Continuing our series of posts speaking to the guys and gals who topped our Mixcloud Best of 2009 lists, this week we talk to Tim Noakes from Dazed & Confused magazine. He’s the man behind the superb “Electronica 2000-2009” mix – hands down the most popular Cloudcast of 2009 on Mixcloud.
Who are you and what do you do?
I’m Tim Noakes, Music Editor and Deputy Editor of Dazed & Confused magazine. I also run the blogs SocialStereotype.com and SynthHero.com. I live on a Cloud in East London. An electro Mixcloud.
Every month I do a new music playlist for DazedDigital.com that showcases music from the latest issue of Dazed and also fresh tracks I’ve been sent, bought, and found online. In the run up to Xmas 2009 I thought it would be cool to do a big retrospective mix of some of the most innovative songs and trends in electronic music over the last decade, from Grime to banging Ed Banger electro and beyond. As you can imagine that’s quite a task to set yourself, and after I had whittled it down to 750 songs I realised that it was near impossible to achieve, so I just thought I’d make an epic mix that I’d like to listen to on my iPhone, that rose in tempo. I guess I could have squeezed more then 70 tracks into the 2 1/2 hours, but then it would have become a bit too jumpy, and above all I wanted people to play this while they were getting really messed up having some wholesome family fun over the holidays. I made the mix on a Pacemaker. It took ages. But I’m super chuffed that it’s become so popular, it was well worth the effort! Thanks everyone!
A lot of the artists who were included tweeted about it, which was awesome, but I guess it’s a mix that contains a lot of classic tracks that treads the line between being too cheesy and too nerdy. It’s also a great nostalgia trip that reminds people of their different moments in club culture over the last ten years. Personally, I think it’s a good one for getting ready to go out to – chilled at the start and then it gets more and more hyper as it bounces along. My favourite blend on it is around the 1 hour 23 mins mark when it goes from LMFAO into Modeselektor into Shychild and then into LCD Soundsystem. Big fan of those 4 minutes.
I’m loving Gonjasufi and The Gaslamp Killer’s album, XL’s new rapper Giggs, and also Nicki Minaj. Crystal Castles new album should be pretty cool too.
Dazed & Confused magazine and DazedDigital.com stay fresh because we have a strong, well opinionated team of global contributers and in house staff who are into so many different things but share a love of discovering new, original talent. We love blogs, but a lot of them just provide free songs and then their audience rushes off to the next place that does exactly the same thing. I hope we have a degree of collective taste and professionalism that rises above just feeding people’s MP3 addictions. Dazed has always been about a distinct worldview and lifestyle. If you like it, cool. If not, that’s fine as well. I’ve found that if you’re authentic and be yourself, it generally all works out for the best. Like this mix, I guess. Oh, and if you want to hear what music we play in the office go here.
Tim’s Electronica 2000-2009 mix has had too many plays and is getting boring now 😉
So we thought we’d end the post with his more recent upload – the Dazed crew broadcasting live on Diesel U Music Radio.