Mixes are the pri­mary way I find new music these days. There is so much out there to be lis­tened to, its won­der­ful to have great DJs out there dis­till­ing the best of it down to hour-long chunks. The 15 mixes here are the best ones I can remem­ber from the hun­dreds that were put out this year. I def­i­nitely played some of these more than any­thing this year. How­ever, as always, its a small selec­tion and by no means the final word on mixes.
LAS, 2010 - The Best Mixes

Joker — Ghetto Clang Mix (Mary Anne Hobbs August 18, 2010)

Just a ridicu­lously fun and vibrant mix from the guy that has been work­ing on an album for what feels like years. He mixes in his own unre­leased tunes, some catchy hits like “I Need Air” and a bevy of Joker-sounding clas­sic video game music.
Down­load from Uploaded.to

Ful­geance — Donky Pitch Mix (Rhythm Incursions)

As a long­time sup­porter of Rhythm Incur­sions, I’ve been fol­low­ing their new web-based model since the demise of the radio show. A fan­tas­tic series of pod­casts has ensued with this skwee-heavy mix by Ful­geance being one of the biggest high­lights.
Down­load from Rhythm Incursions

The Glitch Mob — XLR8R Podcast

Oh my. Not exactly what you’d expect from the kings of glitched hip-hop, is it? Instead we are treated to a lightly manip­u­lated run­down of some of their favorite tracks. Worth it for the Autechre/Matty G blend and that mind-altering dust­ing of Warpaint’s “Bil­lie Hol­i­day.” Although that “Julia” song by The Very Best is great, too, and…
Down­load from XLR8R

Demokracy — Sonic Router Mix #51

This Russ­ian duo has been appear­ing all over the place this year, with amaz­ing tracks on count­less com­pi­la­tions and remixes all over the place. My first expo­sure was this wild mix for Sonic Router and I’ve been a fan ever since. These guys need an album.
Down­load from Sonic Router

Starkey — Plas­mod­ium Radio 047

Starkey did about 5,287 mixes this year, I think. All of them were great, but for me, this was the best one, full of some of the best street bass of the year from all over the globe and a good help­ing of his own pro­duc­tions.
Down­load from Plasmodium

Jacaszek — RA.192 (Feb­ru­ary 1, 2010)

As a big fan of his Treny album for Mias­mah, I was delighted when Res­i­dent Advi­sor landed Jacaszek for a pod­cast. His mix is heavy on his own pro­duc­tions but they are com­bined with great care with clas­sics and con­tem­po­rary work from oth­ers as well.
Down­load from Res­i­dent Advisor

Bur­ial & Kode9 — Mary Anne Hobbs Sep­tem­ber 9, 2010

I’m still sad that Mary Anne Hobbs is off the air, but you can’t say that she didn’t go out in style. For weeks, the spec­u­la­tion about her final “mys­tery guest” cen­tered around Bur­ial, an artist she has cham­pi­oned since the begin­ning. The mix that he col­lab­o­rated on with Kode9 was shock­ingly retro, full of old garage and dnb plus some new bits of Hyper­dub releases. As befit­ting the occa­sion, it was a won­der­ful look back at the gen­e­sis of the music she made pop­u­lar and was a great trib­ute. PS: El-B’s remix of Brandy’s “Never Say Never” is some proper under­ground catch­i­ness.
Down­load from Mediafire

Loops Haunt — Strange Fruit Mix Vol. 1

Loops Haunt makes some of the dirt­i­est beats out there and the first install­ment of his Strange Fruit mix series show­cased this along­side some of his influ­ences and inspi­ra­tion.
Down­load from Mixed Bizness

Black Acre — Acre Mix (Knowl­edge Magazine)

Every time I lis­ten to this mix, I want to imme­di­ately own the entire Black Acre cat­a­log. The beats and tex­tures here are so com­pellingly present, they feel like they are leap­ing out of the speaker cones.
Down­load from Beatplexity

Ter­ror Dan­jah — Nee­dle Exchange 037

Ter­ror Dan­jah put out a fair few things this year, you could say. An EP, a cou­ple sin­gles, a blind­ing album, about 80 hours of free music over twit­ter, and more than a cou­ple mixes. This was my favorite of the mixes.
Down­load from Self-Titled

Kuedo — RA.196 (March 1, 2010)

Jamie Vex’d made such a star­tling about face in music it took me by sur­prise. How­ever, as a fan of this new ish he’s putting out now, his Res­i­dent Advi­sor mix was incred­i­bly wel­come.
Down­load from Res­i­dent Advisor

Pinch — Future Sound of Mul­ti­verse (Mary Anne Hobbs July 8, 2010)

I couldn’t find a down­load of just Pinch’s por­tion of this install­ment, but the entire show is always worth lis­ten­ing to. The rea­son I love this Pinch mix mostly has to do with that amaz­ingly fan­tas­tic Paul Jebansam track that opens it, like Ben Frost remix­ing Kryp­tic Minds, it’s a dark, noisey piece of elec­tron­ics.
Down­load from Core News

Diplo — Chas­ing the Dragon (Pomp&Clout)

AEIOU2 remains one of the absolute best crate-digger mixes and no amount of Black­berry com­mer­cials can erase that. In the face of all his hype, you can’t deny Diplo knows records and has a col­lec­tion deeper than most. This return to form proves that once again.
Down­load from Pomp&Clout

Shack­le­ton — Mary Anne Hobbs August 26, 2010

Almost a mini-version of his Fab­ric 55 set, this mix from the last few weeks of Mary Anne Hobbs is a great overview of the deep and dark sonic explo­rations of the alchemist of dub­step.
Down­load from Uploaded.to

1000names — Lowrid­ers Mix­tape 002 (Jan­u­ary 2010)

The Lowrid­ers Col­lec­tive Mix­tape series is one of the best pod­cast series out there and there are count­less con­tenders for the best one but the chunky, glossy sound of 1000names’ mix wins out for me.
Down­load from Lowrid­ers Collective

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