A Club In Your Computer

Super idea well-executed: DJ Sets offers audio streams of extended DJ sets by a host of well-known (primarily)house and techno DJs – currently 74 sets are available.

Some of the most recent sets submitted for your listening and palpitating pleasure include Kelly Sylvia (Soulful, Funky, Deep, Vocal House, Dirty, Sleazy House, 80s Inspired Electro), Anthony Pappa (Progressive, Funky and Vocal House), Dylan Drazen (House and Techno – Hard, Tribal, Deep), Dee Green (Upfront House, Tribal-house, Electronic-house and US House), and Boronas (Tech-House).

I am currently thumping along to the spacey, mostly instrumental groove of Pappa’s:

Born in the Australian outback and raised by wild dingoes, Anthony Pappa was a child prodigy when the Avalanches were mere snowballs on a mountainside. Having worked in the family business from an early age, he decided to strike out on his own and become an international renowned disc jockey, in the days when international renowned disc jockeys were as rare as tap dancing marmosets. If not rarer.

Anthony was alarmingly good from the off. Annoyingly good. At the tender age of 15, he entered Australia’s DMC Mixing Championships. And won. Not content with this, he worked regularly in the clubs in native Melbourne, where he forged a reputation as one of the city’s hottest DJs.In 1993, Mixmag organised a mixing competition (it was a forerunner to Muzik’s Bedroom Bedlam contest) and he won that, too, with a brilliant and musically clever mix of funky and vocal house.

In 1994, frustrated at being halfway around the world from where the music he loved was happening, he hopped on a banana boat and landed in Southampton docks six weeks later armed with a bag full of records, and a cache of funnel web spiders. Hooking up with Dave Seaman and a sinister enclave of DJs and producers based in Maidenhead and Slough, he plotted his takeover of the world. He struck a friendship up with engineer/producer Alan Bremner and together they formed Freefall: by day mild mannered janitors at the Daily Globe, by evening world beating dance music makers.

Gigs began to arrive as he established himself in the UK. First a trickle, then a flood (these days,the passport rarely leaves his back pocket). Both promoters and punters noticed something particular about the way he played: smooth mixing, musically complementary, great programming. Trainspotters noticed something else again: that his record box was organised in keys. Crikey. Who’s a clever dick, then?

Thanks to his nefarious links with Mr. Seaman, Freefall were signed to Stress Records, where they released two singles. Their debut, ‘Shrug’, was followed by ‘Skydive’, a tougher-than-leather main room anthem that said, ‘we’re here, and we’re not going until you’ve noticed us’. They were duly noticed. They have also, it should be noted, done a few remixes in their time, too, including Beloved’s ‘Sun Rising’, though ‘prolific’ is not a word you’d associate with Freefall.

His Resolution mix album is Anthony’s 7 th in his career so far, including ones for compatriots Mushroom and Stress. Pappa was also responsible for last year’s acclaimed debut for Global Underground offshoot, Nu-Breed, which saw his face (not to mention blue jacket and brown eyebrows) splattered all over every available poster site in Britain.

It’s a club in your computer.