Ben Annand Live at We Are All One Festival Year 1 - Las Vegas, NV - Nov 3, 2019 by Ben Annand

Well well well It's my 100th mix released on Soundcloud and damned if it's not my favorite!

I worked unusually hard on this set for 3 reasons -
(1) I wanted to play mostly new music and that takes more time to understand and prepare
(2) the multitude of great djs on the We Are All One lineup ignited my fire to stand out
(3) the massive effort to detail by the organizers on the event made me want to give something comparably special in my music.

The result is something I'm truly proud of! I've been adventurous with music lately and this mix is a textured journey including a lot of tripped-out minimal house and techno with some progressive and breakbeat elements. There is a lot of melody which is tricky to work with.

By the way, I don’t use “mix in key” and there’s a long explanation why but basically I learned to mix by ear and I often prefer a tripped out (though not quite dissonant) sound when mixing which can’t be achieved mathematically by always having everything perfect, but rather is obtained by careful experimentation and auditioning ;)

For similar reasons I never use the sync button - electronic music is mathematical in many ways but it’s also programmed with swing so it doesn’t sound monotonous because too exact is not exciting. Mostly the argument against sync is that it makes things too easy or is ‘cheating’ - but my reason is actually about the sound produced which I find too clean and sterile. I blogged about this before.

There’s a portion of this set that’s mixed on 3 decks! First time in years :) Made me want to get a third CDJ at home to challenge myself more.

Huge thank you to MJ, Gambit, Justin, and the Soul State crew for bringing this group of DJs and dancers together and taking care of us so well in a very memorable first-year festival.

So enjoy the ride, and be sure and look out for We Are All One 2020!

More immediately if you're looking to start 2020 with optimism, hope, and of course amazing location, production, and music, please join us outdoors near LA for Tropical Synergy 2020 New Year's Gathering: https://tinyurl.com/NYE2020LA

If you love this mix, please do any of the following to support genre-bending underground music:
- Repost this mix on Soundcloud (#1 most helpful! and so easy!)
- Add this mix to your Soundcloud favorites and playlists
- Comment on Soundcloud where it really hits ya
- Share this mix externally on Facebook, or wherever you like

Please check out my other mixes on Soundcloud and my other links:

https://www.facebook.com/benannandmusic/ -- My Facebook Artist page is where I publish my written blog - Modern DJ Musings (MDJM) - every Thursday at 11:11am. Topic #36 comes out tomorrow.

https://benannandmusic.com -- My web site houses the MDJM archive as well as my bio, booking request and press kit, music, photos, and link out to Tropical's site, all on the top navigation

https://tinyurl.com/MDJMvideo -- My You Tube channel recently launched a video version of Modern Dj Musings which uses screen recordings to walk viewers through many aspects of my process for buying and organizing music, navigating social media efficiently, etc.

Warm gratitude from the bottom of my <3
Ben