75 - Ektoplazm 3 - Cryptozoology

This is a slower, slightly darker and moodier mix from the excellent collection of Creative Commons licensed Psy-trance at http://www.ektoplazm.com.

One of the things I’ve discovered in mixing is that you need a really large collection of music in order to be able to make good mixes. I want the tracks to seamlessly blend together, which requires that they’re in the same key and have similar style and pace. You can’t go mixing Firestarter and Barbie Girl even if they’re the same key and speed, you know… It’s common for me to select only one track in twenty in the right BPM and key.

My collection of Ektoplazm trance is still not very large, which means that I have less choice. I’d have more choice if I ignored the key, but having recently reviewed several old mixes (which used an earlier version of MixMeister which didn’t tell you what key the track was in) and cringed at some of the clumsy transitions, I didn’t want to just pick randomly. It’s hard going between complementary keys, though – e.g. C to G or F – because even then clashes can occur.

So to try something completely different, I tried going up the chromatic scale – C, C#, D, D#, E, etc. – and it worked! In general this style of dark, minimal psy-trance often doesn’t have a lot going on melodically at the start and end of the track. There were a few transitions that sounded a bit odd, but mostly it works well. And I got to end back where we started from, too, which I thought was kind of neat.

This mix is released under a Creative Commons Noncommercial license.

Completed 26 Nov 2013

Styles

Psy-Trance

Files

75 - Ektoplazm Mix 3 - Cryptozoology.mp3 - 160 kbps - 91.6 MB
75 - Ektoplazm Mix 3 - Cryptozoology.80kbps.ogg - 80 kbps - 50.9 MB
75 - Ektoplazm Mix 3 - Cryptozoology.ogg - 160 kbps - 99.3 MB

Total play length: 01:19:44

Track listing

Track	Artist	Title	BPM	Length
1	Stoned Aliens	Magic Dream	136.00	09:00
2	Jekyll	Confirmative Illusions	136.00	10:40
3	Nü Tao	Caballero Ciruelo	133.00	07:13
4	Tijah vs Diza	Chaos Secret	135.00	07:53
5	Neuromodulation	Depth Of Measurement	137.00	06:40
6	Otkun	Infection V2	133.00	07:02
7	Ellis Thomas	Neverland	132.00	07:00
8	Harmless Prankster	Conundrum	134.00	06:49
9	HelixNebula	Riding The Comet	135.00	08:39
10	Megiddo	Rainha Do Mar	134.00	07:13
11	Zentrix	Era Of Terra	135.00	06:59
12	Short Circuit	Floating On A Dream	135.00	06:36
13	Ellis Thomas	Monster City	132.00	06:21
14	Stoned Aliens	Magic Dream	136.00	09:00

I welcome any suggestions, criticisms and recommendations for new music to listen to. I will consider doing specific mixes for people, but this is only a hobby. Hope to hear from you.