Netsky - Radio 1 Essential Mix

2010 has been a huge year for Netsky, with the Hospital marketing machine pushing his album hard at the start of the year and plenty of business in the form of remix work for everyone from the Swedish House Mafia to Plan B.

However, despite being packed with massive tracks, I found Netsky's self-titled album a little lacking in substance. It's a completely stereotypical D&B album, the sort of thing you'd draw if by some dark magic you got "Drum and Bass" in a game of Pictionary. Whilst it ticked all the boxes for the modern D&B album (the liquid roller, the Jenna G vocal track, the dubstep track, several heavily-rinsed dancefloor tracks) it still felt like Netsky was struggling to transfer his individual style across from his singles and remix work into album form.

Anyway, I should really shut up, because Netsky's Essential Mix is fantastic, a serious contender for Essential Mix of the Year.

Grab it now!

Tracklist

Hospitality @ Brixton - Live Set Recordings

Props to DNBA for recording the night. Pretty low quality recordings, and the whole lot are riddled with MCs, but still worth a listen back if you were there, or a first time run if you missed out on the night.

Unfortunately, there's no Andy C. Guess we'll have to make do with Nightlife 5.

B-Complex

Nu:Tone B2B Logistics

London Elektricity

High Contrast

Danny Byrd

Netsky

Fabio

Summer Beats

Hurrah, the summer is here.

I thought I'd compile a bit of a list of summery D&B for those long evenings chilling in the garden, driving round town with all your windows down or just generally causing noise nuisance.

• For me, the summer of 2009 was completely dominated by Hospital Records' Sick Music, and for the summer of 2010, Hospital have given us Netsky's self-titled debut LP. Stand out tracks for me have to be Iron Heart and Secret Agent, both of which are definitely big club anthems, but sound equally at home on your stereo.
  
• Talking of Sick Music, 2010 has also seen the release of Sick Music 2, and whilst the general consensus seems to be that it's not quite as head-kickingly awesome as Volume 1, it is definitely worth a purchase. Sonic's All I Wanna Do and Turn Up (The Music) by Camo & Krooked have already been big tunes for me this spring, and there are plenty more great tracks on the album. Go get 'em!
  
• Further chilled summer vibes can be found with Robot Redford. Check out Bonfire Youth:
  
  
  
  More tracks and information on his MySpace page
  
  
• Another producer who seems to have really hit his stride recently is Lenzman.
  
  
  
  Also check out Lenzman's mix for Reprise Agency here
  
  
• Back on a Camo & Krooked tip, here's another hands in the air electro D&B anthem from Beta Recordings. Lovely stuff.
  
  
  
  
• Last up, I'll leave you with Airwalker's absolutely massive Big Sky. Shame the Summer Solstice was yesterday. This one would be perfect for raving round Stone Henge.
  

All that and it's still only June. Crikey.