I listen to a lot of DJs, both in at-home 70-minute mixes & out at multi-hour club sets, but there are very few that can really push a mix that you remember as a mix, rather than a "collection of good songs." The ones who've stuck with me include Larry Levan's live mix at the Paradise Garage released on Rhino, a few Larry Heard mixes I copped from deephousepage.com, DJ Harvey's 1st Sonic Disco mix, Theo Parrish's "These Days & Times" mixes, Shanks & Bigfoot's Aiya Napa mix of millennial 2-step and The Avalanches' "GIMIX" mix. These are pretty much the foundation of my conception of how to construct mixes, how to build and increase tension & release, & how to subvert expectations, tell a story with other people's songs, etc. There are probably a few others I am forgetting, but these DJs created mixes that stick with me.

When it comes to constructing recorded mixes, Maurice Fulton is one of the best. His produced material is pretty hit-or-miss to me; I dig his tracks with Kathy Diamond, his remix of Alice Smith's "Love Endeavor" was incredible -- but then he gets on some weird art-y shit like Mu. But as a DJ, it's hard to front on his talents. He does such an amazing job creating mixes with balance, where each track takes you in a different direction without undermining or feeling out of place, each mix somehow striking that difficult equilibrium where diverse styles & sounds come together to form a complete whole, the tension between genres pulling each track apart while the specific characteristics of each track interlock in such congruous ways that it forms some sort of counter-pressure, and each mix hits a perfect symmetry of forward motion.

The mixes really do feel like journeys, where by the end you look back & realize all the different places you've been without ever feeling jarringly shifted (unless of course, a jarring shift was the point).

For example, his mix for Resident Advisor managed to include an edit of Barbra Streisand's "Promises," an elevator muzak cover of (Maurice Fulton-co-produced) Crystal Waters track "Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless)," and mnml techno all in the space of a single set. But through timing & context & the simple characteristics of each track, the mix really felt like a perfectly logical construct.

Download Fulton's latest mix for Beats in Space here. It's the kind of thing yr gonna want to sit with -- he plays out the full tracks, lets the full songs really settle and breathe, not at all interested in fancy blends & quick transitions -- but it's most enjoyable if you have patience & sort of let the story unfold. I think my favorite stretch of the mix starts with Damon Harris' "It's Music," a disco classic that Levan used for his Garage sets, through what sounds like the restrained sexuality of Coco Steel & Lovebomb's strutting "Touch It," but isnt, which is finally released after a long blend into Letta Mbulu's powerful "Kilimanjaro," where the mix feels like it really bursts free.

If you enjoy this, I also recommend checking the podcasts he releases monthly for his Bubbletease Communications label. Basically, 30 minute mixes of unreleased tracks by that label. You can find them here.