Ghost!, and Toro y Moi

And my favorite Missy Elliot song ever is on it too (“Let Me Fix My Weave”)

I’ll post a full track list in a few days. The mix can be downloaded directly from the my Soundcloud page in case you’re interested. Hopefully others will get some entertainment out of my “educational” summer project. For a first stab, it’s not all that bad. The second half is smoother than the first half but I gotta start somewhere, right? Someone, somewhere, might even think it’s kinda good. Either way, it’s an experiment in learning something new!

Playlist below (Screenshot)