Paul Oakenfold

I have recently been giving Paul Oakenfold a listen when I have been writing and it was from those listens that gave me the idea for this week long list of my favorite DJs. And his work is a particular favorite of mine. And by "his work" I mean everything before the Password: Swordfish soundtrack (or was it the Planet of the Apes remix, or solo album… actually everything before he started going by Oakenfold). His mixing style was very simple and minimal, picking tracks that followed the mood rather than just tempo. He wasn’t above the fade down and fade up, and if necessary he let the tracks play out for ten minutes and gave them their own individual feeling before moving onto the next, instead of harnessing the breakdown and riding each of the tracks into each other.
There are about four albums of his that get perfect scores not only for their incredible movement, but for their timelessness. This may not come as to big of a shock, but the majority of Dance/House/Techno, well it doesn’t age well. Just about everyone of his selections flow excellently together and are still quite Bananas
GU:007 New York
This album is my favorite hands down. I know I said that they all have perfect scores, but this is the favorite within the favorites. How can you beat the coolness of this selection: Ambrosia, Amoeba Assassin, Life on Mars, Mystica, Planet Heaven… This is Trance at its absolute best. Each track is gracefully strung together at an even pace, no long mixes. One moves in and takes control of the flow of the other. But each track doesn’t sneak in, no he brings it in several measures in so the song has built up significantly so when its faded in it announces the change in pace and feeling. For the audiophiles buy it new, throw it on your system, pop on the headphones, crank it up and listen to the crackle of his records. This album is the shit.
Perfecto Presents: Another World
I remember this was released in America when I was in high school. There were these commercials with this horrible obnoxious british chick telling you how mind blowing this album was. I believe her exact words were “MIND PULSATING TRANCE MUSIC!” and yes the all caps was a necessity. Its funny to think back about that, I always do when I throw this on. Two discs, and man does he cover a lot of ground. He mainly sticks to his own (perfecto is his label), but occasionally he will use odd segue ways and mix in some (now) truly classic shit. For example the Rabbit in the Moon (when they were GOOD) remix of “Bullet in my Gun”. Or Amoeba Assassin’s “Piledriver”, I mean that is some show stopping shit. He even finds places to mix in Vangelis’s “Tears in the Rain” from the Bladerunner soundtrack. Now that I think about it, his uses it to preface “Piledriver”! This is a great album, and like New York, it hasn’t aged a day. Well I could probably do without hearing that Delerium remix of “Silence” for the rest of my natural born life.
Perfecto Presents: Ibiza
I have been missing one of the discs for this album for a couple of years, and I mean missing it. This is the last good album Paul Oakenfold ever did, and that is something to cherish. It has so many different tracks in terms of style, I mean he mixes the Plump DJs into “Idioteque”! “This Feeling”, “Waiting”, “I feel loved”! its hard not to get excited even when listing the tracks. This album is a departure for Oakenfold, who usually clings to the trancier end of the spectrum. There is some straight breakbeat, hard house, and other oddities. It doesn’t sound do-able on paper, which is why I enjoy listening to him proving you the fuck wrong.
GU: 004 Oslo
I write this last, because this is the last album that I bought. I picked it up used in Seattle and listened to it incessantly all the way the home. When I said his selections don’t age, I lied. Well not for the previous albums, but this one you can feel the time difference. It was spun back in 1997. But they have aged in a good way, a way that I can appreciate. They feel warm and handmade. Its also interesting because a lot of his selections I was more familiar with coming from other DJs comps. It is was refreshing to hear him fit tracks together in a new way. For instance Taucher’s “Waters” is played out in its entirety, separated from the impenetrable Jig Saw style of Northern Exposure. Some other stand outs for me is his use of Bedrock, as well as Olive. This is a great album, and in my opinion a watertight time capsule of how trance/house progressed since the mid nineties.