jonattonyeah Remember having a pretty good time to Chris Lawrence at Turnmills (the only time I saw him) around then. Played 4-6 after Nick Warren. Different kind of trance dj who had a fresh sound to me. Was he big in the US scene?

    Saw Zabelia at Bedrock in early 2004 and later at space in July. To be honest. A bit meh. Had his moments but much preferred digweed on both occassion.

      Definitely

      Smallman1

      Yep. Cannot deny the guy’s techical abilities, but just not for me when I’ve seen him play

        benson saw him dj in a tiny club in Chinatown years ago and he was brilliant. This was back in the day when He did his Four mix cds he would hand out on the night

          @jonattonyeah This list reminds me of why passed 2002 or so, I only ever listened to 3 or 4 of essential mixes a year. There’s a ton of unlistenable garbage there, I’m impressed you got through all of it.

          Saw Zabiela play on NYD in Sydney in 2005 and he was ace tbf.

          Not a patch on Lee Coombs though.

          • Dan replied to this.

            Agree that Zabiela Syntax/Wrecked Angle finale into the Vanilla Sky sample is absolutely mustard. Blew my away at the time.

            Smallman1 live, yes agreed. But the Essential Mixes he’s put together have been outstanding.

              Kudos for managing to get through all these, including the many shite ones. How many days/weeks etc. did it take?!

              jonattonyeah

              1. Switch
                Like Deep Dish, Switch should know better and gets docked accordingly. One of the better producers at the time who just completely loses this mix in the middle.

              As you say he was really taking off as a producer then and I saw him play a couple of times in that era and enjoyed his sets, so I was curious to see you say this about his EM. I skimmed through it out of curiosity and by heck you’re right! What the heck was he thinking in that mid-section? Dull as dishwater.

              jonattonyeah 35. Dave Clarke

              I’m usually a defender of this arrogant weirdo but this is just a racket. His schizophrenic mixing style has worked in the past but this mix just falls flat.

              Dude wtf? Sure it’s not as good as his 2000 EM, but I still rinsed this at the time. It’s a very good mix. Heck, it deserves top 5 just for that bit with UR - Transition alone.

              jonattonyeah FAVORITE TRACK:
              Mutiny - Dem Girls (Solid Groove Mix) [Underwater]

              Lol, this brings back memories - this was one of my fav tracks to play at house parties (when I was more in to house music).

              jonattonyeah The mixing is on point and my favorite track, from one of my go-to production teams around then, I’d never heard before. Proper chugger.

              FAVORITE TRACK:
              Peace Division - Take Me I’m Yours [Low Pressings]

              You’ve posted a youtube link to the wrong version of the track btw. I don’t know what version Behrouz uses though, could be unreleased given that EP was titled ‘Unreleased Projects Remixed’.

              Bizarrely enough, 6 months ago I searched for another, even better version of this track - which was a version I’d remembered hearing at the time somehow - and the only trace of it I found was in the youtube vid below. I asked the guy who uploaded the vid where he got the track from and he answered like an unhelpful twat:

              jonattonyeah This mix gets docked for an awful, awful Sander K song. I was on public transportation and my mouth was agape. It’s so bad. Given how good the “4 Seasons” EP is, and the expectations following, I don’t really have any problem saying “The Right Time” is one of the worst songs ever produced given the supposed talent therein.

              Dear god, it’s even worse than ‘The Fruit’! I didn’t think that was possible.

              jonattonyeah 10 & 9 (played twice). Above & Beyond
              jonattonyeah Docked for being Trance for people who like Prog and Prog for people who like Trance.
              jonattonyeah FAVORITE TRACK:
              It’s just trance and I can’t be fussed to go through it again.

              Lol, the middle part about why you “docked” this mix is so true.

              But on that note, “favorite track” should really be Probspot "Foreplay’, released on Hooj’s sister label Lost Language. It really embodies the description of the music you posted. It’s a really well produced, big tune; enough so that I even bought the vinyl and liked listening to it. However, it remains possibly the softest and cheesiest prog/trance track I’ve ever bought, and I could never fit it in to any mixes.

              It deserves some major credit though for predating that big Deadmau5 / Kaskade etc. heavily-sidechained warm trance pads sound by a full 2 years. It’s really quite remarkable to the point where I wonder if it directly influenced deadmau5′ productions.

              jonattonyeah 6. Paolo Mojo

              Yes I enjoyed this mix at the time. Good choice of favourite track as well; another one I also had the vinyl of.

              jonattonyeah 3. Desyn Masiello

              This was great, I listened to it a lot. I’d have put it at 2 behind Dave Clarke. It was really fresh at the time and still sounds pretty unique. For that brief period Desyn was one of a very few DJs who made the more electro-ish direction dance music was heading in at that time actually sound good. “Favorite track” has to be this one though, what a tune! I must have heard it a few times at Bugged Out’s nights at The End:

              jonattonyeah 1. James Zabiela

              I’m actually with Smalls on this one - too busy. As with a lot (or perhaps the vast majority?) of Zabiela’s mixes it has the occasional excellent moment, but then somehow even more when it just seems to lose the plot a bit.

                                    Mahoosive respect to Jonathan tbf. Talk about research.

                                    Listened to a few of these that year and reading back the comments brought a lot of it back.

                                    Mix of the year goes to Desyn for me personally

                                    Desyn was good for a while so much so that I stayed in Heaven’s room 2 for the last three hours when Digweed was playing the main room. That and the fact the main room was too hot!

                                    Loads of burds in the SOS room for Desyn too. More room to get your swag on too. Then heads down for Digweed a bit later.