I’ve been wanting to re-release this for a long time…
Dreamtempo is mixtape I recorded in one take on four CDJs back in 1999, summarizing my love for thick, heavy, hypnotic downtempo music: ethereal melodies, weird loops, funky acid jazz, trip-hop, and everything left field of center. Musically, it’s a collection of songs which are very special to me. Many of them were once rare treasures on white-label vinyl, or scavenged during endless hours of crate-digging, or given to me by friends, or something I had heard another DJ drop during some awesome sunrise set, out in a forest in one of our many free outdoor parties.
I made this particular mix as a gift for my girlfriend at the time, and stayed up all night working on it. You can easily hear a lot of ‘mistakes’ in the drawn out mixes, as I was literally weaving sometimes three songs together by hand, while experimenting with special effects and just having a good time with the sounds I loved. I wish I had a tracklist for this mix, because so many of these songs were anthems from that time. Featured artists include Plaid, Indian Ropeman, We, Thievery Corporation, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Legion of Green Men, Shantel, Boards Of Canada, Genuine, Digitalis, Asian Dub Foundation, Govinda and more.
This was before Mesmerizing The Ultra, of course, but you can hear a lot of influences here with heavy breakbeats slowed down and mixed with pads, flutes, dark synthesizers, and mega-tripped-out atmospherics. Although a lot of the music may sound dated, at the time it was next level. And although it may sound chill, I assure you when broadcast full blast underneath a full moon it caused some very special frenzies…
Beyond the music, this was an era… Although now forgotten by many, there was a deep culture of “chill rooms” and “ambient rooms”, which were more like sanctuaries, and where DJs spun complex combinations of downtempo and trip-hop, both electronic and organic. As that culture spilled out of the side-rooms and into bigger dancefloors (albeit still in very underground events and scenes), I saw a lot of producers take their creations farther and farther outside the norm of electronic music. By the time I made this mix, some of these songs were classics, and I was paying homage to a movement of very unique ideas and styles; something I felt very much a part of, yet very much grateful for, because it was the collective work of so many people from so many different places and walks of life.
It should go without saying that if you are waiting for the drop here, you will wait a very, very long time… and then the tape will flip over …and psyde B will play, and hopefully take you on a ride into deeper musical terrain than you’re used to.
Or maybe this will sit just right. Or maybe it will sound silly, or antique, or crude, or too sloppy, too meandering? I think it’s all of those things. Maybe you will enjoy this bit of my musical past.
– Lorin
