To you.. does John Digweed have "a sound"?

bosstrabs

VORTEXSOUND

jonattonyeah

Yup. Dunno when it started or when it ended, but he had quite a few years there where his sets were just relentless after he had everyone locked in. Saw him in LA for NYE around 2003 or 2004. 10 hours. From like 3:00 until, I dunno, 8:00 (? - before he started winding it down a bit). It was nonstop. Vortex might sound silly but that’s what it was. He also knew (knows) how to work a system as good as anyone. Only peak time track I remember is Lake/Blades “Filth”. Sounded incredible. Given that was played, my years might be a few off.

rhouses

jonattonyeah Apollo Vibes at 12am? Was there, messy messy night. He mostly always played Avalon LA nye, a good 5-6 years straight.

Diggers kinda lost me when he went the minimal tech house route, that fabric disc is shite. And I wouldn’t say the transition renaissance mixes have stood the test of time. Those live in mixes are gold tho. And live he has never let me down.

alistair

The beauty of the Bunkers is you get to hear the music he loves and a much wider variety of sounds/tempos than he would play in a club which as good as it often is is fairly conservative.

Along_the_Wire

I grew out of the vortex quite a long time ago. My favourite Digweed nights have been the 3am finishes on Thursdays at Bedrock at Heaven and the Bedrock specials he did at XOYO. He definitely had his own sound back in the original Bedrock days. They were fucking brilliant nights.

mono-stereo

John HARDWEED

Smallman1

The sound any aspiring Dj should be looking to achieve is wrecking ball peak time POWER prog.

baggers44

He has played tracks from virtually every conceivable style of electronic music over the last 30 years but the most distinctive periods for me were when he played very percussive tracks - (99-01) think of Gravitec and of course when there was a US house emphasis when he played at Twilo with the other one and Junior V. But you could pick virtually any mix from the last 25 years randomly blind and I reckon you would think it might be Digweed because of the feel of it. Pretty sure it is that way for anyone you have followed for years in granular detail though. Even Judge Jules will have his acolytes - well not him but you know what I mean!

Wasily

I don’t think he has a sound per se, not like Hawtin or Radioslave for example. However, it’s pretty easy to identify a Digweed MIX, in the same way it is to identify a Sasha one. Sasha’s sound I presume is to some extent determined by who’s shortlisting the tracks he’s being sent so I presume it’s the same with the others perhaps to a lesser extent.

Matty

I would say that there are 3 or 4 sounds that I would recognise;

All are underpinned by seamless mixing and a set structure that appears as if he has the whole set thought through from the start;

Typically rolling baselines and deep grooves in the following types;

Acid influence house and uplifting groovy house from 1994 through 1998
Deep progressive - circa 1999 to 2002/3. His essential mix from 1999 and the Compiled and Mixed Bedrock typify this. Also GU Los Angeles.
Electro and Techno house. Tech house and minimalist house from 2004 onwards inparticular. Transitions and Renaissance Releases of the same name. Although some of them drift into 2 above from memory.
Vortex electro progressive house. I’m thinking latterly the Tokyo Live CD as an example example.

I would say he’s also partial to a bit of breakbeat as per Bunker 27 has large chunks.

I would also add that Digweed rarely plays too hard or fast - Essential Mix from EDC probably a rare example. He does typically find a groove and then fills the void by building and layering that sounds and then weaves in and out.

If you want a good example of this diversity Bunker 03 is IMO his finest work in a long time.

mono-stereo

I like it when he goes into GRUMBLEWEED MODE

baggers44

mono-stereo ha- no one will know who they are!!!! Brilliant Panto Grand Theatre Leeds ! I dare not youtube them in case what they did turns out on reflection to have been shit!

Smallman1

Whilst we back and forth the finer points about Digweed’s sound a question we haven’t asked is - Is he sound?

And the answer to that is yes, even though he thinks I’m a “complete idiot.”

alistair

Smallman1 Is he a good judge of character?

alistair

I don’t really think he does which is a good thing in my book. You’re just as likely to hear the latest release from Guy J as you are from say Michael Mayer or Whomadewho or the latest David Morales red zone mix. Without doing a count, I think his bunker sets have included more Kompakt stuff than any other label so make of that what you will.

Smallman1

alistair Is he a good judge of character?

That he is not Alistair.

ScottBailey

Personally I think any “sounds” people have been labelled with back in the day stuck more because over the period of 3 or 4 months they’d play a large handful of the same tracks at each gig, swapping a few out for newer tracks as they came.
The exclusivity to certain records for large periods of time meant they could keep playing them out without sounding like most other DJ’s on the scene (think Sasha is even quoted as saying that, in as many words).
Unless as a punter you were loaded enough to follow them round, there’s a good change you only heard them play the same set a couple of times over, whereas in reality there were probably a half dozen more times it was repeated.
With the advent of the internet, people can’t get away with that as much now (although Sasha tries).

jonattonyeah

ScottBailey

Well said. That is why I understand why some high-profile DJs are apprehensive about releasing mixes - all that does is take the exclusivity and shorten it by months.

Personally, I think there’s enough of all types of dance music at this point - it’s been decades. Not everything needs to be brand new in a set. I think it’s much more interesting to hear a track that’s actually been out for a while, but totally ignored, over some unreleased Innervisions or Bedrock exclusive.

Guess I think only playing new music is kinda lazy - relying on what’s sent to you.

NasserAlazzawi

ScottBailey That’s really interesting because when I say DJs had a sound I hark back to a time when not only did I love seeing some DJs repeatedly warm up for bigger acts, but those were my first impressions too and they always say those out last any other feeling someone can give you.

Plus - during my entire ‘clubbing career’ I was in sixth form at school or in part time work and just didn’t afford myself the time / money to go out that often either - so things could have been changing when I wasn’t seeing it.

I’d still personally like to have a sound because there are occasions where I really want to hear / feel a certain way and some DJs can really bring that out through their sound. Yet who knows, in a year they could change.

deathbysmurf

I lost interest the last time I saw him live in San Diego about 10 years ago (late Transitions-album days). That said, his bunker sessions have been a welcome distraction this year and the majority I’ve heard have been belters.

mono-stereo

baggers44 Ha, my sisters where dancers in a panto with them years ago.

alistair

NasserAlazzawi which DJs do you like that have a sound Nas?

ScottBailey

NasserAlazzawi I think because everything is online and available instantaneously now, it would be difficult to play the same tracks in consecutive sets to the same people without becoming boring and predictable. I think that’s probably why you see someone like Diggers rarely playing a track more than twice over the course of his bunker sessions. There are exceptions, but not very many.
I think people could still be able to carve out a sound for themselves, but I’ve definitely found over the years that the consistency of quality tunes in a specific genre has reduced drastically. I’d love to be able to stick to just deep prog’ on a weekly basis, but I can’t find enough of it that I like to be able to do so.