Acrid Switch, local, up and coming DJ, has released a new mix this past month entitled Take Shelter. The mix features tracks from industrial acts such as VNV Nation and Combichrist and also has a dub remix of Depeche Mode’s “Oh Well.”
The mix starts out with Vooduex’s track “Just a Spoonful,” a bouncy tune that will most likely have you tapping your fingers or bobbing your head with the beat. It’s jazzy, up-beat sound opens the mix well and definitely sets the tone for the rest. He then takes us to Gui Boratto’s “I Feel Love,” which slows us down, only a little bit, but still keeping that infectious beat going.
Even though all the tracks are all deeply rooted in techno, the beat of the first few tracks give a funky, dance feel to the mix. Acrid Switch then brings a progressive, almost trance-like sound in with the progressive-techno tracks: “Inretrospect” by Kyle Worde, the 10 anniversary remix of “Tone Depth” by Rumblefish, the Calvertron and Paul Thomas remix of “My Lexicon” by Sander Kleinenberg, and “Pryda” by Alfron.
This is where the mix starts to pick back up again with the track “Cubes” by Pig & Dan, which is a perfect song to precede the Blacklight dub remix of Depeche Mode’s tune “Oh Well.” The dub remix is an enhancement on the song and just brings another flavor to Take Shelter, this was a good track to put in the middle of the mix, it shifts gears and ready’s the ear for a different sound. Acrid Switch is known for having a lot of different and unique tracks through-out his mixes and for having a unique sound as a DJ, this mix is no different.
“Helicopter Girl” by Assemblage 23 begins the industrial and EBM, electronic body music, sounding seven-track end of the mix, followed by VNV Nation’s “Structure” and Combichrist’s “Without Emotions.” The mix starts to get very heavy with the more traditional industrial track by Rotersand, “Exterminate Annihilate Destroy.” This track is a good build up for the last three that follow it.
Slowing down again, he takes “Datc” by Soman and goes directly into another VNV Nation track “Chrome,” the 27.7 Mhz remix by Modcom. There are sometimes duplicate artists in a lot Acrid Switch’s mixes, which isn’t usually a bad thing. “Chrome” is definitely a favorite on the mix, the repetitive vocals, “I’m still talking and you’re not listening,” is likely to get stuck in your head, and if you like it, it’s a good idea to check out the original mix of the song which is also very good.
The end of the mix is another Assemblage 23 song, “Decades v2”. This is a good track to end on because it slows down the energy of the mix and doesn’t leave the ear wanting more.
If you like industrial, progressive techno or straight techno then you will probably like Take Shelter. You can listen on-line or download, via SoundCloud, at www.soundcloud.com/AcridSwitch/take-shelter.