I didn’t download the Essential Mix as it looked a bit flat but I am enjoying the mixes from last year, even if some people are right to point out some of the same tracks are recurring a bit.
I guess that happens with big successful DJs though, at least I always remember it being the case.
I think his essential mix was meant for a wider audience and to introduce unfamiliar listeners to the cadenza sound. I really enjoyed but it im a huge fan of cadenza. It wasn’t a club mix more of a showcase. I think everyone who wasn’t that impressed with it needs to look at the bigger picture his club sets in places like DC10 Show what he can really do this was just a showcase not a “DJ set”.
I wasn’t really slating him, he’s doing a mix on BBC and sure, he tried to show off some of his Cadenza stuff.
I guess though, if he really wanted to gain attention for his DJing, the housey styles he’s been playing would have really blown people away and not been too weird for the Essential Mix. He does seem at his most populist right now and maybe doesn’t need to do a special set for the EM?
I know if I was given the opportunity of recording a 2 hour set to be aired on radio, it would be the best fucking mix I did. I’d also get Stephen Hawking to introduce it instead.
I think alot of people were expecting it to be like his kristal house set or full of new/ unreleased music.I can see why it left people unsatisfied but i reckon these are people who are familiar with Luciano and his cadenza sound, & maybe wanted something different. On the other hand he will have intoduced hundreds if not thousands of new listeners to him as a producer first & a DJ second.The feedback http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/essentialmix/tracklistingarchive.shtml?20080126
speaks for itself really you will notice that people who have seen him DJ were expecting more and vice versa. Like you say its which way you look at it.I suppose its like going to somewhere like Rex club to see him spin and all he plays is cadenza it would be a bit of a let down, 99% of people in the club would be there because he was playing and for that reason only. If he only played cadenza all night he would go down in peoples opinions because there expectations would have been alot higher.I suppose all that matters is the people who really support him know what he is capable of.
Nice article, I thought he was great in Tripod last year despite the poor sound. His set from silo club in Belgium from mid 2005 is still one of my favorite downloaded sets, listened to it only this morning whilst in town.
I thought the BBC mix was disappointing but it’s fair enough to want to put out something accessible to a wider audience showing off some home wares.
I really like cadenza but as a producer Luciano never really did anything for me think his DJing is top notch though.
Yea I have both of the above, I do quite like Solomons Prayer but there is something distinctive about the way he makes records that just doesn’t appeal to me. It’s almost like they don’t really go anywhere or something, I think it comes down to structure more than anything else.
I dunno about this article, but the last four or five sets I’ve downloaded from Luciano - ranging from late ‘07 to early ‘08 - consisted of almost EXACTLY the same tracks, arranged each time in a slightly different order. I really loved the sound he was pushing at the end of the year, but the laziness with the selection is pretty worrisome. Maybe there are less record stores in Switzerland?
maybe he just really likes those records…i dunno, i guess he is dj-ing primarily for the people at each club, rather than the people downloading all the sets in their homes. if i was going out to see luciano, i’d probably want to hear something resembling his sound, rather than a complete curveball, mainly because i’m going to see Luciano, cos he’s Luciano…it’s difficult to explain I suppose to someone who may have seen him at all the various clubs around the place.
as for his productions, ‘fourges et sabres’ was stunning last year, and i thought that the more experimental stuff on ‘no model no tool’ was great. he doesn’t make anthems, but there’s a lot to work with in there.
It really was a v good article. It just goes to show how worthwhile these interviews are when an artist makes an effort and allows access, you get a proper picture of what they’re like.
thats really true ronan, luciano sounds lovely in the article. i read it yesterday and i really enjoyed it.
i wouldnt hold the essential mix against him, the way i see it is he was just trying to get cadenza out there you know?
i have a set by him at skc belgrade and its probably one of my favourites… i also saw him in tripod last year..that and radioslave in panorama bar in berlin were my favourite gigs of the year…absolutely brilliant.
in short, luciano is great….cant wait to see him at time - warp!!!!!
i understand the comments about his productions not really standing out as much as his dj sets, but it’s all set and setting you know? ‘back to front’ (my favorite of his) is not going to fill the floor anywhere outside of berlin. i’ve also found that he produces his kicks so low that many systems don’t even register, but with the proper system and the full attention of a p-bar crowd at 5am… i can only imagine the damage. if you doubt his production skills, sit down with some headphones and really devote some attention to ’sabres et fourges’ and whoa…. but then i’m a little biased. i saw luciano at demf last year and it was not the minimal set i had expected at all - it was far, far better.
i’ve been more guilty than most of pointing out luciano’s laziness of late (he’s been playing the same tracks plus/minus a few for basically the whole of ‘07), but he can read a crowd incredibly well. he’s the consumate party DJ. his sets don’t come across so well recorded.
he DOES need to pull his finger out of his arse a bit though, in 05/06 he was spinning in new tracks every set around his usual selection of the season’s floor fillers… i’m definitely not an anti-digital tubthumper at all, but the laziness in selection DOES coincide with his switching to serrato.
i think he’s a pretty lazy producer too, of late. fources et sabres is nice enough, but nothing he’s done since solomon’s prayer/father has really blown me away. bomberos/octoganal stands head and shoulders above all his other solo productions (amelie on ice aside, and that’s not so much about the production, is it?).
in my opinion, most of his best tracks are collaborations (the melchior 12″, alpine rocket, orange mistake). the thought of a martina topley bird ballad fills me with dread (remember la ondita?)
I saw Luciano twice last year, once b2b with Villalobos in Amsterdam and once on his lonely in Fuse Brussels. Both sets were completely different, and I think the only people that notice any kind of sameyness are those who download every single set he’s played. You have to look from an outside perspective and think of the people in the club (most of whom don’t religiously download his sets and trainspot at the clubs) to realize that Luciano can bring a club to its knees without worrying about the fact that someone knows he played the same banger the night before. I think people that think he’s slacking really need to take a good look at themselves, cos in the end a well structured set with direction is always gonna win over a set with 30 unreleased tracks that he’s playing for the first time. I’ve always hated that trend in techno, DJs thinking they’ll only be cool if they play shit nobody’s heard before. Stop thinking about educating the crowd and start thinking about ENTERTAINING them! Luciano knows exactly what he’s doing in that regard.
tomo wrote:
good piece. havent caught him live yet
listened to his essential mix the other day and wasn’t that impressed, thought the other live sets i’ve heard were much better.
Posted 14 Feb 2008 at 11:59 am ¶
Ronan wrote:
I didn’t download the Essential Mix as it looked a bit flat but I am enjoying the mixes from last year, even if some people are right to point out some of the same tracks are recurring a bit.
I guess that happens with big successful DJs though, at least I always remember it being the case.
Posted 14 Feb 2008 at 2:10 pm ¶
tomo wrote:
essential mix was pretty much a showcase for cadenza.
yeah, I remember seeing jazzy jeff on a number of occasions and he played exactly the same set.
Posted 14 Feb 2008 at 2:50 pm ¶
Joe H wrote:
I think his essential mix was meant for a wider audience and to introduce unfamiliar listeners to the cadenza sound. I really enjoyed but it im a huge fan of cadenza. It wasn’t a club mix more of a showcase. I think everyone who wasn’t that impressed with it needs to look at the bigger picture his club sets in places like DC10 Show what he can really do this was just a showcase not a “DJ set”.
Posted 14 Feb 2008 at 2:51 pm ¶
Ronan wrote:
I think you’re right Joe. I largely agree anyway.
I wasn’t really slating him, he’s doing a mix on BBC and sure, he tried to show off some of his Cadenza stuff.
I guess though, if he really wanted to gain attention for his DJing, the housey styles he’s been playing would have really blown people away and not been too weird for the Essential Mix. He does seem at his most populist right now and maybe doesn’t need to do a special set for the EM?
Depends what way you look at it I suppose.
Posted 14 Feb 2008 at 3:08 pm ¶
tomo wrote:
I know if I was given the opportunity of recording a 2 hour set to be aired on radio, it would be the best fucking mix I did. I’d also get Stephen Hawking to introduce it instead.
Posted 14 Feb 2008 at 3:32 pm ¶
Joe H wrote:
I think alot of people were expecting it to be like his kristal house set or full of new/ unreleased music.I can see why it left people unsatisfied but i reckon these are people who are familiar with Luciano and his cadenza sound, & maybe wanted something different. On the other hand he will have intoduced hundreds if not thousands of new listeners to him as a producer first & a DJ second.The feedback http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/essentialmix/tracklistingarchive.shtml?20080126
speaks for itself really you will notice that people who have seen him DJ were expecting more and vice versa. Like you say its which way you look at it.I suppose its like going to somewhere like Rex club to see him spin and all he plays is cadenza it would be a bit of a let down, 99% of people in the club would be there because he was playing and for that reason only. If he only played cadenza all night he would go down in peoples opinions because there expectations would have been alot higher.I suppose all that matters is the people who really support him know what he is capable of.
Posted 14 Feb 2008 at 4:03 pm ¶
Paul M wrote:
Nice article, I thought he was great in Tripod last year despite the poor sound. His set from silo club in Belgium from mid 2005 is still one of my favorite downloaded sets, listened to it only this morning whilst in town.
I thought the BBC mix was disappointing but it’s fair enough to want to put out something accessible to a wider audience showing off some home wares.
I really like cadenza but as a producer Luciano never really did anything for me think his DJing is top notch though.
Posted 14 Feb 2008 at 4:30 pm ¶
Ronan wrote:
Do you have “Bomberos/Octagonal” Paul?
I’m not mad on all of his productions but that and “Solomons Prayer/Father” with Melchior are two 12s I really like.
Posted 14 Feb 2008 at 4:32 pm ¶
Paul M wrote:
Yea I have both of the above, I do quite like Solomons Prayer but there is something distinctive about the way he makes records that just doesn’t appeal to me. It’s almost like they don’t really go anywhere or something, I think it comes down to structure more than anything else.
Posted 14 Feb 2008 at 4:58 pm ¶
Isbjorn wrote:
Yep. Agree with Paul re Luciano’s production style. More atmospheric kind of pieces than anything else for me.
Posted 14 Feb 2008 at 10:05 pm ¶
Cian wrote:
Solomon’s Prayer is gorgeous. Has anyone ever played it out? As in, out in a club?
Posted 14 Feb 2008 at 10:15 pm ¶
Ellot-Emm wrote:
I dunno about this article, but the last four or five sets I’ve downloaded from Luciano - ranging from late ‘07 to early ‘08 - consisted of almost EXACTLY the same tracks, arranged each time in a slightly different order. I really loved the sound he was pushing at the end of the year, but the laziness with the selection is pretty worrisome. Maybe there are less record stores in Switzerland?
Posted 14 Feb 2008 at 10:46 pm ¶
Ellot-Emm wrote:
Ugh, FEWER record stores.
Posted 14 Feb 2008 at 10:48 pm ¶
Joe wrote:
maybe he just really likes those records…i dunno, i guess he is dj-ing primarily for the people at each club, rather than the people downloading all the sets in their homes. if i was going out to see luciano, i’d probably want to hear something resembling his sound, rather than a complete curveball, mainly because i’m going to see Luciano, cos he’s Luciano…it’s difficult to explain I suppose to someone who may have seen him at all the various clubs around the place.
as for his productions, ‘fourges et sabres’ was stunning last year, and i thought that the more experimental stuff on ‘no model no tool’ was great. he doesn’t make anthems, but there’s a lot to work with in there.
great article.
Posted 15 Feb 2008 at 3:01 pm ¶
Ronan wrote:
It really was a v good article. It just goes to show how worthwhile these interviews are when an artist makes an effort and allows access, you get a proper picture of what they’re like.
Unfortunately it doesn’t happen often.
Posted 15 Feb 2008 at 4:04 pm ¶
ailbhe wrote:
thats really true ronan, luciano sounds lovely in the article. i read it yesterday and i really enjoyed it.
i wouldnt hold the essential mix against him, the way i see it is he was just trying to get cadenza out there you know?
i have a set by him at skc belgrade and its probably one of my favourites… i also saw him in tripod last year..that and radioslave in panorama bar in berlin were my favourite gigs of the year…absolutely brilliant.
in short, luciano is great….cant wait to see him at time - warp!!!!!
Posted 15 Feb 2008 at 9:01 pm ¶
Ronan wrote:
Oh I’d love to be going to Timewarp…the Cecille and Oslo labels will be doing stuff there, would be really cool.
I guess I still could but have no idea what sort of workload I’ll have or what holidays will be possible around that time.
Posted 15 Feb 2008 at 11:30 pm ¶
mind at large wrote:
i understand the comments about his productions not really standing out as much as his dj sets, but it’s all set and setting you know? ‘back to front’ (my favorite of his) is not going to fill the floor anywhere outside of berlin. i’ve also found that he produces his kicks so low that many systems don’t even register, but with the proper system and the full attention of a p-bar crowd at 5am… i can only imagine the damage. if you doubt his production skills, sit down with some headphones and really devote some attention to ’sabres et fourges’ and whoa…. but then i’m a little biased. i saw luciano at demf last year and it was not the minimal set i had expected at all - it was far, far better.
Posted 17 Feb 2008 at 1:03 am ¶
andrew wrote:
i’ve been more guilty than most of pointing out luciano’s laziness of late (he’s been playing the same tracks plus/minus a few for basically the whole of ‘07), but he can read a crowd incredibly well. he’s the consumate party DJ. his sets don’t come across so well recorded.
he DOES need to pull his finger out of his arse a bit though, in 05/06 he was spinning in new tracks every set around his usual selection of the season’s floor fillers… i’m definitely not an anti-digital tubthumper at all, but the laziness in selection DOES coincide with his switching to serrato.
Posted 18 Feb 2008 at 1:51 pm ¶
andrew wrote:
i think he’s a pretty lazy producer too, of late. fources et sabres is nice enough, but nothing he’s done since solomon’s prayer/father has really blown me away. bomberos/octoganal stands head and shoulders above all his other solo productions (amelie on ice aside, and that’s not so much about the production, is it?).
in my opinion, most of his best tracks are collaborations (the melchior 12″, alpine rocket, orange mistake). the thought of a martina topley bird ballad fills me with dread (remember la ondita?)
Posted 18 Feb 2008 at 1:54 pm ¶
pete wrote:
I saw Luciano twice last year, once b2b with Villalobos in Amsterdam and once on his lonely in Fuse Brussels. Both sets were completely different, and I think the only people that notice any kind of sameyness are those who download every single set he’s played. You have to look from an outside perspective and think of the people in the club (most of whom don’t religiously download his sets and trainspot at the clubs) to realize that Luciano can bring a club to its knees without worrying about the fact that someone knows he played the same banger the night before. I think people that think he’s slacking really need to take a good look at themselves, cos in the end a well structured set with direction is always gonna win over a set with 30 unreleased tracks that he’s playing for the first time. I’ve always hated that trend in techno, DJs thinking they’ll only be cool if they play shit nobody’s heard before. Stop thinking about educating the crowd and start thinking about ENTERTAINING them! Luciano knows exactly what he’s doing in that regard.
Posted 18 Feb 2008 at 7:25 pm ¶