Summer is here and I'm bringing the heat with XXXtasy - an intoxicating journey filled with ecstatic grooves, trippy tribal beats, sexy vocals, and blissful melodies - all designed to take you to a higher state of consciousness.
The inspiration for this mix came about in February when I was preparing to play a big party in LA. I was listening to a lot of old school Deep Dish remixes at the time and I was really inspired by that old school progressive / tribal sound.
I was super into progressive house around the turn of the millennium- Deep Dish, Sasha & Digweed, BT, Nick Warren, etc... all those DJs are basically the reason I wanted to become one as well. I wanted to take that uplifting, melodic style and update it- the term I thought of was “Ecstasy House.” The vibe I wanted to go for with this party was super groovy, sexy, feel-good jams but with a modern twist with more psychedelic, dubby, tribal elements.
Of course, this is just where the idea for this mix started. As with all of my mixes, it began with one idea, and evolved into something else entirely. It’s hard to put into words everything this set means to me; so many other parts of my life have been incorporated into it now.
I think they best way to describe this mix is as a travelogue, encapsulating the last 9 months or so if my life. I started traveling a lot for gigs last year, and since then I’ve played parties all over the country. Every city is a new adventure, filled with amazing new people. DJing is a total adrenaline rush, and my life became punctuated by these very overwhelming “ecstatic” moments. I’ve played about 3/4ths of these tracks out at some point recently, and most of these tracks have an awesome memory associated with it from one of my adventures.
It’s been an emotional ride, to say the least. I wanted to create a mix that captured that overwhelming mix of emotions. If my last mix Voodoo was about the dehumanizing aspects of modern technology, then this mix is about the opposite; human connection and its many wonderful forms, and finding states of absolute ecstasy through music, or dancing, or love, or sex, or drugs... or perhaps all of the above lol
In many ways, this set feels like a twin counterpart to my Free Your Mind mix from last summer. But where that set was inspired by a psychedelic trip, this mix is modeled after the intense rush of sensations brought on by ecstasy. XXXtasy comes on strong and goes through several rolling peaks before mellowing out into a groovy state of bliss...
Enjoy the ride!
XXX