Decade - The Mix

Like Scion's mix of Basic Channel's output (Arrange and Process Basic Channel Tracks), Decade: The Mix blends together ten years of techno from Berlin's Superstition label with the help of the slick Ableton Live program. Ableton Live allows the user to bend and fold tracks in a way that would be impossible with turntables, but here DJ and producer Mijk Van Dijk uses it more like a traditional DJ (just one that has a couple extra arms). While Scion's goal may have been to recontextualize a label's catalog, Van Dijk chooses to celebrate it, giving us 68 tracks in 70 minutes, and only slightly manipulating the source. It's not a bad choice, since the kind of techno Superstition puts out isn't exactly minimal; it's more robust with full melodies, a bit of extra filigree, and almost always a driving thump of a beat. Van Dijk paces the whole thing well, dropping trippy breaks as relief here and there, and the final track has a beautiful, hypnotic finish. So many great combinations of thumping rhythms and glistening hooks fly by so fast it's hard not to want some of the tracks to go on longer. As both a label sampler that whets the appetite for more, and a driving mix to get lost in, it definitely works.